Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

Golden Ticket

Told to me last night by our last table, in for dessert only.

"You're the Willy Wonka of this town."

And just when I had been reading Art Culinaire, thinking how hopelessly out of touch with current technique I feel.

Gardener

For years I have helped my restaurant grow. Mostly in the usual ways; cooking food, selecting wines, and (minimally) directing the staff. For much of that time the GM took care of the front; handling the difficult customers, handling the difficult employees, being the stickler for procedure and detail. When the GM left active duty I adapted some of her systems, let some fall by the wayside and developed some of my own.

Now it's time for me to grow the restaurant in other ways. Starting Saturday I will have enough cooks on staff that my presence in the kitchen isn't needed. This is a first for the restaurant. This is not to say I won't spend time in the kitchen, just that my body isn't needed to cover a shift. This frees me for other things.

I've been reading a lot and finding the works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi quite inspiring. One of the biggest things that struck me from his book, "Good Business" was the following: "A manager who is good with dealing with emergencies may become so dependent on having fires to put out that he never proactively develops his own programs or his own vision, and when because of his success he gets promoted to a higher position has no idea what to do."

Obviously, in a sense the restaurant is the fulfillment of my vision, but the above really rings true. It's time to stop putting out fires and learn how to keep them from starting to begin with.

It's spring. I've got growing to do.

Broken Gas Line

My former whelmer stopped by the other day. I had been preparing for this as I knew he wasn't having such a great time at his new job. Well, he might have been having a great time, but his paychecks were bouncing.

He's working on a beautiful piece of property. It should be the crown jewel of our area. Thirty seven acres of ocean frontage, great views from the dining room and bar, lots of guest cottages. The newish owners had hired an out of the area property management company with properties all over Southeast Asia, who promised them great things. They had a transfer policy that was the tipping point for the whelmer. He was hoping to work in or at least visit Vietnam or Thailand after a year or so.

They were targeting high end guests, trying to get $600 a night for the rooms. The problem is, they hadn't finished upgrading the rooms, they didn't put money into the spa, and the staff...The staff, at least in the restaurant, was every whelmer in the county. Every alcoholic bar manager, every lazy cook, every barely functional waiter wound up there. The management company pulled out. Another one took its place and lasted only a few days, maybe a week. Then the paychecks started bouncing.

Saturday afternoon the whelmer stopped by, wanting know if I knew of anyone who was looking for help because here it was Saturday night and he was off. They had closed the restaurant and canceled the reservations due to a "broken gas line", i.e. they hadn't paid their propane bill and their 4000 gallon tank ran dry at breakfast that morning. Ouch.

The place is for sale for $50 million. Any takers?

Worth It

We just got new tablecloths at the restaurant. They're red, totally different from what we had. At first the GM could only see red, white, and blue and wasn't sure if she could take it. Yesterday she could only see red and blue.

I think they look great. While our place will never look small, they make the space feel more intimate. They also make the place look finished, or real. At other restaurants, I'm always comparing, and I often feel like our place is somehow not a "real" restaurant. Perhaps because I know how little I spent on the place (last month paying off the last of our loans). Perhaps because I own it and thus it is tied directly to my own feelings of self-worth. So I guess I'm feeling worthy.

Connections

Connecting over food is probably the oldest way to network. How quickly you learn what another person is about by eating with them. The GM says as restaurateurs we get to see what their mamas saw in the high chair and this is pretty true. As a dining companion people are usually more guarded, but you can still tell how people treat others, how they handle disappointment, how they express joy, whether they're patient, and how generous they are all within the course of one lunch.

As I figure out my changing role at the restaurant I realize my job is to be connecting people to our restaurant. And having them connect it others. What connects you to your favorite places?

Comments

to all you nice folks who have left comments, I'm not just an a-hole who didn't approve your comments. For some reason I haven't been getting notifications that I have comments pending approval. And since I've been so inactive on the blog I haven't checked Typepad. So keep those comments coming.

What's on Your Plate?

Heading to SF for a few days of eating. Anything new people would like to share?

Berkeley Steak

A couple of weeks ago. "Ordering tofu, medium rare."

I kid you not.

Method Man

I've just finished both "The Devil in the Kitchen" and "Alice Waters and Chez Panisse", which when boiled down, are about people who cannot, or will not compromise. Marco Pierre White takes the brutal, macho approach while Alice Waters does the passive-aggressive Northern California thing.

I, on the other hand, compromise too easily. I'm too attuned to how people are feeling, and too sensitive when they are feeling poorly. While I would not want to be either Marco or Alice, I could be a bit more firm. Perhaps firm, isn't the right word. Opinionated is better. As in, there's a right way to do things. Myself, in the kitchen, I show a cook how I do something and then tell them, "I'm not attached to this particular method, just these particular results. If you have another way to do this, and it comes out the same, that's fine by me." This usually works out well, although sometimes the method influences the dish and things don't turn out the same.

Maybe I need to say, "This is how we do this." Whatever this is at the time. Probably not, because seeing how other people do things is how I learn and adopt new ideas. Because usually (not always), the method doesn't matter. For my entire adult life I have favored long-sleeve, button down shirts and put them on the way most people do, buttoning each button singly. I watched "Chicago" a few years ago, and there was a scene where a guy is trying to get out of the room before the jealous husband arrives and he slips his shirt, which was already buttoned, over his head like a t-shirt. I immediately started putting my shirts on this way. It's faster, you never miss a button, and the result is the same.

What I really need to do is be attuned to when the method makes the difference, and insist that proper procedures be followed. In fact, that's my homework for the coming week.

Pottery or Leather

Tonight was our nine year anniversary of opening the restaurant and unlike years past we didn't have a big event. Truth be told we were having a hard time coming up with ideas that would top the last two years and were reserving our planning for next year. Ten seems like a good year for a bash.

We had a normal night of service, with a few special guests, Chef John Ash came in for dinner, as did some local wine makers and a radio personality from Santa Rosa. Some people from Vacaville who always bring us gifts came with an embroidered chef's uniform for the Sardine, with his name on the hat, the restaurant's name on the coat. A former employee who is now expecting (she called to tell us "you're going to be grandparents') came in and had dinner with the GM & Sardine.

In many ways it felt right. Just another night, but with reminders around of the lives we've touched, the people who have helped us get where we are and the people who will help us get where we are going.