Some Wednesday Morning Musings

Seems like that kind of morning/week:

• Valentine's Day is approaching and it's on a Saturday this year. No one in the restaurant business likes this - we would much prefer this popular dining day to be on a normally slow day, like Tuesday or Monday. That being said, we are gearing up for a busy weekend, even as the weekends prior to and following pay the price. Especially in this economy, people are paring down and saving up for a special night out, more so than ever before. We have a really nice "Dinner for Two" planned, featuring, among other things, oyster shooters and a gigantic Ice Cream Sundae to share. I love the idea of a couple leaning together over a big bowl of ice cream and sauce and whipped cream, one spoon going in, another going out, in and out, in and out...isn't that romantic?
• Cassoulet came and went. It was really good, but I don't think we'll see it again soon. A lot of work for Kevin, and while there was none left over, I don't think he was as pleased with the result, maybe because it looked like a bean stew...
• A few customers are asking us "How's Business?", but not too much. I guess most of them can imagine just how business is, they see the empty streets, the "out of business" signs, the deep discounts, they read the paper. And frankly, so far, we are not complaining. Sure, it's a lot slower than it should be, even for February I think, but we are still holding our own, keeping staff occupied, paying the rent, ordering product. Sure, last night we were on our way home by 8:05, but isn't that the silver lining of being a little slow? Our motto is: "If it is going to be slow, it might as well be early".
  
• Speaking of being slow, one thing that has changed a bit in our routine is our closing time. If not one guest has showed up since, say, 7:15 and all the dinners are out by 7:45, we have been closing. This may not seem like much to you, but for us it's a whole new way of doing business - we never used to close before the scheduled hour...partly because we never had such a lack of "late" diners as we do these days! But now, business wise, it just doesn't make sense to keep everyone waiting those last fifteen minutes, when all the dinners are out, for maybe two people who, until they order, mean that everything on the line has to wait to be broken down. We don't close early if we are still putting out dinners, but if that process comes to a halt long before the magic hour, we will close. We have to make some tough decisions, and this is one of them.
• We have a new waiter in the dining room; Jennifer started working last week. Joy is on a Florida exodus until April, so we hired someone to help fill the gaps and plug into the weekends when we need that extra hand on the floor. Jen is doing very well so far, seems pleasant and intelligent and interested in the job. This past Saturday was her busiest shift yet, and it served to remind me of how things were when we first opened - when everyone was new. Oh. My. God. I hope to never go there again. It is stressful enough to have one new person to keep an eye on, to hover over and worry about and fine tune. The first few months when BT opened were simply a nightmare of 10 new people, one of them me, all trying to figure out the best way to do everything. Ann and I laughed about it - she was there - but it wasn't fun at the time, we agree.

That's all for now.