Wednesday Night Prix-fixe

Every Tuesday we send out an email with the menu for the following night's $20.09 prix-fixe. This week's menu, pictured about, was impossible to describe. Not the beet and goat cheese salad, but the cannelloni... I wrote "LPF (for Locust Point Farm) Cannelloni", because Kevin was using LPF chicken and turkey in the filling. Whatever. They both turned out to be most attractive plates, and about as seasonal as you could get too, when you included the blueberry pound cake dessert. The beet salad had a corn vinaigrette on it (corn vinaigrette?? what is that all about??) and the cannelloni was garnished with a napoleon of eggplant, tomato and zuccini. It just goes to show, you can't judge a book by it's title.

And an aside - note how there is not a spec of parsley up on the side of the bowl...and there never will be, not while Kevin is in charge of the line. He likes those plates to go out very crisp and clean.

Top Ten Reasons for Owning Your Own Restaurant

#10 - You have no problem falling asleep at night after working 14 or 15 hours.

#9 - You are off on Mondays, when other restaurants - if any are open - are less crowded.

#8 - You get to work on Friday and Saturdays, when other restaurants are too busy to get into.

#7 - You have an ice machine that produces enough ice for the kitchen, the bar, your cooler, your friends' coolers.

#6 - You know the bartender.

#5 - You can have all the blueberry pie (leftover) for breakfast that you want.

#4 - You usually get to see family and friends when they are in town, even though you are "at work".

#3 - You get first notice on new products just coming on the market - DragonBerry Rum, anyone?

#2 - Your 0ffice is located within a (fully stocked) professional kitchen.

And the #1 reason for owning your own restaurant? You really want to know? Okay -

#1 reason for owning your own restaurant has to be all about all the people you get to know over the years, front of the house, back of the house, suppliers and purveyors, customers and employees. It's just about one of the most social jobs out there and it's the people that make it work. For better or worse, friendly or surly, young and old, good and bad - you see and meet and talk and work with them all. What a melting pot of influences on the way you view your surroundings and those of others. We wouldn't trade it for any other job out there, which is actually pretty lucky, since we wouldn't know how to do anything else but this! ha ha!

Kevin's Korn

Kevin planted corn this year in his raised bed and it is an awesome sight. It is Oaxacan Green corn, a breed specifically for meal, and more specifically for tortillas...which is the plan. He's well on his way, with the plants starting to come into tassel this week. He'll probably have to knock the tassels around to get some good pollination going, but otherwise it's doing it's thing, eh?

Pete and Danae

Pete and Danae are celebrating, uh, I mean having their last day at Brooks Tavern today. Pete, who is among the few remaining original staff members, is going on a trip to Canada in the near future, and continuing at his second job with Vicco von Voss. He started as a bus person with us, and has grown into a very competent waiter, as well as stepping up to the plate as the Wednesday garde manger in the kitchen for the past few months. Danae, as you might remember, is headed off to Baltimore Culinary College. She's been in the kitchen for just about a year and has managed to become one of the most reliable and hard working cooks we've ever employed. There will be alot of slack to pick up when she goes; why, we had to hire two people to cover her spot! Erika Armiger started as the daytime sous chef last week, and Chris Lawson has been here about six weeks, trying hard to fill Danae's shoes.

We wish Pete and Danae all the best as they enter into their wide open and very exciting futures!

Emily and Lacee

Lacee (l) and Emily(r) are leaving us soon, both heading to College next month. We have some questions.

BT: When did you start working at Brooks Tavern?
Lacee: I started bussing here in the middle of February this year. I'd been working some where else, but I got laid off, so I came here. My old boss called me later to ask me to come back but I was like, no, I'm fine, thanks.
Emily: I've been here for over two years; I have been bussing since June of 2007, right after we opened, and this summer I've been serving lunch too.
BT: Where are you going to college?
Lacee: I'm going to Shenandoah College in Winchester Virginia. I'll be in their nursing program.
Emily: I'm going to Guilford College in Greensboro North Caroline, majoring in biology and lacrosse.
Lacee: I'm playing tennis.
BT: Favorite part of your job here at Brooks Tavern?
Emily: Staff meals!
Lacee: Seeing all the locals come in and getting to know them.
BT: Least favorite part?
Emily: I hate being the late girl! (Ed note: she means she hates being the closing girl!)
Lacee: The heat in the kitchen.
BT: What's one of the more unusual things you've learned since your stint at BT?
Emily: I learned that sweetbreads taste like scrambled eggs.
Lacee: I think it's funny that all the customers think Emily and I are sisters, when no one who works here thinks we look alike at all!
BT: What are you looking forward to most in leaving Kent County, besides everything?
Lacee: Meeting new people and starting over.
Emily: Same, meeting new people.

These are two of the best bus girls you will ever meet; we are going to sorely miss them. Especially the senior Emily, who knows the dining room like the back of her hand and can handle the bussing on a busy night all by herself, while feeling only a little pressure. She is also proving to be a terrific server, doing better at lunch than many newbies do after months of work. Both of these young women will go far, I am sure, and while we wish we could keep them on, we are proud to see them leave to pursue their higher goals.

Good luck!


I had to include this self-portrait Emily took with the camera that was lying in the kitchen, waiting for food to shoot. Leave the camera alone Emily!

Andy's Last Night at Andy's

It was a packed house on Saturday night, as we all wanted to be there with Andy on her last night. Four bartenders, including an appearance by Kirk, were behind the bar giving you what they had. It was controlled madness. According to Andy, nothing "walked" and the closing crowd was sweetly sad.

The end of an era. It will be interesting to see how the next "Andy's" evolves.

Is There a Typical Summer Week?

If there is, I sure hope this wasn't it. Very slow. Especially lunch for some reason. We try to figure it out - everyone is away on vacation? too nice to eat indoors? too hot to eat at all? Who knows. We were moderately busy on Wednesday and Thursday night, despite the fact that everyone has been hitting Andy's all week, especially Thursday night for her classic burger. We share an employee with Andy, and when he came in (an excused hour late) on Friday morning, we asked him how things had gone the night before. His response was "I won't lie to you, I am exhausted." They were slammed from start to finish, with her clientele just clamoring for that burger. So we can blame some of our slowness on Andy, right? She has had one of the busiest weeks of her career this past week, I imagine! Tonight is the Farewell, an event we wouldn't miss for the world. There will be a large void in our circle of peers within the local Restaurant scene...Andy has been our co-commiserator for over 20 years. Who do we call first when we need a canister of CO2? Andy. Or when a dishwasher calls out and we need a sub? Andy. Need to bump up an order with Moctec to meet the minimum? Call Andy. Or just want to whine at someone who will understand? Again, poor Andy's ear. She has been our supplier, our sympathizer, our "co-worker" ever since she opened up down the street, and we will certainly miss her while she lolls about on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean...or where ever. She is getting a well deserved break, no one can deny that. And we look forward to seeing her in a more relaxed setting very soon!

Okay, enough of the eulogizing...

Actually we try not to get too worked up over a slow shift, slow day, even slow week here and there. It happens. And there's usually no real reason except coincidence, or, as we've seen over the past year or so, external economic indicators reflecting financial problems beyond anyone's control. Last Friday night we were so very slow, we sent Emily out to do what we call a "drive-by" - go out and see what our competitors downtown were doing. Of course we hope she comes back to say that everyone else was slow too...but no, every other establishment was packed...at least in their outside venues. This summer has so far been one of the most conducive on record for al fresco dining, and last Friday night that's what people were doing, dining on the sidewalks, decks and alley ways of C'town. Who could blame them? The evenings have been perfect recently, with low to no humidity, clear skies and temperatures we can live with. That doesn't happen often during an Eastern Shore Summer, and we'd take advantage of it too. Maybe tomorrow...

Meanwhile, we will be having some Staff Changes of our own later this summer, as our two senior girls, Emily and Lacee, move on to their selected colleges, and Pete goes on a walk-about. Or something. BTW, Pete thinks we should pull an Andy with his departure - he is sure that if we advertise his last day, we'll be packed too! "Hey, it worked for Andy!" Hmmmm...I think we'll reserve that move for Kevin's last day. Which won't be for while, I hope!

Baking

All in a morning's work - two quiche, two pies, two cheesecakes. And for those of you who wonder how Kevin solved the age old issue of the crack in the cake -the one with the crack was not sprayed with Vegalene first...hmmm, has he solved that mystery that has irked cheesecake makers for generations? We'll find out the next time he bakes them, eh?

Calves LIver

When we lived in San Francisco, we used to go to a place in North Beach called Vanessi's. We usually sat at the counter in the front, where we could watch the multiple cooks saute and grill with the speed that would put most professionals to shame. It was a dance of grace and skill that never failed to produce some of my most memorable meals, one of which was the calves liver. They would slice a thick slice from the whole liver - right there in front of you - and saute it to perfection. Last night, after I finished a piece of the St. Brigid's Farm calves liver we have as a special, Kevin asked me "Was it as good as Vanessi's?" And you know what? It was better. It was the absolutely best calves liver I have ever eaten - fresh and mild and sweet like milk. Just delicious. And if you all don't eat every order, I am hoping for some more tonight!

Finding Maryland Crab Meat

We are used to hearing the stories about the shortage of blue crabs in the bay and what is being done to help, including the most recent regarding the DNR' s plan to buy-back over 3500 commercial limited crab catchers licenses. The problem we are seeing now however was widely reported this past spring, relating the lack of the seasonal migration of labor to the crab picking houses on our Eastern Shore. A change in immigration law resulting in a cap on allowable workers appears to have driven off the foreign crab pickers, with no local workers willing to work for those wages - not even inmates? which was also discussed earlier this year. Everyone seems to have been aware that a problem was brewing, but no one seems to have found a solution.

As a result, we may be serving North Carolina crab meat this week, because there is just no Maryland meat available. We hear that the bushels of crabs being hauled from the bay are going primarily to the crab houses, where the customers are happy to pick their own.

Photos from the Internet Food Association Web site. With only a little editing on my part...

Carrots and Shrimp

The return of the Marvesta shrimp resulted in the
very attractive and tasty dish pictured above.

Kevin grew a crop of carrots this year, pictured here
before being prepped into
little carrot coins and served as one of the
vegetables last night.
That's the entire crop, so don't worry
about the competition Cathy!

Service Issues

Last week we had two major instances of disgruntled customers regarding service. Both resulted in zero gratuity for the service staff, but only one was truly justified, IMHO. I am not predisposed to assume our staff members are always in the right - I know we are all human and we mess up. But I also am not predisposed to assume that the customer is always right...we might let them think they are, but they aren't always.

In the interest of protecting the innocent, let me emphasize that the people in this story are fictional and any resemblance to reality is strictly coincidental... The first complaint arose on a very busy night when I was more than a little tied up with the bar. This has been happening a lot lately, since we don't have a "real" bartender on every shift, and soon we need to, these summer days of late. On this particular night, a customer approached me at the bar and said they had been waiting a long time for their food and they were not getting any satisfaction from the server. The server had already told me there were some timing problems at the table, so I was aware of something going on, but I just had not had a chance to get over to the table. By the time I did, the customer was most unhappy. (Part of my job, when I'm not schmoozing and gossiping, is to handle this sort of situation, and over the years I have gotten much better at it. I try not to take it personally and I rarely cry anymore.) This particular situation had festered mostly because I had not been able to monitor the dining room scene in a capable manner, being caught behind the bar instead. They were quite upset that the server had neglected to ask them if they wanted their daughter's meal to come out before theirs; in the meantime, as they observed other tables around them getting their entrees, they felt as though theirs were taking an unfairly long time to arrive. The fact that one member of the party had three courses didn't help bring the entrees out any faster either. There was not a whole lot I could do at this point - in fact, their dinners were on the way out soon after I began to listen to their tirade - and nothing I could do at this stage was going to change their opinion of the service or of the restaurant as a whole. All I could do was fill in a "zero" on the gratuity line on the credit card slip, which seemed to please them when I brought it back to the table.

However, I did not feel this party had a legitimate complaint: sure, the server neglected to ask if they wanted the young girl's meal to arrive before the others (and let me clarify here, we are talking about a 'tween', not a toddler, who had ordered the steak dinner, not a kid's pasta), but neither did the customer request it. And when the server didn't offer this alternate meal plan, don't you think that would be the time to say "Oh, could you bring our daughter out her meal first?". As a customer, being proactive could go a long way in assuring that your evening goes the way you want it to - as in, "We'd like a few minutes to enjoy our cocktails before our dinners come out", or "I'd like my salad before my soup". (In my case, when I order my steak very very rare, as in "it can't be too rare" I also add " I will send it back if it is not rare enough". I figure it's only fair to warn them, eh?) Our job is to make sure you have a splendid time in our dining room and we will do everything possible to make it so, if you'll let us.

But then there are the times when we really don't get it right: scene #2 (if you're still with me...)

In this case I again was not aware of a problem until the server brought the signed Credit Card slip to my attention with a big X where the tip should be. Uh oh. That was clear to all of us. They weren't happy. The server and I discussed it - unfortunately this was one of a few tables I never made it back to after seating, so I had no idea how their evening had gone - when she revealed that she had brought the wrong dinner to the woman in the party, believing that it was correct. When the guest said "This is not what I ordered", the server disagreed... Eventually the server offered to bring the right meal, the woman opted to keep the one she had, and supposedly end of topic. Sort of. The problem was, the server never went back to the table until time for dessert service. How do I know this? I called the customer the next day. That big X was such a clear sign, I knew something more than what our side was saying had happened. The tray runner had said that he couldn't understand why they were unhappy, that he'd gotten them everything they'd asked for - more tea, water, whatever, and this was verified by the customer, but it only served to emphasize the feeling of being totally ignored by the server who was supposedly the one waiting on them. If the server had only gone back to the table once, to see how the meal was, they probably would have been fine. And if she had told me that there was a problem, before it was too late to do anything, we could have made some sort of restitution. Probably the server didn't go back to the table after serving the dinners because she was worried about the confrontation and just wanted to avoid any further conflict. And perhaps she didn't mention it to me because she was worried I would be angry. In this second case, I agreed that the customer got short changed, and knew that I had a mini staff meeting to run very soon. Keeping those lines of communication open, on both sides of the table, is key to assuring a positive experience for all. We can't fix a problem if we don't know it exists.

Right or wrong, we always want our guests to arrive happy and leave happier. That's what makes this the Hospitality Industry.

We Heart Offal

With our haunches of St. Brigid's Farm veal this week came some offal, including the heart (above), liver, sweetbreads and tongue. Many people - more than likely people of a "certain age" anymore - enjoy the organ meats from various animals, with sweet breads and calves liver being the more familiar menu items for us. Don't know what Kevin is going to do with said heart, but I bet I'm going to try it!

Now, more than ever...

photo from Andy's web site.

we appreciate Andy's.

Twenty three years ago Kevin and I opened a little cafe at the then unlikely corner of High and Cross Streets. A year later Andy Goddard opened her establishment on High Street, and we quickly became Saturday night regulars, closing the bar more than once, our own work over for the week. We became a little more hit and miss when we moved to Kennedyville, but lately we've been there on alternate Friday nights, for the tasty food and comfortable surroundings, served by professional bartenders and often including a chat with the proprietress. We usually discuss our mutual interests in the business of running a business, including those thorny issues of staff, purveyors, and of course, landlords. Twenty two years is a long time in this business and Andy has been the sole proprietor for most of those years, with late nights, rowdy patrons and kitchen duties being only a few of her obligations.

Andy's has always been "the bar" in Chestertown, as in "I'm going to the bar tonight", and everyone knows you are talking about Andy's, but those days are about to end. Her lease is not being renewed and her landlord is buying her out. We are not sure what Chestertown will do without Andy's...it's a monumentally sad moment in history, when our own cultural icon is taken from her faithful fans. We expect these next two weeks will be proud and really, really busy ones at The Bar. We'll see you there on Friday!

T.J. and Jesse

Everyone in the restaurant business knows that the most important position in the kitchen, and one of the most tedious, is the dish washer. During the day we are very fortunate to have LaVonte Johnson on the job as Porter, who we featured in an earlier post. For dinner service, we have a revolving crew of staff that tirelessly attend to this back of the back of the house job, and while they may come and go, we never fail to appreciate them and make sure to feed them very, very well.

The pot-washer comes in at 4PM to face a large stack of assorted dirty, greasy sauce pots, roasting pans, rondos and sheet pans that have been used by the cooks in preparation for dinner. The dish person comes in at 6PM, after service has begun, and runs racks of dishes, silverware and glassware through the dish machine. They work together - the dish guy helping the pot guy more often than not. And when they hear one of the guys on the line yell "Pick UP!", that means run around to the line and get the pans they've been using during service. Or someone might call out "We need plates", which tells the dish guy to hustle over a stack of clean plates or bowls for the oven.

They do this all night long, until the end of service, when things get really rough for the pot washer. As the cooks break down their lines, they take all of the used cooking gear to the pot sink to be cleaned, dried and put away for the next use. The piles of pots can cover the back table in pretty short order and always looks to be a rather daunting task. Eventually everything gets cleaned and put away, after which the pair sweep and mop their end of the kitchen, take out the trash and the recycle and call it a night. They are always the last staff out the door at the end of the day. They work very, very hard.

The two fellows pictured above are quite a pair, working three shifts together every week. On the left, TJ is a recent Queen Anne's County graduate who lives in Chester Harbor. He's been working here since May of last year, three or four shifts a week, all year round. Jesse, who will be a senior at Kent County this fall and lives just north of Kennedyville, inherited the spot from his brother a few months ago. Both boys are tremendous workers, with hilarious personalities; they are two very important cogs in the BT wheel.

As Promised, Blueberry Pie

Ala mode. Of course.

FYI - SBF Steaks

We are currently carrying a limited supply of St. Brigid's Farm's grass fed steaks and ground beef for retail sale. There aren't very many of any one cut, and don't forget, these are Jersey steers we're talking here, not big Angus, but the flavor is unbeatable, and then there's the health benefits, eh?! Prices range from $4 a pound for the ground beef to $19 for the NY strips. The steaks are cut 3/4 of a pound to a pound. Better than driving to the Butcher Block in Annapolis, I'd say.

The Sticky Maze of Credit Card Processing

PCI DSS is what got this whole thing started. A letter from our current credit card processor, Global Payments, alerted me to the fact that we are not compliant with the current rules regarding credit card security and fraud prevention, at least according to their WebSite's "risk analysis", which is run by a company which will scan your system and determine what you need to do for a fee of $180 a month. This prompted us to look into switching, which in turn has revealed a host of other complications.

After talking to a couple other Hospitality Merchants in Chestertown - many of whom are as confused as I am at figuring out the whole credit card processing thing and what all the fees are for - and discussing options with a couple of competing processors, I decided we would probably switch to First Data. This was mostly due to the National Restaurant Association's "Take Charge" program from First Data which includes compliance with the PCI DSS (oh, in case you are wondering what this acronym stands for: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) for less than $100 a month. Right now Global is charging us $10.00 month as a "non-compliant" merchant...not to mention the statement fee, the higher charge for Reward and Business Cards, the higher charge for manually entered cards, the transaction fees, the "EDC Vend 3" fee, which even the First Data rep couldn't explain. Will everything be all sweetness and light with a change to another processor? Definitely not, but at least we will be a little more aware of what we are getting into and how to read the lingo. I know I am already a lot more careful at reading the contract and all the small print - this is how I know what sort of penalties we'll face if we break our Three-year contract with Global. It's been an educational year for us thus far, in the world of legalese, and I'm glad I've been paying a little attention.

Anyway, the fact is, according to Digital Dining's original set up, we already are largely compliant. We don't/can't store any customer's credit card data for more than 30 days - and only the last four digits until then. We have a firewall and a security/anti-virus system on the computer. We restrict access to cardholder data. While I imagine with the recent new rules in place, there is more we will do (or face fines from our processor), I don't think we have to let our current processor dictate where we go for (paid) help.

This is some dry stuff, eh? See, not all is fun and games in the world of the restaurateur...