bumpy road

Some nights at the restaurant sail along beautifully, people come in, get seated, have drinks, eat food, laugh, have fun and life is good!  Other nights, are bumpy, odd and tiring.  Tonight was a bumpy night.

People came but so many came at once!  Some people were late, others were early and so they showed up at the same time and the kitchen got slammed.  We couldn't move appetizers fast enough to make room for mains.  Sometimes what happens is that we put so much pressure on the kitchen to get stuff out that they put it out too quickly and the food isn't perfect.  

Timing is tricky and we try to make it right.  Some tables are gracious and can see that we are trying very hard to make it all work but other tables are cranky and snipe at us.  Once this starts to happen, we get kind of disheartened and we have to work really hard to make sure we don't snowball into being grouchy ourselves.  We feel so bad when it doesn't work as smoothly and we want to make it right!  

Of course, once we have refires on food, or food takes awhile to come out because the timing is bad, we can't get tables out in what would have been a perfectly reasonable amount of time if we hadn't got off track in the first place.  Then, we wind up with tables having to wait to be seated.  

Sigh.

In all of this though, people laughed and drank and ate and for the most part seem to enjoy themselves

Tomorrow is another day and we'll get back at it and make it fabulous!  

Performing Happy

Saturday was a tough night.  My apologies to all the lovely customers.

Almost exactly 16 years ago, Alex and I got married.  We bought our first house and, for Christmas that year, I gave Alex a gift certificate to the Humane Society for a dog.  It was early spring when we felt ready to go and pick out a dog.  Actually, 'ready' might be an overstatement - I called our friends and asked that they come with us because I'm a big suck and would wind up crying incessantly over all the dogs we couldn't take home.  Alex and Brent went inside while Jaik and I waited outside.  A little while later, Alex and Brent emerged with a small, black dog that didn't look anything like our predetermined decision to seek out a black lab.  She wanted to run so Alex started to run with her and she immediately laid down.  She laid there for a minute and then got up and started to run again.  This scenario repeated itself several times.  We realized that when she felt unsure about the situation, she laid down.  Clearly, this was the dog for us.  It also turned out that her birthday was our wedding day of five months previous.  It seemed like a great fit.  The "Dog of the Day" at the Humane Society was named Lily which we thought was a pretty name and took it for our new dog (anyone who has seen our yard will know that Alex has a big thing for lilies and we have many of them.)

Lily came home with us and fit in quite well.  She was incredibly well-behaved. We figured out she had been abused by a silver-haired man (had an intense fear of them) and she had been abused with shovels and brooms (she feared both.)  We spent a lot of time giving her lots of love.  She only barked when someone came to the door, she loved to run at the park and she slept through the night.  After a few weeks, we came home one night and she had had diarrhea all over the floor.  She went into the cupboard under the sink and got out the paper towel, pulled off bits of it and tried to 'clean' up the mess.  That night was the beginning of her being very sick.  She had parvo-virus and was incredibly sick.  For weeks, Alex had to carry her up the stairs at night and we would steam her in the bathroom.  One vet told us that we should put her down (while simultaneously telling us we needed to brush her teeth and selling us very expensive toothpaste!)  In the end, she recovered and lived a healthy and happy life, full of trips to the park and very exciting canoe trips (often involving a lot of wildlife!)  

Saturday, Lily died.  

She had been increasingly unwell.  Lily was deaf and mostly blind.  She had trouble walking and she insisted on being outside all the time.  She was often confused and would bang into things.  She was a coming to the end but of course when it happened our hearts melted.  Alex took her to the vet and made the decision that she was in too much pain to keep alive.  We all cried a lot.  

Then, Saturday night at the restaurant is upon us.  There is a lesson in performing!  We both felt like we had been hit by a truck: dazed, confused, sad, and hurting.  But, when you go for dinner, these are not the kind of people you want to hang around so we had to suck it up.  It was hard but in some ways, it was good for us.  We definitely weren't at our best but we made the evening flow and except for being a bit disconnected, I think it went okay.  So, my apologies to the customers that I didn't visit a lot with (girls from California - really wanted to know more of your stories!) and for being distracted (guy at 2A whose wine order I forgot!) Thanks also to the staff who were wonderful.  Especially Roger who was almost as sad as we were.  

Fortunately, we are all well-versed in performing happy.

 

Sound Energy

Tonight, I noticed that it is noisy in the restaurant. Now, for those of you who come to the restaurant, this really isn't going to be a shock. It is a... vibrant space.

For the first year, we fretted about the sound. Handily, Alex's dad is a physicist with a little subspecialty in acoustics (dinner conversation at the Svenne household can be intense!) We had many conversations with him about how to address the issue. After that first year, we lost interest and oddly enough people simply adjusted. In fact, I think for the most part, people crave the energy created by the sound. A musician friend of ours from New York told us to not change a thing about the sound, she said that the acoustics were fantastic and it was a great vibe.

So many of the sounds are organic to a restaurant. There is no door to the dish pit so you hear the plates being stacked and the pans being sprayed; the servers' station is out in the open so you hear glasses rattling, cutlery being polished and dropped into the bin, and the ice being scooped into jugs. The kitchen is sitting in the middle of the room so you hear the pops and sizzles of cooking and the crash of the pans into the bus tub (you can also hear the conversation of the chefs which I had to remind them of tonight as they were on a long-winded rant...)

You also hear the music and we love music! Our lives are full of music. And, we LOVE to dance. Our best folk festival musical moment this year was being dead tired, 2 a.m. Sunday morning, squished in wall to wall people, dancing to So Called, a crazy hip hop klezmer band. It was delicious! What this translates to at the restaurant is constant music. We have many playlists and are always on the prowl for new music that fits different times of day and different moods (feel free to send suggestions.) We also dance a lot: Alex, the staff, me. In fact, I am sitting and writing this at the bar right now and it is 11 at night after a very busy Friday, and Alex and Clint are dancing away on the line.

Two nights ago, it was very quiet in the restaurant. I think that night is what spurred this post. It was eery. The joint was jammed full, including big parties, the music was turned up to "party" playlist, and NOTHING. I couldn't get the room buzzing to save myself. Every time I went to say something to someone, I felt like everyone in the room was leaning in to have a listen cause they had nothing else going on. It was at that moment that I realized many things: the acoustics of the space contribute to the noise; the volume and choice of music contribute to the noise; all the restaurant sounds contribute to the noise; but, the customers engaging with each other and us make the place hop! We can't generate the volume of sound that lively, happy, chatty people enjoying each other and their food and wine can create. Tonight, I experimented by telling the dishwasher to be extra quiet, polishing the cutlery gently, turning the music down, and none of it really changed the fact that it is loud in our restaurant. Loud with people. And, I love it!

chat with youngest daughter

Our youngest daughter is going through a phase right now.  She needs a lot of attention and energy and is very stressed out by Alex and I being away from her.  She cries when I leave for work and she calls me every night before she goes to sleep and demands that I come home.  Fortunately, I've been parenting long enough to get that I just need to hang tight, give her lots of hugs and love, and we'll move to a different stage.   

Today, as part of all this anxiety, our daughter told me that she was coming to work with me tonight.  Well, she is pretty young, and many of her sentences start with the words, "I want..." and so I explained that, in the restaurant, everything is about the customer.  I wanted her to hear that when we are in the restaurant, we have to only think about the customer (and taking a moment to plant seeds in her 5-year old brain about empathy!) which means that it would be a very boring and tedious place for her to spend time.  She was actually pretty quick to catch on that this sounded dismal and moved on to a new topic (she also didn't cry when I left for work tonight - secretly feeling sorry for me?!)  However, the exchange left me thinking about the dynamics of the restaurant.

When you are working at the restaurant, it is like you disappear.  There is absolutely no "I want."  From the moment you walk in the door, you are constantly scanning to try and figure out how to make life better for customers: are the tables in the right spot so that the (minimal) leg room is maximized? are the lights at the right brightness for the time of day? is the music at the right volume? is it the right kind of music? is the air conditioning too cold or not cold enough? do they have drinks? what is the drink special tonight? can we call their mains or are they wanting to pause after their appys?  The questions are endless and they flip through your head all night long.  You forget that your feet are screaming.  Sometimes you remember to re-hydrate and have something to drink. Occasionally, you remember that you need to pee.  

But, most of the time, you disappear.  And, you know, it's okay.  It's kind of a neat experience.  Not meant for the pre-school crowd but it is definitely a cool way to look at the world for a few hours and definitely makes me think about life differently.  

pampered...

Last week, I was feeling a bit fried.  Completely exhausted, to be honest.  

Fortunately, after a small amount of prodding, Alex noticed and arranged for a bit of TLC for me. I was told to go to Tiber River (tiberriver.ca) on Academy.  It is so very lovely in there.  The woman at the reception desk is funny and friendly.  She knew who I was and related a great story about coming to our restaurant.  She was everything you want in a first-contact-with-the-public position.  I was led into the back room and given a fantastic pedicure.  My feet suffer from wearing high heels and running around the restaurant every day for hours.  It was exactly what I needed.  But, of course, Alex gilded the lily.  As I was sitting at my station, in walks Scott Bagshaw, the chef of Pizzeria Gusto.  He brought two plates with ridiculously delicious food: a shrimp appy and some bruschetta.  It was perfect.

Now, here's the thing about this experience: it was created by someone with a panache for service and delivered by two companies who clearly understand customer service.  I love that Alex thought to add the touch of food during the pedicure.  I love that Scott walked it over himself!  I love that every minute at Tiber River was serene and gentle and fun.  Even the camaraderie amongst the staff was palpable.  I love that the Tiber River staff offered to take my dishes back to Pizzeria Gusto (but I'm not that much of a princess, thanks)!  This few hours rejuvenated me (which was good 'cause we had a whopper of a catering job after this that I will blog more about later...) and led me to a moment of contemplating customer service.   As always, I am contemplating how to make ours even better.  

It is a good thing to feel taken care of; I hope to keep the good karma flowing.  

we're back...

Hi all,

I have received some feedback that we haven't been posting enough so I'm back and I will try to pay attention.  I will also try to help Alex remember to post on his blog.

I read the most fascinating statistic about our lives recently (I often find out interesting tidbits about us from other sources!), on the folk festival weekend we led a group of people in generating 50, 000 meals.  This feels mind-boggling and yet at the same time, it was the most incredible, exhilarating experience imaginable.  The whole 5 days, I felt consumed by the needs of these 5, 000 people; it felt a little bit like having a giant group of insatiably hungry children.  Constant line ups of folks looking for a nosh.  We fed them bison short ribs (500 pounds eaten in 45 minutes!), barbecued chicken, baked raspberry cream cheese french toast, lamb tagine, and baked macaroni and cheese.  We had a 'guerilla tent' that popped up and served up tasty surprises like caesar mussels and huevos rancheros.  We paired drinks like Moroccan sweetened mint tea (like they have at the hamam - so yummy) with the tagines.  

We plan for months to do this week.  We write the menus and then Alex writes the recipes from scratch.  I sort out who does what when to get the food from written idea to end product.  We figure out how much food, sort out volunteers, find tents and gators, design and have Hutterites build ovens, meet with health inspectors and office staff.  We have to think and work hard to pull off running the backstage kitchen at the folk festival.

On the weekend itself, the running around and trying to physically pull of this feat was pretty crazy... Oh my, 6 boxes of potatoes need to sliced on the dicing wall and this chicken needs to be grilled on these flat tops and I better move these 24-100 oz cans of kidney beans to make way for the 20 watermelons about to arrive.  Of course, me being me, I looked down at one point while I was grilling chicken on the fly and realized I was wearing a cashmere sweater, a fabulous scarf and Brown's platform heels!  Sometimes I can be ridiculous.

Trying to keep track of the paper work and figuring out who should cook what when, left me with very few thoughts by the end of the weekend (see sweater/footware choices above).  I get to a point during this weekend where I honestly think I am no longer making sense.  I can't remember people's names, I'm blurry and confused.  It's not necessarily pretty.  However, I noticed this year, that I kept it together.  Usually I wind up having a weepy time where I sort of fall apart and cry for awhile.  I usually take a time out and get someone to drive me around the site while I get it together but this year I was fairly calm. 

The biggest high comes from the people.  My favourite part of the whole weekend is having two thousand people lined up in a giant tent for dinner and yelling out "Dinner's served!" and people whooping and cheering in appreciation; it send shivers up my spine every time.  I love walking through the kitchen and meeting the people transforming our thoughts and ideas into actual food.  I love listening in to conversations between volunteers about their real-life worlds, or their festival experiences or their thoughts on the food.  I love the connection; I find it endlessly fascinating.  

After the festival week is said and done, I walk away feeling like I have learned so much that it will take me until next year just to figure it all out.  I feel like I have been raised up by the process of two hundred non-cooks coming together and creating haute cuisine.  I feel like it is my responsibility to go out for the rest of the year and live the lessons I have learned about being part of a community.  I feel like I am challenged to be a better person by being involved in this ridiculous, crazy-ass project.

And so, I get back to my restaurant with high expectations of myself.

the fishbowl...

So one of the things about living in a bit of a fishbowl is... people seem to have free license to say whatever is on their minds.  It's an interesting situation to be in.  We put ourselves out into the middle of the room, we are fundamentally social people (just came from a lively dinner party with friends after 12 straight days of having dinner parties at the restaurant...); we love to talk!  Sometimes though, I am surprised by what people will say to me.  I have had people ask very intimate details about Alex and my relationship.  I have been asked (a few times) if I am pregnant and alternately if I am sick (after I took up running).   I also had a woman tell me I should get breast reduction surgery.  Let me tell you, the impact of all of this on getting dressed to go to work can be enormous.  

Friday was a particularly rough day in my world and I went into work deflated.  For the first few hours, I struggled with being present and tending to people.  I kind of felt like I needed someone to tend to me...  But, as the evening bumped along (really, it felt less-than-smooth), I started to gain energy from the people in the room - the servers, the bussers, the kitchen staff and the customers.  That is a delightful little moment in any day, a slight shift takes place in my body, my awareness, my abilities, and I relish every moment.  

Even when people say kind of weird things to me.