No. 64 - First Week of Opening

Do you remember, the 21st night of September

Where do I even begin?

Last Tuesday and Wednesday we opened our doors to our long time supporters, friends, and family, and then rolled right into our public opening on Thursday, Sept 21.

the 21st night of September <3

When you go into an opening you know it’s going to be clunky. It’s a lot to figure out, all at once, for the first time, in front of a bunch of people. It’s working through our allergies protocol, learning how to talk about the food, figuring out how to put out the food, floating through the dining room without hitting each other, dialing in the music and the lighting, and praying all the technology in the restaurant is working properly. When you really think about it, there’s so much that has to go right for it to feel magical to those on the other side. It’s crazy!

We decided to do 2 nights of friends and family and I am so glad we did. Each night was such a different experience and we learned SO much from it, especially on what to do when we are behind on reservations. Our hosts have such a tough job balancing walk-ins and reservations all night long - it’s all a big puzzle and can be such a gamble to make sure we get people up from their tables & the next guests sat on time. Now that we are a few services in, I think the most satisfying thing to me is seeing our team figuring out how to have that non-verbal communication across the dining room. We talk with our eyes, our nods, and our different hand signals- all things we didn’t explicitly teach them. People have been slowly picking up on all these little things and it’s really cute!