Marla's Restaurant Blog

Back to Reality

Ok,  THAT seven days blew by me.  Returned home safe and sound and went right to work the next day. Came back to very good business, the kitchen in tact, the ordering done very well.  This was the first trip I had made since my old sous and I parted ways at the beginning of the summer and the cooks stepped up to the plate and did a great job. 

Right now I am working on new lighting for the restaurant.  Half the installation was done on Monday, the remaining lights to be installed will go in after Thanksgiving week.  I am very excited.  The dining room looks great.

I have my web guys working on updating my website with a major overhaul.  This project was started in August and due to miscommunication was not picked up again until last week.  Now they want me to overnight some photographs.  Well, I'm too cheap to overnight the disk, so good old priority mail will have to do.

I have ordered new plastic drapes for the outside deck.  Our old ones are worn out, they shrink after time and no longer seal out the cold.  Those have been ordered.  Install is after Thanksgiving.

Oh, and I happen to be slipping out for a family vacation Thanksgiving week.  Yes, two breaks in one month.  I have never done that before.  My family does not want anything to do with this trip, and are complaining that I am dragging them and that they will be miserable.  Can't wait.

Day 3 in Nicaragua

I found the capitalization key on this keyboard.  Yesterday was a tour of the farm's school, worker's kitchen and housing and some more farm animals.  In the afternoon we finally picked coffee.  Between the 14 of us, we picked about a dollar's worth of coffee.  This morning was a three hour hike through the rain forest.  No rain today, but tons last night.  We were afraid our rooms  would flood.  Our rooms are solar heated and with all the rain, we haven't had a warm shower, much less a hot one.  But still kicking.

A weekend in matagalpa, nicaragua

i'm using a spanish keyboard and cannot find the capitalization function, so here goes.  i am visiting a coffee farm called Selva negra in the mountains of nicaragua with my coffee guy.  it's his family's farm.  i knew the product is organic.  i know the farm is sustainable, but that does not touch on the magnitude of the farm's life.  we took a tour of the farm today and witnessed the vegetable gardens, the compost, the wet milling of the coffee, the water being treated by lava rocks from the volcanoes and bacteria from humans and egg shell flour milled here of course which adjusts the acidity in the water, so it can be used on the plants without burning them.  and then there is the methane gas production for cooking and the hydro/electric building.  if the end of the world comes, this is where i am heading.  but i cannot continue, the internet connection is too slow and there's a line for this one computer .

Restaurant Eyes

I had a delay getting into work on Saturday because of family duties and when I arrived, I hit the door running. This is what my eyes saw:

• The pumpkin from Friday night was sitting on the front entrance steps, forlorn and wilting.

• The outside lights were not all on.

• There was trash in the back parking lot.

• The heaters were not started on the deck.

• The candles were not set on the deck.  This entices people to sit  there with the heaters and if I was the waiter and that was my station, I would have it lit up like Paris so everyone would request my station.  Duh?

• The handicap door was not unlocked.

• The tables were not squared up in the right position.

• The radish salad for the Salmon was not seasoned properly

• The walk in cooler needed tidying.

All night I was tweaking tables, running food, marking tables (which means putting down the silverware for the next course) cleaning the wait station....Part of me could tell I was obsessing, but is that not what the restaurant business is about?