We meet again.

I finally have a little time to waste tonight so I figured I'd throw down a bit of an update. I'm back in my home city and actually have internet to use. Wow, how much one is able to achieve when there is basically no outlet for online entertainment. I do have the web at my business but have no means to use it at my leisure on the farmstead I'm renting. It's been an adjustment, though I can't say a non-beneficial one.

I don't have enough time to complete my last post and it was really only going to turn out as a cheesy anecdote on how your perspective on life can be altered so easily by just a small change in your surroundings. Most of us really do sweat the small things and need to accept the most important thing is the reality of the bigger picture. Yeah, I know, lame, so I won't continue down that path and rather meander onto a new.

So, I have ventured into starting my own company. It is, of course, a restaurant and bar in a neighboring city. To catch you all up, the proposition was brought to me through a friend I used to work with in the food service industry. Our paths crossed again when I accepted employment at that last cesspool of culinary creation. He was as miserable as me and was secretly looking for his own opportunity. Well, he found a promising project.

He brought it to my attention and inquired about me going in with him and I basically brushed it off with minimal thought. It takes at least a half a million, and generally a lot more, to buy an existing building, the property and the equipment to begin an un-franchised restaurant, provided the place is set up to actually be a restaurant. Even though a bank likely would loan out that kind of money, I would never want to be in that position of outstanding debt in a very risky industry. So I wished him well and disregarded the rest.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks later when he said he went down and interviewed with the city committee for consideration of tenancy and received a phone call that he was accepted over a number of applicants. Wow, he was actually moving forward and this wasn't just some dream. He was fully pursuing it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not that I thought he was lying though was a bit surprised at how fully committed he was. He used to talk all the time about finding a place to set up shop and I suppose I never really grasped how much of a dream this was to him. Now I was interested in finding out more of the details.

The more he told me, the more I was intrigued, especially after he stated that the place wasn't for sale, only lease. Hmm...interesting. That can be both beneficial and detrimental. The good is that there is basically no start-up cost and most expenses are incurred by the owner. The downfall is that there is always a landlord and rent; no complete control. I was on my way out of that cooking torture chamber anyways and decided to make a trip with him to check the place out. I didn't have anything better to do on a day off, so why not. I still reiterated to him that I wasn't interested in being partners but would work a couple of weeks to get the place up and running. He was a good friend after all, and it would probably be fun for me.

Within an hour of my initial tour, I was convinced. I didn't say anything for a few days afterwards because I wanted to pound my brain in every conceivable manner to see if I was being rational and if I could basically talk myself out of this adventure. I couldn't justifiably not take the chance; things were about as optimal as I could surmise for this project.

There were many wonderful things that sold me. The first was the building. It was immaculate. The city had spent over 700k in renovations. The kitchen and all the equipment was brand spanking new. The bar had a new addition, again with all new furnishings. There was a special outdoors area constructed for open air events and seating during the nicer months. There was an event area built upstairs, yes up fucking stairs, that spanned the whole area of the lower level for events such as bands, DJs, weddings, anniversaries, meetings, catering, you name it; the list goes on and on. The basement, yes again, the fucking basement, was redesigned for bar overflow with pool tables and other recreational apparatus. My mind was blown at how beautiful this place was and how much effort the city put into the project.

The thing that baffled me was how in the world they did all of this with only 700k??? I found out when one of the board members took me off to the side to give me her own little interview, so to speak. It wasn't anything official; she just wanted to get to know me a little more I think. I answered her questions which were all casual and not formal in most ways. When she was done she asked me, "So what do you think about the place?" I wanted to strip naked and run around screaming "Woohoo!" but figured that would be somewhat over the top. Instead, I just told her that I was impressed with what they had done on such a small budget (yup, I cast out the fishing line). She told me, "Well, approximately 99% of the labor was volunteer work." WTF?! My mind was officially blown.

Here's the kicker. I was very concerned with how much the lease payments would be considering on how majestic this establishment was. The monthly lease payment is $1,500.00. Yes, the comma and decimal are in the correct places. You can barely rent a shitty one bedroom apartment in my city for that anymore these days let alone any kind of business space. I thought my ass was going to fall off when she told me that.

Fast forward a few more weeks. I told my buddy that I was on board and rolling full steam ahead. He was thrilled because he said he couldn't do it without me. I couldn't do it without him either as we both compliment each other in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Hands down I'm a way better cook in terms of speed and knowledge, can handle the day to day operations along with short and long-term finances, and have more management experience than him. He has me beat on the personal relationship level skills, be it with customers and employees as a whole. He's way more equipped to deal with the technical food safety and proper procedures than I and is generally better with face to face dealings with the public and certain associates. I simply don't have much patience anymore.

In a nut shell, it's like this; he interviews candidates and hires them, I take care of the paperwork and make sure they get paid. He does initial food and supply orders, I review, process and make sure the vendors get paid. He physically puts away and organizes the inventory, I make sure the inventory system is accurate and updated. You get the picture. On the line, yeah, I'm way better but in terms of hammering out beautiful food, though he's better at making sure everything is expedited properly. We mesh pretty well in the grand scheme.

We've only been open to the public for a week as I write this. So amazing. The feedback is nothing I would have ever believed to be possible. We have customers coming to our pass window just to thank us for their meal and how they've never had such exceptional food before. . Our homemade recipes are such a hit it's unbelievable.

We had one gentleman ask my business partner if he could just get a plate of his onion rings without the onions. He loved the batter and breading so much he said, "I could eat a bucket of that." Another table asked for my horseradish cream sauce recipe because, "I had to pour it over my baked potato, bread, and salad as well as my steak." They all loved it that much. We had some big ass body builder tell us that he was going to pledge to becoming "fat" because he tried my alfredo sauce his wife was consuming and was sure he wouldn't be able to resist it the next time they visited. My buddy has a badass hamburger recipe that wow'd the shit out of everyone. That's pretty awesome in itself when you have customers shitting themselves over a hamburger. My special rubbed and smoked ribs might as well have been gold plated euphoria. I smoked 84 pounds that day. We ran a special for three hours. All 84 pounds were gone within one and a half hours. I won't even get into my prime rib. Well, yeah I will, but not tonight. By far the best seller in our one week history.

Anyways, things are going very well to be modest. I wish I had more time to write tonight but have to be up and running at the crack of dawn once again. This has been the most grueling time in my life as far as work goes, though the most rewarding as well. We both put in two 22 hour days back to back with an hour of sleep between both plus 18's on top of it for the whole week. As exhausted as I currently am, I feel grateful for this opportunity to prove to myself as being successful in something I've always had a passion for. The accounting world is just fine and it's easy to make very good money being a CPA, it's just not rewarding in most any way. I get to make people happy with my creations and get paid for it! That's truly incredible to me. Even if I write in a month that we failed and are out of business, I'll be okay and glad I finally took a real shot at something I believe in.

Oh my God! I have so many stories to tell and good drama from the new restaurant, and for this reason alone, I am missing the internet.

Until next time, in a day in the life of a line cook.