Constant change as a lifestyle statement
It's What's Happening Baby!
We marvel at how the cosmos is imbued with perfect wisdom and long for just a dribble of that wisdom from time to time. Hindsight provides the best cues for our faith that everything happens for a reason and it is reassuring to know that, some day, current events will make sense. Until then we simply endeavor to remain nimble and continue to adapt to our customers’ needs, concerns and desires.
The outdoor dining season was good to us. It is still alive but the fall chill makes it inherently less appealing, although diners basking in the warmth of our heaters continue to take on a glow of their own. The added seating this summer tested and strengthened the capacity of our kitchen. Meanwhile, our efforts to develop a plan for expanding into the space next door (see Janet’s Irish Pub – the (semi)final chapter) required that we scrutinize all aspects of the business. Now that the pub is not in the picture we are using the insights of the last few months to inform our plan to make the business thrive in its current configuration.
The dining room only has 45 seats. We love our big table that seats up to 16 guests. (The architect that worked with us on the redesign referred to it as the tail that wags our dog.) But we had too many large tables and our net seating capacity was often diminished when we needed to seat small parties at large tables. And the tables were frankly an ugly hodgepodge. No more! The dining room has been refitted with new tables that match, not only in style, but also dimensionally. We had old growth fir that had been reclaimed from a dry dock milled into 2 ¼” planks and laminated into tabletops. Just like the big table we finished these using only a mixture tung oil, linseed oil, turpentine and spar varnish. The tops all have a common dimension and great care was taken to level and match their height so now we have much more flexibility to meet the needs of various sized parties. And they are beautiful. We are very proud of them.
The dinner menu now changes each week. Many items are carried over and some are rotated in and out. Typically a new item will first air on the Specials Board and then make its way onto the menu. Such a high proportion of our customers dine with us several times each month and this approach enables us to put fresh offerings in front of them without growing a ridiculously long list of specials. We regret the loss of trees required to constantly reprint menus but…
The lunch menu got a little shorter and we now carry small plate versions of the dinner menu as lunch specials throughout the week. We recognize that most of our lunch customers choose us as a mid-day treat and many of our dinner patrons learned of us by stopping in for lunch. Serving lunch does not pay our bills. Serving dinner does. So we are remaking lunch into a better representation of the fine cuisine that has made dinner so popular.
A late night menu has been added. For now we make it available on Friday and Saturday night after 9 PM. The reasoning here is that late night diners prefer smaller portions. And we wanted something special to support the Saturday night live music scene.
Last year we learned that, while so many of our neighbors appreciated having a resource available for breakfast, few were able to make it a regular part of their routine. So we shut down breakfast on the weekend. Since then we have been closed on Sunday and Monday, serving lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Next month our schedule will change again.
Lunch: Saturday lunch will be discontinued but we will be open for lunch on Monday beginning November 15th, so the new schedule will be 11-4, Monday – Friday.
Dinner: Beginning Sunday, November 14th we will be open seven nights each week. We have heard too often how folks show up on Sunday and Monday and are served only disappointment. We don’t feel like you should have to think that hard about whether or not we are available to feed you. This will be better for everybody.
Saturday Night Is Date Night
Doggone it, this better work. We are bringing in great musicians every Saturday night. I don’t care if you feel like getting up off the couch or not. If you want to have quality entertainment in the neighborhood, you better just get up and out to support this new initiative. Get it? ;-)