Almost everyone is wonderful.

But the ones that aren't, aren't. I don't really understand what makes people so angry about food. I know I have been myself. It just happens. Yesterday, a man ordered the roasted red pepper soup. I make it myself. I know it's good. I taste it. I see the head cook eat it for lunch (HIGH praise). In almost every review it's mentioned. People love it. Last night a man told me it was nothing more than heated ketchup. There are ways of complaining but he was utterly vicious, refused to accept an apology, dismissed me by waving his hand at me without turning around. Suggested I was cheating him. At our price of $4 for a cup of soup, I don't think he will go broke, even if he was being cheated. 

It's interesting, too, that people think it is acceptable to complain (bitterly) about the food if it isn't what they expected. I really have no control over what they expect curried rice with a chicken breast on it, to be. Though it is described fairly well on the menu. One young woman told me she refused to pay for it (though she had eaten the chicken breast) the curry was not the kind she was accustomed to.

In retrospect, these are funny events since they happen very rarely, but at the time it was hard not to take it personally. It's a good thing I don't drink while I'm working. It takes all I got to be polite, smile and apologize to an asshole. With a loosened tongue things might get less polite.

Like I said, though, almost everyone is wonderful. 

What makes me, me.

There are things I am learning or maybe recognizing about myself that I realize make who I am. Sometimes, these are things that I like, I have muscled my way thorough an extremely difficult several months (no worse for the wear) by simply enduring what I think are very onerous burdens with great patience. Sometimes, they are things I don't like, I am capable of getting very angry and barking orders at people, something I find almost too ugly to admit I've done. And there are things like my drive to be perfect, that while it annoys me (and others, I imagine) is what helps make the restaurant what it is.

Yesterday, we had a wedding reception in the place in the afternoon. It was very informal but the bride and groom who are actors didn't have a lot of money wanted something nice. They were African American and live in Chicago. In lieu of a cake, they brought in boxes of cupcakes along with 3 towers on which to arrange them. There were also 2 boxes of cupcakes for the kids to be put in front on the table and another small box marked for the bride and groom. 

Nearing the point when the reception was to start I realized that they weren't going to put the cupcakes on the towers, I had to. These were no ordinary cupcakes, they were from some famous place in Chicago. I opened the first box of about 40 or 50 cupcakes and saw that the blue frosting was whipped up and piled high on each one with additional decorative blobs of another color and little seed-like dots and almost petal-like decorations making them nearly impossible to even touch without getting finger marks on them. Then there was the question of getting them under each platform level with getting the frosting all over the tower. I started by filling in the backs of the 3 towers, emptied the first box, opened the second and saw the second box was an entirely different kind of cup cake decorated with tan frosting. I realized there were 3 towers and each should hold a different kind of cupcake. Touching these was not something that was intended to happen frequently. The frosting, utterly delicate, easily dented and messed, was already not looking as fresh as it had in the box and now I had to move all the blue ones all to one tower. Fine. Got that done, did the next and then opened the 3rd, I can't even recall what color that was. Then I went and got the kids cupcake boxes, I opened the first and saw that though the cupcakes were smaller, the frosting was piled even higher. It was almost impossible to put my hand over the frosting and grab the small cupcake at the paper holder line. 

I have to say that although I'm not much of a sweets eater these chocolate cupcakes for the kids smelled really, really delicious. I arrange the first box in a nice pattern in front of the 3 towers and then opened the second and almost fainted when I saw that these were vanilla. It would have been completely awful to just put the chocolate and vanilla separately on the table. By this time, the guest are coming in and I began to sweat. I had to remove every other chocolate cupcake and put in a vanilla one. Then a blue cupcake fell of the tower and landed on the pink table cloth upside down.

This is not how I imagined having a restaurant would be.

When I opened the bride and groom's special small box of cupcakes , it was obvious that the box had been turned upside down and almost violently shaken. There is no possible way to describe the horror I felt.

As it turned out, the groom had dropped the box.

I wish the bride and groom well, they were beautiful, gracious and reception was a joy.

Tearing out my hair.

A customer complained that the server, who she did not like and said was rude, had added a gratuity to the bill. This is a simplified version of what happened since her anger was palpable and she voiced it in front of the entire restaurant. I walked to the back of the place, also palpably angry and found the server unrepentant and, who, in fact, admitted that he had added the tip because he felt she would not leave one. Sometimes I wonder how people who seem to be rational can lose their ability to reason so easily. He no longer works there.

Business is good by the way.

Go figure

Thursday was about the best day we've ever had at Edgar's. Huge lunch crowd, I visit every table. Everyone was happy, then the afternoon was fairly brisk, as afternoons go. Huge after work crowd at the bar. Then a good dinner crowd. So I figure. Great!! Good weather, good sales, tomorrow's Friday, nice weather expected. So Friday comes around. 3 tables at lunch. Seriously. Not a soul, except for Greg, an across-the-street regular, who came in for dinner. NO ONE. I can't take that. I was a miserable ball of anxiety. Just standing there with nothing to do. I left at 5:58. There was no one in the restaurant.

At 6:45 michael the manger calls me at home (this never happens), my sister is there. I'd completely forgotten. I felt so ashamed and miserable. I tell myself it will be OK but am racked with doubt and misery. 

I came in this morning to do my taxes, well, organize them so someone else can do them. I look at the Micros system for the total from yesterday, it was whopping!!! They had a huge dinner hour that started at 7 and ended at 10.

Winter of anxiety

Today was a really good lunch in the restaurant. The place was full and it felt like a real restaurant. That's a big issue for me, feeling like a real place. But it's February 21st. These kinds of days are few and far between. That's going on 4 months of mostly feeling inadequate and anxious. And it's because of the weather (at least I hope that's the problem). There are other reasons, of course, no one eats out the day before Thanksgiving, no one eats out on a voting day, but really, no one eats out when the weather is bad or there is the hint of snow. And there have been a lot more than hints of snow this winter. The snow has been more along the lines of getting smacked in the face with the back of a shovel in your face than a hint. My balcony one morning. One of many mornings with new snow.

Dead or dying

My 20+ year old bay laurel tree is either dead or dying. I'm sick about it and it's my fault. It died of neglect since I have been so busy with the restaurant. It was nearly 7 feet tall. I noticed the leaves were shriveled up. Like so many things in my life I've had to neglect a lot to make this restaurant work. I'm not sure how I compensate for the things I've left behind in the frantic pace of what I am doing. In the meantime, I cut the tree back and hope it's still alive and will get new leaves. This is what it looks like now. You can see all the detritus on my dining room table in the background. Poor thing.

The wait

It is just a waiting game. I think the food is good. The interior is really nice. I painted it myself. the service is mostly good. Though it's hard to know to know for sure since I am mostly wringing my hands worrying about the service. When I went out to dinner earlier this week in the end-of-the-world weather, the service was iffy at best. I had to ask a different server to get me another glass of wine. It can't be that hard to see if people are done with their drinks and ask if they'd like another, though apparently it is since it is an ongoing problem at most restaurants. So now I'm waiting for customers to come in. I'm not sure if it will be good or bad. I'd hate to be overwhelmed with people who were then unhappy because it took 2 hours to get dinner. or worse, lunch. Gotta have a prompt lunch.

This is the interior.