Part 9 OPENING DAY
A midnight train whistle moans in the distance as I stand in the grocery story amidst dozens of box boys and hundreds of boxes of produce, packaged goods, meat, dairy and breads. Dazed from opening day yet buzzing from the experience my brain attempts to sort information from my sketchy shopping list. In four and a half short hours I will rise, go to the café and start prepping all that I’m about to buy for day two but first I have to make sure I get everything I need, then transfer it to car then to walk-in refrigerator and shelves in my restaurant before I shower and collapse into bed. How I’ll shut off my brain is anyone’s guess. Once I do, I’ll have to re-boot it in a couple of hours to repeat today’s adventure.
The day started like a first time ride in a tiny raft approaching a class 5 rapid. Not knowing what the trip was going to be like I could only go with the flow with all the dry mouth shakiness of eager anticipation and no way out. Not that escaping ever entered my mind.
Our first family came through the door at 6:30am, the time set by Elmer. The father had gotten up at 4:30 this morning, about the time I rose, so he could be the first customer through our door. How disappointed he’d have been if Elmer had beat him to it. I chuckle at the thought of squeezing them both over the threshold at the same time so as not to disappoint either one. I think Elmer would have graciously accepted second place though.
My co-cook and I fixed the foursome’s French toast, eggs, scrambles, toast, potatoes and pancakes, sent the order through the window’s pass-through and “high-fived” each other relieved at how easy our first ticket flowed. Within what seemed moments our ticket rack was full and we were swamped with orders. Table one had four orders, table 13 had 12 and so on. As fast as we could we tried to not only fulfill the ticket at hand but start items on the next couple of tickets down the rack hoping not to finish the eggs too soon or start the pancakes too late.
Our arms were flying as we threw toast in the toaster, cracked eggs into the pan trying with all our might not to break them as they flipped over and poured hundreds of ladles of batter on the grill for pancakes. Counting berries so each pancake had the same amount soon drowned out with all the other tasks at hand in trying to get 8 plates up to go out at the same time. We’d run out of batter or prepped eggs or bread or bacon and dash to the back of the kitchen for more leaving the line and slowing the process.
Just as we were getting into the flow of things we smashed into lunch. When the first lunch order appeared, Steve and I looked at each other as if we were heading for a giant waterfall. Four letter words flew as we realized we hadn’t brought the lunch stuff up front. Time had flown. We’d been at this five hours without a break and it seemed like we’d just started. We scrambled. At least the next shift of workers had arrived so we could yell back to them if needed. Burgers went on the grill, packages of buns flew open as we called out for salads and tried to remember which of the 20 burgers were medium rare and which were well done. My 2 foot grill was crammed with berry/hazelnut pancakes and Reuben sandwiches as I tried desperately to keep the sauerkraut away from the French toast. Somewhere in today’s wild ride we ran out of ground beef. As Mark dashed out the front door past the line of customers that ran all the way to the street someone hollered “hey Mark, where are you going?” When he replied that we were out of hamburger meat the guy told him to get back inside where he was needed, he’d go get the beef for us. He wasn’t the only lifeguard today but he was the one we will never forget.
In all of this, our heat lamps weren’t installed yet so 15 plates could be sitting in the window while waitresses who were supposed to be distributing them were still learning our computerized cash register. No amount of practice could prepare them for all the foibles of sharing one flawed machine.
We tried as hard as we could to accommodate special orders but frankly, for the rest of my life I will never request a special order in a restaurant when it’s busy. A few customers wanted us to fry the potatoes crispy, which, if they’d see our grill, they would never have thought of asking. We obeyed a couple of times then sent word out to the front that we could no longer take special orders unless in the case of an allergy.
I wanted everyone to be happy and it killed me to know some customers were having a less than perfect first experience with us but we never got to rehearse. The building was completed two days before opening and 3 feet of snow that knocked power out in town prevented us from trying ourselves out. We had to bring snow into the coolers and freezers to keep prepped food cold. Now, we were rehearsing with 250 customers in real time but I didn’t have a clue as to what the other half of the restaurant was going through until we closed. As I am standing waist deep in produce and 2 shopping carts full of food that needs to get 10 miles back to the restaurant it is no time to worry about today’s opinions, only tomorrow’s. One thing is certain a river has many rapids with each one unique. Tomorrow, we will have many diners, each as different as the next. Some will love us and some will not return but we will whip, beat, chop, grind, stir, flip, roast, fry, soak and serve to the best of our ability, then we will re-fill, wipe, scrape, wash, scrub, sort, toss, and mop and all on little sleep at high speed.
And each morning as the 4 o’clock train whistle blows we’ll get up and do it all again in tandem with cooks all over the world who’ve entered their own rivers in pursuit of the great ride we call life in the restaurant business.
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