March 1st, 2010

And it is a great day.

sunshine in Cranbury, NJ. Inside the BR, we are really glad to be in a new month.

Snowstorms & the restaurant biz don't go together too well. And the really fact of import is that once a day is gone by, no recoup other than making it up on another day. So Feb had the good days -- V'Day weekend, great crowds. Snow days, particularly when the weathermen talk up the prospects -- reservations cancelled, decisions made around the safety of travel for staff.

I think we made most decisions well. Last Friday, however, I think we could have done a dinner biz even though the reservs we had cancelled based on threat of more weather!

Inside the back of house, we are shifting and looking for more ways to be effective in delivering our high quality product consistently. Also more ways to be efficient - what is the best staffing model day by day, hour by hour? The margins are slight and small miscalculations around staffing, buying, opening/closing -- all lead directly to the bottom line in a strong way since we are so small.

Sunday we had a different team in the back and our great strong Sunday crowds. People were asked to wait way too long for their food and I was at a lose as to how to fix the problem. Keep customers waiting at the door - not great - keep driving the kitchen to get moving - yeah, but not really effective at the time. We definitively lost a woman who felt the meal was very good, but not worth the wait. Her partner was more on the OK with it side, but still - we are not likely to see them again (as least on a Sunday - positive thinking) -- And for our regular crowd, the wait does not show our respect for them nor is it the professional level of service that we have grown into in the last 6-8 months. So, work required on that Sunday team! And we will take that on asap.

Lots happening in March and April and May and..... it is phenomenal to me to see how much we are doing and how much interest there is in what we are doing!

Tonight I got a call from a fellow who had our V Day weekend prix fixe meal. He was calling to see if we had plans to do it again, regularly. And the conversation was encouraging -- I told him we have plans to add a prix fixe to our weekly dinner, likely in April if all goes well. Testing the idea with this fellow, it seems we have a good audience for the prix fixe. So - any other comments on that topic would be greatly appreciated.