Restaurants lie to you at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. They tell the truth at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Saturday night has energy, full tables, cocktails, laughter, and people dressed for the night. Early Tuesday morning has half the lights on, coffee brewing in the server station, a prep cook already working, and at least one thing that broke after everybody went home.
I love sitting in an empty restaurant in the early morning. That is when you see the place for what it really is.
For most of my career, early morning walks through a restaurant were about what was wrong. A booth had a tear in the fabric. A light was out. Somebody left something where it shouldn’t have been. The ice machine was making a noise that meant I was about to pull out the checkbook.
Ice machines have an extraordinary gift for dying at the exact moment they can do the most financial damage. I’m convinced they hold meetings after closing.
Forty-five years in this business will train your eyes and ears that way. It should. Restaurants are built on details. Ignore enough little things and eventually they become a big thing.
Lately, though, these rooms feel different to me.
At 19, restaurants made sense in a way school never did. I was a terrible student. In a classroom my mind wandered. In a restaurant with 200 people coming through the door I could focus.
That probably tells you more about me than any psychological evaluation ever could.
At 19, my goal was to own my own restaurant. Then another. Then make them successful. Then more successful. After that came growth, money, nicer things, and a few purchases that seemed important at the time.
Ambition has been a blessing in my life. I’m grateful for every bit of it. Restaurants gave a terrible student with no life plan a profession, a way to support my family, and work I still love almost half a century later.
But ambition also has a way of keeping your eyes fixed on whatever is next.
When you are young and trying to build something, you see sales, payroll, food cost, debt, construction, repairs, and whether there is enough money in the bank to pay all of the bills. Those things still matter. Anyone who says money doesn’t matter in business has probably never made payroll.
What I see now is different.
That cook already working in the kitchen may have two children at home. The dishwasher closing tonight might be saving for his first car. A server may be putting herself through school. Somebody working prep may be sending money home to family.
Then there is the 17-year-old host learning that six minutes late is still late. His mother disagrees and would like to speak to management, Congress, and possibly the Hague.
Restaurants teach a lot more than food.
Once the doors open, the room changes again. One table may be celebrating a birthday. Another may have just come from a funeral. There could be a first date in one corner and a couple married 50 years in another. Some guests have eaten with us for decades. Others will come once, and we may never see them again.
Most are just hungry.
They want a good meal, a little hospitality, and an hour when somebody else takes care of things. On a good day, we give them that. Occasionally, without even knowing it, we become part of a memory.
That part means more to me now than it used to.
The same is true of the team members who work beside me. When I was younger, I probably saw the team mainly through the job they were doing. Who was fast. Who could handle Saturday night. Who needed coaching. Who needed replacing.
Back then, I mostly saw the job they were doing. These days, I see a lot more than the job.
Now I see husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, mortgages, sick parents, tuition, dreams, disappointments, and people trying to make their way through life like everybody else.
That doesn’t mean standards go away. Ask anyone who works with me. The table still needs to be set correctly and the gumbo better be hot and full of seafood.
The difference is the table isn’t the only thing I see anymore.
My mother taught school until she was 80. She never talked about changing lives. She just went to work and taught children year after year.
There is no way to know how many lives passed through her classroom or where those kids ended up. Most of that work happened quietly. No audience. No award. Just a teacher showing up and doing what she knew how to do.
I didn’t appreciate that nearly enough when I was younger.
Getting sober at 21 gave me a second chance I had done nothing to earn. It took me years to understand just how much grace was wrapped up in that. God has given me far more than I ever deserved since then.
A wife who stood beside me. Two children I’m proud of. Friends who have seen the whole picture and stayed anyway. People who trusted me enough to work with me. Guests who kept walking through our doors.
The older I get, the more obvious it becomes that very little of anything worthwhile gets done alone.
Tomorrow morning, somewhere around six, one of our dining rooms will be quiet again. There will be a rip in a booth somewhere, a prep list that isn’t finished, a bulb that needs changing, and an ice machine plotting another felony.
There will always be something that needs fixing.
For most of my life, that was the first thing I noticed. These days I notice something else, too.
I see the people who will come through the doors in a few hours. I see the people already working in the back. I think about the ones who helped me get here and the ones who trusted me enough to come along.
The restaurant hasn’t changed all that much.
Thankfully, I have.
And at this point in my life, I’m just grateful to still be there when the lights come on.
Onward.
Minestrone Soup
I created a version of this in the early days of the Purple Parrot Café in the late 1980s. When we opened Tabella, I revised it and it’s a regular menu item.
¼ c. Pure olive oil
1 ½ c. Onion, diced
1 ½ c. Carrot, diced
1 c. Celery, diced
½ c. Garlic, minced
¼ c. Kosher salt
1 tsp Dried basil
1 tsp Dried oregano
½ tsp Dried thyme
2 tsp Fresh ground black pepper
¼ tsp Crushed red pepper
2 ea. Bay leaf
2 TB Balsamic vinegar
½ c. White wine
¼ c. Tomato paste
2 ea. 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, chopped
1 gal. Vegetable Stock
2 c. Zucchini, medium dice
2 c. Yellow squash, medium dice
1 ea 10 oz. package frozen spinach, thawed, drained
2 ea 15 oz. can kidney or cannelloni beans, drained
¼ c. Pesto
1 TB Worcestershire sauce
Heat olive oil in a stockpot over medium-high heat.
Add onions, carrots, celery, salt, peppers, basil, oregano, thyme and bay leaves. Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add wine and balsamic vinegar. Continue cooking for 3 minutes.
Add tomato paste and cook 6-8 minutes, stirring constantly, being careful not to let it burn.
Add canned tomatoes and chicken stock. Simmer for 1 hour.
Add zucchini, squash, spinach and kidney beans and cook for 8 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in pesto and Worcestershire.
Yield: 1 gallon
