The GRAND Opening!

Was totally amazing and awesome! Here is the press and the picture of the shop during the grand opening:

http://www.martinezgazette.com/news/story/i3485/2011/11/17/compass-star-opens-doors

I am SO tired, but things are picking up every day. I've heard business drops off after December 15th, so I am a little nervous about that.

Soooo... the Grand Opening... I got into the shop at like 5:00 am and started prepping everything. We are all so tired, it has been harder for me to focus lately. But we still got everything prepped and the line semi set up. My Brion helped pour the wines and Stein did as much as he could before going to get his son for Boy Scouts. People started milling and hanging out around 3:00, the Chamber folks and the Mayor showed up around 4ish and the ceremony was really cute. They have a bunch of chamber members and local business  people come introduce themselves and hang out for the ribbon cutting. I had a ton of friends and family roll in. OH and my friends from An Tir sent me flowers, along with Lucrezia, Eric and Jess (they look WONDERFUL in the shop!).

We served a sweet potato gnocchi with a bresaola and arugula salad, plus porchetta, plus a glass of wine for $15.00. It was a mad crush right at 4:00 and we were plating up as quickly as we could. I didn't think so many people would want sandwiches, but a lot of people did and now we are like OUT of pastrami for the week. I have some in cure now and I will smoke it up on Sunday for Monday service, but the pastrami sales have taken on a life of their own. We stopped putting it on the "Magical Board" (anything we put on our outside dry erase board sells like crazy) because friends are telling friends to go try the pastrami and now it is our most requested sandwich. I ordered two brisket from Del Monte today, but they are both kind of small, so I suspect I will need to go load up on brisket at some point this week to put into brine. If I get them in today I can hot smoke them next Wed The problem is we are using the lean end for pastrami and the fatty end for corned beef and we just don't need that much corned beef... we might have to put "Reuben" on the Magical Board...

So many strange details... most of our customers are in suits and skirts with jackets, it is a strange thing in California where people tend towards casual dress. My favorite patron ordered lunch for his team today and then stopped back with his partner (law firm) to tell us how good it was... this kind of positive input is really the fuel I am currently running on about now (Bri is bringing home a pizza, I plan to have a beer with mine and go pass out!). We have more and more former East Coasters coming and wanting a "Pastrami on marble rye with just a schmear" (of mustard, of course). I am beyond grateful that we are finding our target audience. I am not sure how, but every day more and more people are coming in for charcuterie.

Of course, I am nearly out of marbled rye too... I am going to have to go forage for things this weekend. Have I mentioned how tired I am? I wanted to write something super profound and awesome... and I think I've dozed off twice and woken up to either my own snores or drooling. I think the thing I am the most excited about has been the people. I really love Martinez, it is a town that is very comfortable in it's own skin.

Next week will be all about prepping the Thanksgiving to-go dinners, plus my own fabulous dinner at home with a bunch of my friends coming in for dinner. I will get the Turkeys in on Friday to make sure they are totally thawed and get them into brine. I will smoke them next Tuesday and people will be in to pick them up on Wed. Ok, I promise to post something more in depth and coherent this weekend!