A day in the life...

I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since we've been open!

It's been the most amazing experience... Money is still terrifying, but we are working towards getting that under control and everything else has been totally awesome!

So a day in my life as a small business owner/restauranteur. I get up really early now, around 4:30 am, so I can get in and start the pastries and get started setting up. I roll into Martinez when it is still dark and the streets are barren of people. I turn on the lights and put away the batch report for the credit card machine. Then I turn on the oven and the fryer, plus the hood fan and hood lights.

While the oven is heating up I put out the floor mats and sanitation buckets, take down the chairs, check the cold display and mise en place (which is chef speak for pull down all of the stuff I need to start my first dish of the day)

This is the mise en place for our almond croissants. I assemble the sweet and savory pastries and put them in the oven. Then I grind coffee for the morning and bring the milk, whipped cream and spoons and cups for the coffee set up. I put the pastrami and corned beef in the sous vide so they are hot and yummy for lunch service.

This is the line all set up for the day. I make myself a mocha, which I am totally addicted to! We use Weaver's espresso roast and Ghirardhelli chocolate...

I set up aprep station in the ront of the restaurant so I can prep and still help people as the come in. Stein usually gets in around 8:00 am (xcept Monday, when he comes in earlier for our big early week prep).

When Stein comes in he sets up the back lunch line and we get started prepping the daily specials. This tends to be very collaborative and a lot of fun. The town seems to snap up seasonal soups and anything vegetarian. I cannot wait for summer when we have the full California produce pallet to play with!

We try to get lunch pretty much set by 10:30. There is a small lull time where I can return phone calls or walk over to the printers to get copies of the menu, or flyers for the specials. I also make sure the dry erase boards have the right prices and specials listed.

This is my walk back from PDQ Printers. Downtown Martinez is gorgeous and magical. Brick walkways, old street lamps, turn of the century buildings, the smell of the Bay nearby and almost all of the businesses are small owner/operator and really really cool. It is a labyrinth of small strange and wonderful shops... The yarn shop that is never open, the impossibly high ceilings in Pandora's Box hung with colorful middle eastern chandeliers and walls lined with jewelry and hookas, the pot bellied stove shop, the Ultimate Fighting Club, the people walking by with cross bows on their way to the Bow Rack, the many bail bonds shops and law offices... sign shops, the optometrist, the florist(s).

I just love it. I feel like such a grown up with my own little shop on Main Street, USA (literally!)

Our "lunch rush" tends to be all over the map, often in waves starting around 11:30. We do a lot of take-out business, with many folks picking up a quick lunch to take back to the office. Our space is very tiny and cramped, so this is a good thing! We are talking about ways to open the space up a bit, possibly taking out one of the smaller tables...but frequently the tables are all in use, so there really isn't a great solution to the space problem...

Our best seller, bar none, is the pastrami sandwich. There is something about a fragrant steaming hot pastrami sandwich on a bitterly cold day that seems to appeal to a wide audience. It is a lot of fun to see how people make it their own, what they add or take away, how they react etc.

Here is Stein during the lunch rush, pulling Charcuterie out of the meat cooler for a Plouhman's Lunch. You can see how tiny our kitchen is (but not as small as Genisis' kitchen over at Residual Sugar!)

Around 2:00 it usually slows down enough so I can spend time with customers who have questions about the salumi, or Stein and I can start shutting stuff down and cleaning up for closing. Last Friday we had a rock band come in around 3:00 called White Wives. They were really cool! Below are two of the band members

Then I close the register while Stein closes down the back line and we get things tied up so we can go. The last thing we do before leaving is mop the floors and I head to the bank to make the deposit (and get change if we need it, we often do!). It is hard work but I really do love it.