Sunday Night Masochism

Steering Wheel. Phone. Stop Sign.

I am halfway through the new season of The Bear. The series has decided to up the ante on anxiety and has leveled up the plot. They’ve cranked up the volume by no longer showing the difficulties of the day to day of a restaurant and instead showing it in the verge of closing its doors.

The walk in is flooded, yet again. This series is impeccably spot on and also, I am for sure going to get insomnia from it. I text Felipe about my situation. He’s working at Colonia Verde. The past month we’ve had to let go of key people in our management team and equally, another few have quit on their own. Its been a sea tide of change for the steady rock that CV is known for (most of our staff has been with us six plus years). Felipe had to step in to manage the floor tonight and I am up next on Tuesday. ‘Why would you do this to yourself!?’, he texts back. He hates The Bear for its anxiety- inducing ways, and this is not even considering this exclusively excruciating latest iteration. ‘I have to see it through’, I answered.

What is about restauranteurs and their need to ‘see it through’? What is it about building a restaurant that makes it so hard for one to let go of it? As I watched this team on the screen, doing ‘marometas’ to stay open at least for one more night, I thought of us, and our resilient spirit to keep going, to stay open, to change the game so that it fits for today. What people miss is the many opportunities operators have to close. For us, we’ve had the chance to close after a fire in year one, where we had to shut down the restaurant for six months to fight with insurances and rebuild. Then pandemic was another opportunity to close, now there is today. I wrote about the hole we got ourselves in this winter. Truth is, we are still climbing out of it.

Desk. Shirt. Tablet.

‘Cousin’, one of the characters on the show, takes a moment to touch things that are real like his shirt, desk, his phone. A technique he probably got from his therapist, or Claude, to stay present and not let the panic kick in. How can something so incredibly basic like feeding people cause this amount of anxiety? I think that’s why its so hard to let go. When you build a restaurant, you stay the course, you stick with it even in the most excruciating moments. It’s less about proving a point and more about following a truth - deep in your bones you know that feeding people shouldn’t cause so much pain. So you look for the formula. It doesn’t exist, you make it up again. You throw it out on the dining floor to see if it sticks, and go back to the drawing board if it doesn’t. At the end of the day, humans have to eat, right?

In a world of half truths, you stick to your full truth. It is undeniable that restaurants will be the ultimate survivors of the Ai revolution, of the world wars and all the human disconnects. More than ever, there’s a need to lock eyes at the table, to let out the whole story for your friend to hear, and to let your son really spill the beans about what happened at school. God damn it, the table is so sacred. Its what will keep our civilization together.

Like Felipe, I’ve been taking management shifts at CV here and there. It’s been an exercise that I have enjoyed quite a lot. While I definitely feel rusty and the team has to manage me, more than I manage them, it’s allowed me to connect with the basics of our job. The night presents itself with its set of gifts and challenges, but you know that basically just about everything can be solved on the floor.

Plates on the pass, folded napkin, wine glass.

I like the ‘Cousin’ exercise and I’ll apply it next time I am at the restaurant. It’ll be easy because working the floor sucks you into the present like a mother fucker. There’s no time to think of the solution. It’s about the action you take, on the spot, to solve the problem. Table 33 is delayed, nothing a mezcalito can’t fix. And the greatest gift is that you get to see it resolved right there in front of your eyes. When you work as a team, you turn down the lights, and the song hits the dining room just right, there’s nothing you can’t do. And for those hours, people from all walks of like and with their whole set of issues feel just the same. Tonight, everything will work itself out.

Vi and I are opening a wine bar and Swurl let the cat out of the hat! There will be more about that story soon but in the meantime, the story is of the rebirth of Colonia Verde. Today, not only are we not letting go, we are doubling down. CV is entering a new chapter, one that is more resilient, curious, creative and delicious. In a couple of hours, we will be onboarding one of my favorite people in the industry, Jamel Bratton, who will be taking the role of Director of Service. I have admired him and his work for many years and I cannot wait to work side by side with him.

Until the next story, see you on the floor.