z food & drink: the blog

End of a Blogging Era

2007-10-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

Despite our best intentions to keep on blogging throughout the first year of Z's operation, we haven't been able to give this little bit of space on the Web the attention it deserves. We are, however, happy to have a record of what those hazy, crazy and anything-but-lazy days were like between closing the deal and the opening the doors and happier still to have been able to share it with you.

In many ways it's hard to believe that Z has been open for six months already. Sometimes it feels like yesterday that we served our first customer and others as though this is all we've ever done. Manchester has received us well and for that we're grateful. After all, we chose this city deliberately and deliberate decisions have a way of working out even better than you expected.

Quite simple, it's been extraordinary.

We hope to see you soon at our home-away-from-home and to continue sharing the extraordinary with you.

Our best,
Tom & Maureen

While We Were Not Blogging

2007-08-08T07:18:00.000-05:00

Ah, summer. Everything slows down, no? Including the desire to sit at the keyboard one second longer than you have to when skies are blue, the sun is warm and humidity has taken the day off from its assault.

While were not blogging:

Maureen's business unit was reassigned to a brand-new initiative that's both exciting and hush-hush. The net/net: more change, more opportunity and a hell of a lot less time to write for anything considered to be pleasure.
Several members of Tom's family blew through town for visits of varying lengths, on their way to other destinations and, I imagine, in attempts to escape the blistering heat that is any California valley in the summer.
The new and last Harry Potter was released (Maureen lost a whole weekend there).
Maureen was also gardening at home while Tom continued to scour the farmer's markets and ranches for seasonal and other products in support of our objective to make Z's Sunday Dinner Menu as local as possible.
We were mulling over the idea of retiring the blog, or, at the least, taking another extended hiatus until such time as, well, until we can carve out more time to give this space the attention it needs.

Hope summer's treating you all well. It was both with a bit of thrill and despair that we noticed the first yellow leaves drift into the yard from a neighbor's tree. Autumn's going to be here before we know it.

Seriously Sidewalk....Seating

2007-06-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Our patio furniture has arrived!

Seating is limited.

Berets are optional.

Mojitos just might be mandatory.

Honor Thy Papa @ Z

2007-06-14T23:47:00.000-05:00

We'll be extending our regular Sunday service by one hour for Father's Day with family dinner going from 3:00p 'til 8:00p.

This week's Sunday dinner menu features fresh lamb, organic free-range turkey breast, and salmon as our trio of entree selections. I have heard a rumor about certain something-something for dessert, but mum's (or pop's, if we want to be strictly punny) the word.

Our Sunday dinner menu is market reactive and creatively spontaneous; posting the details in advance isn't always possible. We may, however, try to do that here or eventually over at our main Web site. If you'd like to see that happen sooner versus later, please post a comment or send an e-mail to maureen@zfoodanddrink.com.

Almost Forgot: Vacancy!

2007-06-07T10:25:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Our upstairs unit (2nd fl) will be available to rent in early July. If you or anyone you know are interested, please send an email to maureen@zfoodanddrink.com. Details are as follows:

Owner occupied, close to downtown, highway, Derryfield Park
3 BR, 1 BA plus office; eat-in-kitchen w/dishwasher; approx 1600 sq. feet
Washer/dryer hookups (current tenant has 18 month-old washer/dryer for sale in unit)
All new windows
Off-street parking for two (2) cars
No smoking, no dogs
$1100/mo + util (gas heat, electricity), deposit (may be paid in installments)
One-year lease; discount for multiple-year lease
Will send photos via email

We are going to be replacing the carpet in the master bedroom, so tenants will need to work with us to get that done if desired move-in is prior to the July 15th.

Thank you - M&T

And We're Back

2007-06-07T07:22:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Our blog hiatus is over--also, thankfully, are my carpal tunnel symptoms--and June has arrived in all its characteristic New England splendor: heat, haze and humidity; startling shifts in temperature; and thunderstorms replete with hail that, believe it or not, I missed when we lived in California.

On the Plate
We launched our Sunday Dinner program on May 20th, inspired in part Suzanne Goin's concept Sunday Suppers at Lucques (some of you may have seen her as a guest judge on season two of Bravo TV's series Top Chef).

Our version is a four-course, prix fixe meal ($28) that constantly evolves based on foods in season, local market availability and the whims of our chef. Once you select your entree course (poultry, beef or seafood), the Seriously Fun starters, salads and side dishes start coming and are served family style, as is Sous Chef Nellie Booth's dessert course.

Even though Tom and I try to sit down, no matter how late, and have dinner together on Friday and Saturday nights, it's the Sunday menu that's quickly become our personal favorite to share while we reflect on the week just past and discuss our plans for the week ahead. The menu is out of the ordinary, the ingredients couldn't be fresher and, as I've been overheard to say on occasion, it's the closest I've come to eating Tom's home cooking since opened for business (and maybe, just maybe, that's his sneaky way of getting me to work a third day on site).

We've also got another fun announcement coming up this month that isn't exactly food related. Keep your eye on the blog or sign up for the newsletter--we'll make the announcement in a few places.

On the Side
What we're reading: Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and next up, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

What we're watching: Not much, but the DVR is programmed to record season three of Top Chef (I am hoping that because it's based in Miami that some of the restaurants Tom and I love there are featured; during season one, a challenge was set in San Francisco's Frisson, where we celebrated the first anniversary of togetherness).

What else? I'm in the beginning stages of mapping out a book proposal (!). I committed, in writing (okay, email, but it still counts) to another writer-friend that I would, if nothing else, have the proposal completed by January. And then, when I shared the idea with a friend who's a photograph (Hi Matt!), he nodded vigorously and said, "Yes, in addition to everything else you've got going on, you should write a book."

Why the hell not.

One in 10

2007-05-08T12:36:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Seems like we're only good for a blog post one in every 10 days. It's not for lack of stories to share so much as a combination of things familiar to any new business owner.

Things like staying one day ahead of being officially rundown by lack of sleep, eating once a day if we're lucky (the cobbler always has barefoot children and so do restaurateurs not feed themselves properly) and generally trying to squeeze too many tasks into too few hours and still maintain a sense of humor.

Additionally, the insane amout of hours I've been spending at the keyboard for my full-time job, the work I do for Z and email correspondence have started to take their toll in the form of pins and needles in my both wrists.

Sadly, the notes for blog entries languishing in my notebook will continue to languish as I give myself a much-needed break from typing 90wpm ten hours a day. One of the benefits of this Corporate America job of mine is a generous amount of paid time off. I'm taking this week and next week and will be on site at Z a bit more than usual and hope to resume blogging by the end of the month. It's all up to Tunnel de Carpal.

Til then--

Only Seriously Loved Mamas Get to go to Z

2007-04-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:

With the weather we've been having, it seemed Spring would never come, but the air is warming up and that's helped us forgive the April showers and their habit of coming and going.

Still, how is it possible that when we flip the page on the calendar next week it will be May? In some ways it feels like we just opened the doors at Z, but in reality, we're one month old today!

Mother's Day will be here before you know it and while Tom's mother is used to the occupational hazard that means working (read: a belated phone call), mine isn't. We'll have her in for dinner beforehand, of course (Tom's parents live on the West Coast) and somewhere in between we'll be celebrating my birthday as well. Although the two dates don't coincide this year, I was actually born on Mother's Day lo those years ago. It was a Sunday and family lore has it that the day I arrived into the world couldn't have been more fitting (it was not an easy pregnancy).

Thusly: Z will be open expanded hours on Sunday, May 13th, offering its full dinner menu from 12p to 7p. Reservations are already coming in, so if you seriously love your mama, call now to make yours--603.629.9383. We bet she likes the Mojitos.

Still Here, Just Busy

2007-04-23T19:31:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Having been open for business for just over three weeks, it's perhaps naive of me to think that Tom and I would have settled into something resembling a routine or gotten a grasp (no matter how loose) on what the new state of normal for our lives. Hopeful, yes, but also naive. The business of our lives is, out of necessity, the life of our business. And I'm fairly certain that won't change in six months or a year or even five years. It's the nature of the entrepreneurial beast, is it not? And it must be why you so often hear industry peers half joke that the two best days of owning a restaurant are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Me, I try not to think about that.

Because, if you're good at what you do--and biased or not, I'm going to say again that Tom is brilliant and not until now, working side by side, did I understand just how brilliant--there are a lot of days in between the purchase and the sale. And the best thing you can do you for customers and yourself is focus on those days one at a time.

And focusing on the day at hand is exactly what we've been doing, though lately those days have felt more like they've had their way with us than the other way around. No sooner did we get our boy cat home and healing than our girl cat took a turn that our vet described as 'as serious as internal medicine gets'. We'll spare you the details, in part because even though she's a fighter and a strong little girl, they are fairly heart wrenching. Which means that Tom and I had A Painful Conversation (TM) after hours at the vet's office, the result of which is was the mutual agreement to take things four hours at a time. So far, the little one is better and better each time we check in on her and if she continues to do well, she may come home in a day or so.

I really can't say enough good things about Lockridge Animal Hospital; everyone there is the embodiment of the practice's mission statement. In a world where compassion is often hard to find, Manchester is blessed to have them as part of the community.

Stay tuned for more restaurant-related anecodotes, information about our expanded hours for Mother's Day and other points of interest.

Into a Groove

2007-04-13T06:44:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
It occurred to me the other day that I shouldn't have said you were 'stuck with me' in relation to the dearth of entries from Tom. Not because the phrase smacked of low writerly self-esteem (though one could argue it did), but because once the doors opened, Tom stepped into his wheelhouse and the list of new-and-interesting-to-him things to write about began to dwindle or, at the least, aren't appropriate to publish in a public space.

I, on the other hand? I sit daily, not always calmly, but I sit daily in the center of an information storm. I'm learning the nuances of a line of business with which I have limited experience (things like how, when you're out to dinner and the owner or manager visits your table, yes, they're gauging your experience, but they're also examining the plating and presentation of your meal). I am learning how to modify my skill set to support the restaurant, service our customers and empower our staff. I am learning that the practice of being present and focusing solely on the immediate reality doesn't just keep you grounded and centered, but might in fact be a smart way to build a business.

We are slowly getting into a groove, Tom and I. Slowly learning what life as restaurateurs looks and feels like. And by life I mean the whole of it--professional, personal, domestic, familial, social, spiritual, emotional, physical (we're still not eating our first meal of the day before noon). We're finding our way and finding it more quickly than I anticipated even though this last week has been anything been but typical and none of the anomalies had anything to do with the restaurant (shakeups at my company and the ensuing additional job responsibilities, semi-emergency surgery for our boy cat that's set him right as rain--thank you Dr. McCammon et al at Lockridge Animal Hospital--and yet more snow in April).

So I'll be writing about this search for balance between owning a restaurant and having a life, what I'm learning and what maybe I wish I didn't have to learn and keeping you all up to date on any happenings at Z. Until next, read on for a visual-literary representation of what the 48 hours prior to opening felt like (with apologies to William Faulkner).

Still tweaking the menus and need to finalize them now so the printer can print them and we can stuff them into the menu books and wow they look hot don't they, but we need take-away versions and we're going to have wait on that because there is staff to train and paperwork to complete for payroll and tax withholding and direct deposit and the back door where deliveries come might as well be a revolving and I think right now I could focus better in the middle of Grand Central Station or the Filene's Basement wedding gown sale because I've realized fully and finally that we have XX people in our employ and for me, the long-time good corporate worker bee, it's enough to strike terror in my heart, but there's no time to be scared which is actually helpful because the kitchen and the pantries and the dining room need to be set up and organized because I still have to procure things from the office-supply store like rubber bands and tip envelopes and thermal paper rolls and plastic sheet protectors and more (more!) dry erase markers which disappear more stealthily than socks in a dryer and small trashcans that are in keeping with decor but aren't priced in keeping with decor and then I have to print and hole punch the reservation sheets and what about gift certficates and has anyone seen the stack of take-away menus I just printed or the fuel cells for the table lamps and dear lord in heaven we don't have carryout containers can Joan go out for some, but that's right, the lunch menu isn't completely programmed in the POS yet and we need her for that because Kristine is running all over hither and yon to complete the bar inventory and I still need to record the voicemail message on both lines and why is there so much interference on the line whenever I try to do that, well, I can't worry about that because the glasses and flatware have been buffed and need to held to the light and checked and we only just now determined how we want to present the salt and pepper and yes Joan, you're right that neither Tom nor I has eaten in about 36 hours but I'm off to the mall and I hate the mall, but I'm off to the mall because we both need multiple pairs of dark wash jeans to wear on site and Tom's size is the notoriously difficult to find 32" x 34" and please tell me if you know where I can find jeans that are age/style appropriate for me because there is low-rise and there is no-rise and we are apparently living in a no-rise world and who wants to look at no-rise when they're eating, let's be real, and don't get me started on how it seems that the fashion industry designs for the 20-year-olds and the 60+-year-olds or the issue I take with being ignored as a demographic with spending power and how I can't do anything about it because owning a restaurant and launching a clothing line and having a full time job would kill me and Kristine, please tell me, even if you're lying, that this gets easier and that okay, really, by next week at this time I won't give this day a second thought because there are only 24 hours before we open and there is not enough kava tea in the world to get me to the place where I'll believe we're going to be ready or I can take a full and complete breath.

But we were. And I did. And Kristine was right: it's way easier now. More terrifying in a lot of ways, but way easier.

Dear Weather

2007-04-11T16:19:00.000-05:00

Stop. Just stop.

That is all.

Thank you.

What New Restaurateurs Have for Easter Dinner

2007-04-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

Pork lo mein
Beef with broccoli
Shredded szechuan chicken
Steamed rice

Somewhere around 9:00p, choose these or other items from takeout menu. Phone restaurant and place order for delivery. Provide credit card number and expiration date. Wait patiently for doorbell to ring. Eat on sofa while wearing pajamas. Plan to, most likely, repeat on Easter Monday with leftovers.

Casual Elegance

2007-04-06T07:17:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
If you live in the Manchester area, pick up a copy of the Manchester Daily Express and read the page one feature about Z and its aim for casual elegance.

(As of this writing, the Daily Express's Web site had not yet updated its PDF link to the April 6th edition, but you can check back on your own; please note that the PDF version is usually available for one day only, but today being Friday, once its up, it might remain until Monday.)

This time, Tom knew the Daily Express was coming and he neither caught a cold or got caught by the camera wearing a baseball cap. The bad photo curse, it seems, is broken (amen to that).

The article does a great job of explaining an important aspect of our concept in a way that's easy to understand: pressed linen on the tables doesn't have to mean a stiffer, more formal atmosphere; neither does a staff dressed in jeans and t-shirts equate to flimsy flatware and paper napkins. Besides, the cost for new tabletops? Utterly ridiculous.

But I do feel compelled to say that while I've wondered what life would have been like if I'd met Tom at the turn of the century, fact is we didn't know each other then. We met in late 2003 when he was working for The Catered Affair and it was in June, 2004 that we moved to California where he GM'd for an independent restaurateur in Carmel.

We made the decision in July, 2006 to return to Manchester because what we saw happening downtown from afar was exciting to us. We didn't just want to partake in the transformation, we wanted to contribute to it. So we moved back...from CA to Z.

One Week Old Today

2007-04-05T18:28:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
You're stuck with me for a while as, unlike Tom, I've caught my breath. At least for today anyway. And today, Z is one week old. Last week, I asked one of our senior staffers if it was always going to be this hard (we weren't open yet). She promised me it wouldn't be and I didn't believe her. But you know what? She was right. I'm not saying the hardest part is over, but the bone-crushing sense of urgency is fading fast.

What's Changed Since We Opened:

The flow of money as it pertains to the operating account is now bi-directional. We quickly grew used to watching our funds dwindle and drain and were painfully aware that what money we had was all the money we had, so it gave us pause when we saw the credit card deposits hit the account. Money coming in. Whatdya know?
Tom remembered just how many people he knows here. Customers from restaurants he worked at in days gone by have been coming in for dinner, cocktails, conversation. I've loved meeting them all; Manchester is still new to me and I, myself, don't know many people in the area (I'm from Massachusetts and my social network resides there still). I think that's the sound of roots being put down that I hear.
We know who most of our blog readers are now because a good many of you have been stopping by to introduce yourselves. This has been big fun for me because in some small way it feels like you've been on the journey with us. Just re-reading that last sentence sort of makes me want to gag, but I'm being sincere here. The rest of y'all should come in and say hello.
Inclement weather is no longer a prompt to stay in pajamas and slow the pace down. Now, it calls mind to the potential impact such weather can have on business like ours. Restaurateur friends of ours still don't want to talk about what they lost to the Valentine's Day storm. I don't blame them.
We are out of laundry detergent, but not yet out of clean clothes (note: it is rare as snow in Apr....nevermind...let's just say I run a tight ship and we don't run out of anything, ever. You know, until now). This pleases the cats because at the end of each day, they are far more interested in the food smells we bring home than they are in us. They're not as pleased as they would be if we brought home leftover chicken, duck or chopped steak, but seriously. They'll survive.
I haven't knit a stitch in weeks. Weeks! You don't care. I know. But ask Tom. I'm much nicer to live with when I don't have orphaned socks in my knitting bag, crying for their unborn mates.
We love our DVR even more than we thought possible. We just hope it can hold everything we'd like it to until July.
Z is no longer a dream deferred, but a dream manifested. The road ahead is long, but hey: we're walking on it.

Work the Line

2007-04-03T14:21:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:

If you haven't already, don't forget to visit our other home on the web:

www.zfoodanddrink.com

Tom's working the line in Z's kitchen tonight while our beloved Chef de Cuisine David Federschneider takes a well- and richly-deserved night off. If you're headed out to dinner this evening, what better time to stop in for your first visit?

It was back to work for me yesterday and back into the Boston office for me today. Is it wrong to say that even with all the month-end reporting and catching up there is to do after six days out, that being there felt like slightly like vacation? I wrote to someone today that aside from mending a broken heart, opening Z is probably the hardest thing I've done to date. When I said as much to Tom he replied, "What?! This was an easy one!"

The empty blister pack of Nauzene tablets in my handbag says otherwise (thanks Ariel!). It was a rough few days for me; I even went off coffee (the horror). But I'm much better now and (finally) working on getting notes together to share with you from the opening (there are so v. many people to thank and they all should be thanked properly and publicly).

More soon!

Visit Our Other Home on the Web

2007-04-01T21:23:00.000-05:00

Tom and Maureen say:
More about our first days as restaurateurs will be coming as soon as we can catch our breath. That will happen someday, right?

While you're waiting, you can visit our other home on the Web. Z's official Web site is live for your viewing pleasure at:

www.zfoodanddrink.com

There you'll find our full lunch and dinner menus along with our wine list in web-ready and printer-friendly PDF versions.

Z begins serving lunch tomorrow, Monday April 2nd from 11:30a to 2:30p. If you're one of our downtown readers, come in for a chopped salad (bibb lettuce, grilled chicken, serrano ham, croutons, chopped eggs, gruyere cheese, pearl barley, english peas, champagne vinaigrette) or Tom's favorite sandwich--the grilled ham and cheese (serrano ham, gruyere on some of the most luscious rustic french bread we've ever tried). Maureen is more partial to the chicken salad (green tea smoked chicken, cherry tomatoes, sesame aioli, baby spinach, francese roll), but we guarantee everyone will find something they love.

Or at least you'll see Tom. Maureen returns to her full-time job tomorrow, but looks forward to seeing you on occasional nights and most weekends.

Seriously Open for Business

2007-03-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

Tom and Maureen say:
Z opened its doors for the first time last night and it was, well, is it okay to say it was brilliant? We'd blather on for pages and pages except that the ratio of time to tasks is still way out of whack (and Maureen returns to her full-time job on Monday). Forgive the brevity. Madcap stories will appear here eventually.

Until then, come see us for dinner:
Mon-Thu, 4p-9:30p; Fri-Sat, 4p-10p and Sunday 4p-8p

Beginning April 2nd, come for lunch too:
Mon-Fri, 11:30a-2:30p

Phone 603.629.9383 to make a reservation. Or walk on in. One of us will be at the door waiting to greet you at 860 Elm Street, Manchester, NH. Z will be closed on Easter Sunday.

Toward Opening Day with a Bullet

2007-03-27T06:12:00.000-05:00

A very tired Maureen, who has neither the time nor the inclination to proofread this before she posts it, says:

Now I know why, when we first moved back and spoke of our intentions to open a restaurant, our friend and fellow restaurateur collapsed in the shoulders and said said, "Why would you ever want to do that?" She were mostly joking, of course, but people? I soooooo get what she were saying. This is why they make those 18-hour bras, isn't it? Since we got our liquor license three and half days ago, we have seriously considered sleeping in the space.

And getting that liquor license wasn't without its drama. The second Tom had the signatures in hand to obtain the actual license, he got in the car and headed for Concord. It was mid-afternoon and the state offices were open until 4:30p, so we had plenty of time. Except when he arrived there, a little before 3:30p, he was told that the trade name was printed incorrectly on our permits. I got a frantic call from him asking for the phone numbers for the Health and Fire Departments, which I pulled off the Internet. While he raced back to Manchester, he called both agencies and the amazing staff there pulled together new permits and had them waiting for Tom when got back into town. Then it was back in the car and a race against the clock to get back to Concord before the state offices closed. It was 4:26p when he presented the corrected permits and got the license.

Then, there's the usual drama. The kind that's definitely more than a pain in the ass, but isn't what you'd call catastrophic: vendors lacking pride in craftsmanship who have no choice but to re-do their work because we didn't give them another choice; delays in signage production owing to back-ordered paint and the time the paint will take to cure; other, smaller parts of the interior vision not translating as well as we'd hoped when they were put into place.

But we had our first staff meeting and Tom and I are confident that we attracted an aces team who believes in and reflects our overall vision; out of the kitchen we're getting good energy, good noise and good smells; we've got our linens on site, our liquor orders placed and the stereo speakers wired and placed.

We're almost there, but not quite. There are easily a hundred things for every member of the staff, including Tom and me, to do and do just this morning. And then there are the phone calls. Vendors. Ad sales. Curious folks about town. There are the faxes. Deliveries. Questions. Endless proofreading. And let's not forget feeding the parking meters (that's a full-time job in itself).

It's early yet today, but already I'm behind. Still, the thought it takes to write a post here forces me to slow down the adrenaline rush and remember that it won't be very long at all before someone I love sees a dream he's been making for the last 20 years come true. I have never wanted one, single thing for 20 years; I can't imagine what that must feel like. But it does me a little misty when I try to.

Y'all keep an eye on this space for the opening announcement, you hear?

We Got It!

2007-03-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

Tom arrived back in Manchester about an hour ago with

the liquor license in hand

!!!

The First of Several Announcements

2007-03-22T07:25:00.000-05:00

Tom and Maureen say:
The last week or so it's been nothing but noses to the grindstone getting the work done that would allow us to begin the not-very-long, but still somewhat winding road known as obtaining the permits required for Z to open its doors.

The permitting process in Manchester is far from onerous, but it must be followed in a very specific order, each step dependent upon the one before it.

That journey came to an end at 3:30p yesterday when we obtained the last permit needed to go before the State Liquor Commission today and get our liquor license. What does this mean? Well, once we have our liquor license, we can open the doors any time we're ready.

And being ready means that we took about five minutes to celebrate and then it was back to work. Recipes tweaks. Getting the liquor order finalized so the second we have the license, we can fax it off. Programming the POS system. Printing the menus. Assembling materials for staff training. It's at the point now where prioritizing is impossible because everything's of equal importance. And details that seem like they'd no take time, are eating up hours.

But we're close. Close enough that the light at the end of the tunnel is a beacon instead of a pinprick.

Come for Dessert. Stay for Dinner.

2007-03-17T08:42:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
The progress we made this week was stunning. No longer do I have tilt my head to one side and squint my mind's eye to see the vision: what once was potential is actualized. Tom's been on the opening of no fewer than four restaurants; Z makes the fifth. And while he's told me over and over that the rate at which things come together increases exponentially during the last couple of weeks, it was a challenge to stand there, surrounded by materials, tools and staging, and believe him.

So we've got our own version of March Madness going on here and the brunt of it's being taken by Tom; the pace of my full-time job has picked up as well, making it more difficult for me to support him. When the end of the day comes--and it's coming later and later--we're done. Spent. Kaput. Hence why Tom hasn't been back to the blog to a) announce that dessert is the winner for this week's menu preview and b) post the chosen dessert.

But you? You all will soon get your chance to partake in one of Z's signature sweets. It wasn't easy to choose just one preview, but the one we've chosen is guaranteed to please.

Creamsicle Crème Brûlée

The exact culinary origin of this classic is apparently contested, with various European countries taking credit for it. Sometime toward the end of the 19th century, however, the French trumped them all with their translation so that today we know it as crème brûlée.

Z's version was inspired in part by Tom's challenge to create a signature crème brûlée that honored the Italian tradition of the restaurant he worked for in the 90s. Enter Tuaca.

Like crème brûlée, Tuaca's origins are also unclear. According to tuaca.com, this premium liqueur with hints of citrus and vanilla has been said to have been created for Lorenzo the Magnificent, an Italian ruler who was a patron to Michelangelo and Botticelli. American servicemen, the site says, discovered Tuaca during WWII while stationed in Livorno, Italy, but couldn't find it upon their return home. Then, Tuaca came to the United States in the late 1950s, but it is and has always been crafted by the Tuoni family in Italy.

Z crafts its crème brûlée with this unique liqueur and the result is one, Tom said, that when he first tasted it brought him back to his childhood when his grandfather, who worked for a dairy, made sure there was always plenty of ice cream to choose from and enough creamsicle ice cream to go around for everyone.

Creamsicle Crème Brûlée is served with candied citrus peel and druken orange sections.

Tuesday-come-Wednesday's Teaser Coming Soon

2007-03-14T06:23:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
So far, we've previewed a starter, a salad and an entree, leaving us with a sandwich or a dessert to showcase.

Which do you want to see? Tell us your preference in the comments section or via email to maureen@zfoodanddrink.com and we'll post the preview as soon as the votes are in.

I have a feeling I know which one's going to win.

Pause

2007-03-12T08:50:00.000-05:00

Tom & Maureen say:
We have a very long list of things to do and very little time in which to do them. The days are here where we not only can, but must focus our attention solely on matters that operational in nature.

Over the course of the next week we'll be working on:

Ensuring our employee manual is well written, easy to read, thorough, and last but by no means least, compliant with federal and state regulations.
Drafting product knowledge guides for the fab opening staff we've hired (yes, there will be a test--so we've got work on that too).
Assembling all other staff training materials and HR-related documentation.
Producing and tasting samples from the kitchen (it's rare Maureen eats before 3p these days and that Tom eats all, so at the least, this guarantees something other than pure adrenaline will fuel us).
Finalizing food and beverage product orders.

All this on top of what is really and truly the last--LAST!--big push to complete construction so the permitting process can begin in earnest. And wrapping up the formal Web site. And. And. And. And.

Emotionally, we are soooooo ready for this phase to end and the next to begin--the phase where we open the door and let you all in.

As a result, after tomorrow's menu teaser, posting will be sporadic for the next week to ten days, but do check back because we've only hit the pause button. There's no such thing as a full stop at Z.

And remember, you can always sign up for the newsletter if you want to be among the first to know when those doors do open. Just send an email to newsletter@zfoodanddrink.com with the word subscribe in the subject line or body to be added to our e-mailing list.

Thanks for reading and for your emails, comments, interest and support. Have a great week everybody!

TGI What?

2007-03-09T07:04:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
When you're opening a restaurant or, I imagine, any business, that familiar acronym spoken by millions come the end of the week no longer holds any meaning. You TGI a lot of things, but TGIF? Not so much. Not yet anyway. When it's one of Z's busiest nights of the week, it will be a different story. For now, Friday is just like any other day because on Saturday we'll still be overscheduled, overextended and if we're not careful, overwhelmed.

In spite of the maelstrom-like start to the week, we're ending it in great shape:

The electricians returned to swap the outlets in place for the ICGs needed to support the POS system.
Wednesday's job Open House brought in 40+ candidates who applied to be part of Z's opening team and there was more quality among the applicant pool than not (when does that ever happen?).
Our dining room chairs and bar stools arrived yesterday. So did 85 percent of our small wares.
The final half wall with its custom window is up, with wainscoting, window installed.
Found money in the budget resulted in the purchase of a PEK Radiant Broiler for the kitchen.
We selected our uniform shirts and successfully avoided having to dress staff in (the ubiquitous) black and ordered our bistro aprons.

Behind the scenes, work continues on the Web site, the employee handbook and about 728 administrative details that aren't difficult, only time consuming. I don't have the heart to tell Tom that we lose an hour tomorrow. Probably because I'm not quite resigned to it myself. If life can change in an instant, imagine how much we could accomplish in that lost hour.

Or maybe I will tell him. Because he's taking the KitchenAid with its ice-cream attachment away today and he hasn't even made ice cream for me yet. "I'll make ice cream for you," he said before leaving this morning. "It'll just be at a different location."

Tuesday's Teaser

2007-03-06T19:30:00.001-05:00

Tom says:
So, Tuesday's Teaser is running a bit late. Everything in our lives right now seems to be running a half hour behind. Things we thought we'd do in the morning don't get tackled until late afternoon; plans for early evening get pushed back to the next morning. But--enough with the whining. As someone reminded me the other day, I did, after all, sign up for this.

Today's menu preview: Duck Breast

It seems I've always loved duck and if I recall--someone (I wonder who?) will correct me if I'm wrong--it's what Maureen ordered on one of our first dates down in South Beach (talk about your whirlwind courtship). That aside, my love for duck has as much to do with its flavor as its versatility. As a young chef I learned early on that working with it provided a multitude of ways for me to--forgive the pun--spread my creative wings.

The Duck Breast at Z is a dish I've been working on for years, adding and subtracting, tweaking and fine-tuning until I hit upon what I believe is a new classic.

We start with a whole duck--bone-out breast and thigh. The thighs are slow cooked, confit-style. Fat is rendered from the breasts (skin down, low temp), then placed in reserve for more culinary goodness later in the process; meat is picked from the confit thighs, added to a mix of red peppers, cucumbers, Napa cabbage, cilantro and mint before being rolled into a Vietnamese-style spring roll.

The duck breast itself is then seared skin up in a H O T pan, then put into the oven, skin down again, with a hoisin glaze. We leave it in there just long enough to achieve medium rare--fine duck breast off the bone should never exceed a medium temperature. When it does, the meat dries, toughens and takes on the gamey flavor that turns folks away from it. I promise you, no one is going to turn away from our Duck Breast.

The final component of this signature dish is basmati rice cakes seasoned with a bit of sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. The rice is purposely overcooked just a smidge so that once it's cooled, it rolls easily into balls that are then flattened into cakes. How are the cakes cooked? See above; culinary goodness. Also known as duck fat. It's my opinion in general that fat rules, but duck fat? It doesn't get much better than that.

If you want to see the garnish, well, you'll just have to come in, won't you?

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

2007-03-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

Tom says:

The Good.
Our Chef de Cuisine started today. Dave went straight to work getting the kitchen organized and by the end of the week the first samples will be coming out of Dave's new home away from home.

Mike's putting the finishing touches on construction--the glass block partial walls are up; the back bar is built, including shelving, and is ready for paint; and the remaining areas of the floor are prepped and awaiting tile.

The menu is just about set now with last-minute inspirations for dessert rounding out our offerings. After a meeting this morning with Ed and scheduling additional meetings later for later in the week, we can say the same about the wine list.

Employment ads--print and online--have generated a steady stream of applicants that should provide us with a solid pool of candidates from which to choose (we're holding an Open House for employment on Wednesday from 12-5p at the restaurant, so if you're interested or know anyone who might be, send them down to 860 Elm Street, Manchester).

The Bad.
Part I of the two-part cautionary tale about what happens when you choose, out of necessity or otherwise, to be your own General Contractor.

Got a call first thing this morning from our signage vendor with the news that the city didn't approve our sign. Our plans, as submitted, had the sign hanging too high on the building (despite the fact that I can look up and down the street and point to examples of exactly what they rejected). All told, this is the first and--knock wood--the only hiccup we've heard from the city and, well, it's probably something that could have been avoided if I'd hired a professional GC who might have been better acquainted with current codes and thus addressed this issue at the design stage. We have options, but we don't have time to think on any one of them too long. As always, as many people reminded me, there are worse problems to have.

The Ugly.
Part II of this cautionary tale makes the signage seem like a non-issue. I need isolated ground circuits (IGCs) to run the Point-of-Service system. When I first talked with my electrician, I did mention the need for both power and telecommunications ports to run this POS system I hadn't yet purchased, but didn't specify what kind. An experienced GC, especially one who had managed restaurant renovations, would have known to install IGCs at the outset.

As ugly as this particular situation is, we've been and continue to be fortunate such that extra charges here are offset by savings there. The additional cost to change the outlets over will be made up by the forced changes to our signage. Just another one for the books when we go to open a second shop (just kidding, Maureen--you can start breathing again).

Tuesday's going to be another monster of a day, but it's also the day we preview an item from our menu. Look for that tomorrow night, late. Until then, thanks for reading.

The Little Things

2007-03-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
When you're starting any business, you'd think the big decisions would be the most difficult ones, the ones that result in long, drawn-out debate and endless discussion. That's what I thought because in my mind big decisions are, by default, equated with big money.

What I've discovered, though I suspect I always knew it on some level, is that the bigger the decision, the louder your gut speaks to you and its message is unmistakably clear. Things like choosing a logo or lighting or even the almighty point-of-service system were the cliche no-brainer decisions. Where we're getting caught up is in the little things.

Choosing staff shirts, for example. We don't have a large staff, so price per shirt isn't a huge consideration. Fit, however, is. So is color. Ditto sleeve-length. And we made a decision a long time ago that unisex isn't the way we want to go. Thus, locating a supplier with shirts that are the right style and weight, that offers compatible men's and women's versions with two sleeve-lengths per with a color palette that's in keeping with our decor and our brand? That's what results in the long, drawn-out debates and endless discussions. Add to that that staff will also wear bistro aprons, which come from a different supplier with its own rainbow of colors we'll need to match, and I've experienced my first hours of lost sleep since we started this venture.

Other things I've been working on behind the scenes include the Web site (choosing a design was easy, mostly because our designer is brilliant, but writing the content is another trial), coffee and tea selections (when everything you've tasted is great, paring down to your final offering is unexpectedly difficult), creating a mood music strategy (fortunately, I've got a friend who's aces at this and he's offered to put together a few custom mixes for your dining pleasure), and walking around the house with the menu folio to see how it looks next to the menu sheets in various levels of light (we may need to change our original color choice).

Then, there's that whole list of other little things that would, in our eyes, make Z nothing short of perfect but aren't necessarily in the opening budget. We can't do all of them, and the ones we'd most like to do are the ones that cost the most. There's time, we tell ourselves, to add these in after the opening. They are, we tell ourselves, touches that only we'll miss because we're the only ones aware of them. We need to redefine our idea of perfection, we tell ourselves, because as much as opening a restaurant is about realizing a dream, at the end of every shift it's really about the food, the experience and the relationship we have our customers. In those areas, there is no room for compromise.

Four Thousand Words Worth

2007-03-03T23:33:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
These photos were taken two days ago and already they're dated. That's how quickly things are progressing at Z. That's how quickly things need to be progressing at Z. To the untrained eye it probably looks as though we're nowhere near opening, but as is often the case, appearances are to the contrary. We've got lights. Banquette seating installation. Almost a bar. Obviously we've got a camera. Pretty soon I'll be able to call out, "Action!" And that, friends, is going to be a really really good day.

p=mv

2007-03-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Back in the day when I was a wanna-be engineering student, I learned that the Newtonian definition of momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. In other words, momentum is a measurement of how difficult it is to stop an object in motion or

p=mv

The principle of momentum conservation states that velocity remains constant unless the object is acted upon by a force outside the system. This week at the restaurant we've experienced a critical increase in velocity. This, in turn, has increased our momentum such that our hope of an opening date is less fantasy and more reality.

After days and weeks where it seemed we were stuck in a state of inertia, finally, I see the light at the end of this renovation tunnel. What's more, we're moving toward that light with a speed that can only come from putting every red cent you have and then some into making your life's dream, well, your actual life.

Then there's the panicked realization that despite the end of the renovation drawing near, there are still 1,246 things to do; the lists are daunting and my petition to the timekeepers in Greenwich to add more hours to the day have been denied. Best I can do is remind myself, constantly, that so long as I am always doing something, then eventually everything will get done.

One item on that list is uploading new photos of the space from the camera to the computer so we can give everyone another look at how far we've come, though it's entirely possible that to the outside observer it might not look like we've accomplished much.

But right now it's time for this object--me--to be at rest. The light may be visible, but the tunnel, she is long.

Tuesday's Teaser

2007-02-27T07:36:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
We're nearing the end of construction and it's going to be a Big Push this week to wrap it all up. Today I have no fewer than four trade crews in the space. The electricians are just about finished, the plumbers are making their first appearance to begin rough work, the carpenters are putting final touches on the banquettes, and Mike's prepping the bar floor for tile. That's a lot of crew in not a lot of space. I'm hoping everyone plays well together. Just because there's no room for me in the space doesn't mean my to-do list is any shorter.

Onto today's menu teaser: Goat Cheese Croquettes.

In my opinion, a great salad has four essential ingredients: fresh quality greens, a fruit, a nut and a cheese.

We are fortunate here in New Hampshire to be able to source great local goat cheeses from some wonderful farms as well as some of the best spring mesclun lettuce mixes I've worked with. Local lettuce mixes are always a treat as they vary slightly in composition throughout the season. That natural variety is what keeps salads fresh and interesting. The nut in this salad is toasted pistachio, the fruit is sun-dried cranberry and it's dressed with a champagne vinaigrette.

Goat cheese croquette is a fancy way of saying fried cheese, a guilty pleasure who among us hasn't indulged in at one time or another. Ground pistachios are one component of the croquette's unique breading, adding flavor and texture where you least expect it.

When using mesclun lettuce mixes, I keep dressings simple to honor the delicate nature of the leaves. Good olive oil. High-quality acid (vinegar, citrus, etc.). Salt and pepper. You really don't need anything more than that.

What I need more of though, is time. It's off to meet the plumbers and get on with the day. Besides, if I say anything more about this salad and Maureen's going to want it for dinner tonight.

East Greets West

2007-02-26T07:52:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Life doesn't stop because you're opening a restaurant. Not exactly a newsflash, I know, but a reality nonetheless that I sometimes find completely and utterly annoying. Like last week, when five minutes before we had to leave for a Very Important Meeting, we heard the ominous sound of running water that could only be a burst pipe.

Other life stuff of as late includes a tenant giving notice that he was breaking his lease for personal reasons. Having a vacancy at this time of year is less than ideal. I mean, come on: how many people are looking for a place to live in the middle of winter? And where, exactly, were Tom and I going to find the time to show the unit to anyone who was?

Situations like this, I am learning, tend to sort themselves, but only if you don't lose your head. This is when being overly busy becomes your ally. With so much to do and only so many hours in a day, even my predilection toward worry and overthinking have to take a number. And when the number came up for this particular worry, it proved moot. We had a new tenant in the form of Tom's cousin, Nate, who's embarking on his own adventure by trading the West Coast for the East for a while.

Nate worked for Tom when we lived in California and now he'll work for Tom (and me) again at Z. We're happy to have him, lucky to have him and we have the added bonus of a visit from Tom's Aunt Jackie who made the cross-country trek with him. They arrived yesterday afternoon and already things seem easier. Family's good that way. Great that way, actually.

Me, I'm hoping that this trend of things sorting themselves, retaining my head and not ever having to truly panic continues. Cause the calendar? I'm tired of it mocking us, taunting us and generally behaving as if it were the almighty and sole ruler of the universe.

Don't forget, if you'd like to be among the first to know when Z opens, send an email to newsletter@zfoodanddrink.com with the word subscribe in the body or subject line. We'll add you the list for the opening announcement, the launch of Z's formal Web site, and our post-opening newsletter.

The Devil is in the Details

2007-02-23T07:09:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
I've long championed the idea that the difference you make when undertaking a task, providing a service or delivering product is found in the details. I still believe that, but what I'm learning as a first-time restaurant owner in the startup phase is that the devil is in those same details. At least with respect to material goods.

You'd think it would have been the big decisions that overwhelmed and exhausted me. Things like hiring a chef, renovating the dining room and choosing a point-of-service system that meets our opening needs but can accommodate growth. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

Big decisions often center on products or services that are time-sensitive and mission critical. You don't over-think them because you can't. The clock's ticking, so you go with your gut and 10 times out of 10, your gut doesn't let you down. With those decisions out of the way, you can focus on those little things that mean a lot.

We're in search of the perfect candle lamp for the tabletops; a menu cover that aligns with our concept and is sized for our menu sheets; a treatment for the front window that's functional and eye catching; bread baskets and salt-and-pepper shakers; staff uniforms. The list goes on, the possibilities seem endless, and if we're not careful the devil's going to catch us in a weak moment and bust the budget.

It's common for financial planners to have clients take a week and document every purchase they make so they can see what spending habits have a negative impact on their savings power. What that practice reveals has more to do with purchases made out of habit (daily latte), on impulse (the four-dollar magazine at the grocery check-out), or without thought (single-use bottles of water) than major living expenses. It's the details of your life where money seems to disappear most.

Similarly, multipy a menu cover that's reasonably-priced at $3.50ea by the 100 pieces you need, but oh--wait. A hundred pieces only takes care of dinner. What about lunch? Dessert? The wine list?

I was talking this over with my friends at CS Fishery and we all agreed that it's right about now that you finally start to compromise. It's right about now that you let go of a little bit of your vision and do the best you can with the (little) resources you have. It's right about now that your finite cash and your infinite details make friends. You can always go back and upgrade later once your revenue is coming in.

Not sweating the small stuff is counter to my personality, but you know what? It actually feels okay to say, "Once some revenue is coming in, we can go back and upgrade A, B or C." It feels okay because there are dozens of other details that comprise superior service that don't cost you a thing and those will be with us from the minute we open the doors. The question is, will YOU be with us that minute too?

If you'd like to be among the first to know Z 's opening date, send an email to newsletter@zfoodanddrink.com with the word subscribe in the body or subject line. We'll add you to the list for the opening announcement, the launch of Z's formal Web site, and our post-opening newsletter.

Cuppa Cuppa

2007-02-21T08:44:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
I want to thank everyone who's sent emails or commented here on the blog. Your interest, support and good wishes are very often what spurs us on when our stress levels threaten to reach the danger zone. I also want to assure those of you who have expressed concern over my increase in coffee consumption that going from 20oz to 40oz daily has less to do with exhaustion than it does with the aces coffee roaster who held a tasting on site at Z.

Amherst, NH's A&E Custom Coffee Roastery holds the distinction of being the first certified organic coffee roaster in the state. Obtaining organic certification is a complicated process and something we, as consumers, don't often think about. I'll forego a lengthy explanation and attempt--probably poorly--to reduce it to its essence: every bag of coffee that A&E roasts can be traced back to the farm where the plants were grown and every step along that path, from farm to roastery, must also be certified organic. (If I'm wrong, I'm sure Emeran will correct me).

We already knew that liked A&E's business practices, so it was really a matter of taste that was going to inform our decision for a coffee vendor. Emeran, A&E's owner, brought a variety of coffee-regional roasts that would help train our palates to distinguish among qualities like brightness, body and finish--not unlike wine. Following the tasting, she sent additional (generous) samples to the house and it's at those which I've been pointing the finger of blame for my new 40oz-a-day habit (I'm partial to the Kenyan and Nicaraguan blends). If we weren't planning to use them for Z, you know I'd be signing up for their home-delivery program.

Emeran also sent several loose teas and with these I've fallen completely and desperately in love. I love my tea and have the supply at home to prove it, but ever since I tried her Indian Chai and Blueberry I'm not sure my old favorites stand up anymore (I'm rethinking our decision to go with Choice Organics).

So much in love am I with these two particular teas that last weekend I made Tom take a drive to A&E. I knew the cafe would be closing for a week to complete its relocation to the Carriage Depot complex on Route 101A (it reopens for business on February 26th) and I didn't want to run out. I can't remember the last time I panicked in the face of running out of anything. Well, except maybe money. But then we bought a restaurant and I got over that too.

Whet Tuesday

2007-02-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
The sidebar to the right provides a general overview of what Seriously Fun Food is at its essence. Aside from our opening date--still tentative as of this writing--the question on everyone's mind seems to be: Yeah, okay, but what's on the menu?

It's Fat Tuesday in New Orleans, but here at the blog, it's Whet Tuesday. As in we're going whet New England's appetite with a select preview of an item off Z's menu. In the weeks leading up to the opening, these previews will continue to pop up here and there on the blog.

Long-time readers know that Z offers reinterpretations of classic fare that has become part of the American dinner table's vernacular. Some of the dishes we'll preview here are ones I've spent my career developing. Others riff on meals I've eaten during my travels. And still others pay homage to the family recipe archives.

Today we're previewing one of Z's starters. Its composition is influenced heavily by growing up in California's Central Valley and the ways in which my mother infused our lives with the area's rich, agricultural bounty. You've all eaten this combination at one time or another, whether you want to admit it or not because, let's be honest: who doesn't love chicken fingers and fries?

Really, if this dish weren't already fun, it wouldn't be on the thousands of menus it is. So how does Z make its Crispy Chicken Seriously Fun?

By going back to my roots.

Where we lived in the Central Valley, nut tree groves defined the landscape and nuts of all kinds were a constant in our house. Anti-junk food to a fault, my mother always pointed us toward a bowl of of them when we wanted a snack (still in their shells of course, as heaven forbid she make it easy for us). It's just my humble opinion, but a house with a nuts will never be a home.

Anyway, nuts, in general, were common for us. Macadamia nuts, specifically, were not. Due to their relative cost in the 70s, it was only around the holidays that these beauties showed up and, as a result, my mother rationed them like so many coins knowing full well I'd eat through the can in an hour if left unsupervised. But it was only when I started work for a Boston-area caterer a few years ago that I learned how versatile macadamias could be and what a fantastic breading they make for chicken.

Then there's my mother's jam. Of all the canning and jamming and preserving my mother does--apples, cherries, peaches, plums, etc.--what she does with apricots can only be described as world class. Preserves this perfect don't respond well to lots of tinkering, but by mixing in a little of this and a little of that, I created a sweet-and-sour fruity goodness of a dipping sauce that you might just want to eat with a spoon.

Okay, so sweet potatoes are native to Central America and not the Central Valley (these tubers can be traced back 10,000 years in Peru but only appeared in the United States around the 16th century), but you can't argue with their taste, texture or nutritional value. Z's sweet potato fries are cut shoestring style which makes them all the better to share with your dining companions...

...or not. You may decide you want to keep them all for yourself.

Sunday Dinner

2007-02-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
We took a break from the restaurant today to cook Sunday dinner for Maureen's parents down in Massachusetts. Sunday dinner is something Maureen and I both grew up having. In today's over-scheduled world, though, this is a meal, that for most of us, exists only in fond memory--nostalgia even--except on the rare holiday that ends the weekend.

Z will serve lunch Mon-Fri only, but dinner every night of the week. On Sundays we plan to open a bit earlier and offer our own interpretation of Sunday Dinner: a fixed price, multi-course menu where items except for the entree choice are served family style. Because today's world is overscheduled. Because dining options are limited on Sundays. Because, as Maureen likes to say, if it weren't for Sunday Dinner, I might have been any number of things in this world instead of a chef/restaurateur.

***

Gazpacho? Check. Cheese straws? Check. Prime rib in the oven? Roasting away. My grandparents are arriving in an hour and I still need to set the table and arrange the centerpiece of roses from the garden.

“Mom!” I yell, “Jacki won’t leave me alone and get out of the way!” Jacki is my sister, younger by two years. It is four o'clock on a late-summer afternoon in 1978. I am 11 years old and in the final stages of preparing for my first Sunday Dinner party, what my family now calls my debut into the world of all things culinary. The menu?

Hors d’ouevres:
Cheddar cheese straws
Insalata de Arroz (rice salad)
Gazpacho

Salad:
Caesar Salad (prepared table side in the old-school style with raw eggs)

Entrée:
Roasted bone-in Prime Rib of Beef
Twice-baked Potatoes
Steamed Asparagus

Dessert:
Chocolate Cream Pie (my grandfather’s favorite)

My mother brought out her wedding china, the good silver. Is it any wonder I fell in love with every aspect of entertaining at such a young age?

My mother wasn't just your classic stay-at-home mom. She was the enigmatic product of an upper middle class upbringing and the earthy-crunchy movement that seemingly defined 1970s California. She made everything and still makes most things today from scratch--bread, yogurt, granola and jam--and she always used local, natural ingredients. Cookies? Never store bought. Cakes from the bakery were for people who were unmotivated. Looking back on this now, it's unbelievable to me that I used to complain about having hot muffins or fresh-fruit turnovers at breakfast while my friends had PopTarts. She even taught cooking classes to the neighborhood kids.

Dinner, however, is where my mother excelled and Sunday Dinner was her crown jewel. The leftovers from that dinner generated another 2-3 dinners that carried us through the first half of the week. Sunday's roast leg of lamb was curried with rice on Monday and turned into Scotch Barley Soup on Tuesday. Strangely enough, as good as Sunday dinner was, I always looked forward to these 'leftover meals' and it's the creativity she applied here that most strongly influences my menu recipes today.

That first dinner party wasn't exactly a success. Instead of a teaspoon of dry mustard in the rice salad, I used a tablespoon, but everyone, even my sister, overlooked the mistake (obviously I didn't and still don't seeing as I can recall the exact error almost 30 years later). But the Sunday Dinner I cooked yesterday--NY strip loin roast, sauteed brussel sprouts with maple-cured bacon, and pan-fried red bliss and yukon gold potatoes--that was a success. Maureen's mother said that one of the best parts about it was that she didn't have to make it. If that's your feeling about Sunday Dinner as well, then soon enough you'll be able to have our favorite meal of the week with us at Z. We, of course, look forward to serving you.

Some Side Effects of Opening a Restaurant

2007-02-15T11:14:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:

You Stop Eating Out. You're broke, you're exhausted and most restaurants are closed by the time you get around to eating, if that time ever comes at all. Besides, any place you could go, you won't relax anyway. You'll be too busy guessing what font the menu is printed in, gauging the space between tables and debating the merits of providing individual specials sheets or having servers recite them instead of enjoying your meal. Probably you're going to be doing something like that anyway, so you might as well do it at home over a nice bowl of cereal.

You Lose Your Will to Live. Okay, you still want to live, it's just that when you finally call it a day, the will to do nothing but sit on your ass comes pretty close to trumping everything else, with the only reason to get up off the couch being to get another glass of wine. The solution is to keep the bottle with you, preferably within easy reach. If it's been a particularly trying day, bring a backup bottle. It's likely you're wearing the wine opener on a chain around your neck by now anyway.

No Matter How Much Laundry You Do, There Are Always Two Loads Waiting to Be Done. Who knew? While some of the volume can be attributed to the seasonal need to dress in layers, mostly it's the dirt. This polymathic business partner of mine not performs general contractor duties, but quite often, acts as a contractor himself and comes home filthy, sometimes to the point of disgust. So much for the energy-conserving practice of getting two wearings out of various items of clothing.

You Look Forward to Trips to Certain Box Stores. For things like toilet paper, cat litter, laundry detergent, Method household cleaners, dish soap, shampoo, razor cartridges and garbage bags. I never knew parting with a couple of C-notes at the home of the bull's eye would fill me with such joy, but it does. If I'm spending that much money there at once, it means I don't have to go back for another three months.

Your Listening Skills Improve. You're not only in want of break in living/breathing/talking about your endeavor, you need one. Consequently, you listen to the goings on in the lives of friends and family with heightened interest. I mean really listen. Not the sort of pretend listening where you're really just waiting for a break in conversation so you can jump in with the next thing you want to say. Active listening. And you realize that everyone's got their own version opening a restaurant happening in their lives. And okay, whatever--kumbaya--we're all in this crazy thing called life together, marching to our personal drum beats and making our own kind of music. So you put down your wine glass, get up off your ass and do the damned laundry. You write a blog post. You call it a night.

I'm in the Mood for Love...err...Light

2007-02-14T07:41:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
The electrical crew has finished the rough installation and the materials stacked in the dining room are slowly being moved to the areas where they'll be put to use. Our designer Ariel and I are finally able to identify see places where we can add the extra details needed to pull the full look-and-feel of Z together.

These details are the kinds of things I never noticed in restaurants until I began thinking about opening my one of my own. Over the last few years I've paid less attention to the food (terrible, I know) and focused instead on dining room configuration. It used to be that when I went out to eat that the only details I absorbed were related to the food I'd eaten. I could go on for hours about ingredients, flavor profiles, technique and presentation, but not so much about how the restaurant actually looked. That's all changed.

But even though I've been taking mental snapshots of restaurant interiors for a while now, it wasn't until I went to work for Bill Lee in California that I learned how critical lighting is in creating the mood you want to evoke for the customer. Bill was always tinkering with the lights, adjusting the positions of the floods and the table spots, trying different wattage, and seeing what effects colored bulbs, twinkle lights or rope lighting achieved in relation to his concept. I'm not talking about the obvious impact too-bright or too-dim lighting has on mood. It's more about the subtlety--something the owner will notice that you might not, but that you'll respond to naturally and unconsciously.

One of our largest renovation expenses, of course, has been our lighting and its installation. The lights that were in the space when we bought it were nice--in fact, we'll probably use some of them at home where overhead light is needed--and anyone who visited the space seemed to comment on them. Size, shape, color, the way they cast light in relation to bulb size? Not in line with our concept. So we've taken them down and replaced them with track lighting.

Track lighting fulfills several mood-enhancing objectives: they allow us to spot light each individual table in a way that's not stage bright, but on-a-pedestal bright; it also allows us to flood areas of the ceiling to showcase the craftsmanship of the tin panels; lastly, its positioning can be set to draw your eye to various design features and make them stand out.

One of the design features we'll enhance with lighting are the Pittsburgh Corning glass blocks we're using in the build out of partial walls and the bar as illustrated by this sample application photo from the company's Web site.

Back light these babies with low-voltage lighting and the effect is pretty dramatic. Between this and the other lighting schema Ariel and I designed we've achieved what I almost thought couldn't be done: ambiance that's smoldering and yet doesn't stray from the whimsy of our overall concept. We accomplished the goal of getting the most bang for our buck by spending wisely on atmospheric elements rather than being seduced by high-priced furniture and fixtures.

Maureen and I wish you all a smoldering, mood-lit Valentine's Day, Nor'easter blowing through town and all.

They Call It 'Restaurant Recycling'

2007-02-13T14:06:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Z is one of several soon-to-open restaurants featured in the February 13th edition of the Manchester Daily Express. If it's still February 13th when you're reading this and you have Adobe Acrobat installed, click here to see the article in PDF form.

Otherwise squint really, really hard at the screencap of the article below. Tom's got a knack for being either in the throes of a cold or two days without a shave when the press comes to call, but he's still got that je ne sais quois, non? I almost missed the article, though, because they misspelled Tom's surname and that's the word I search for online.

"But All Shall Be Well...

2007-02-13T06:35:00.000-05:00

...and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

T.S. Eliot quoted this line from Julian of Norwich in the fourth of his Four Quartets, Little Gidding, and it's a relevant balm for the rash of stress and chaos spreading across our lives at the moment.

But my favorite quote from this English Mystic called Julian, the mantra if you will that's getting us through these days, is this:

"Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

We wouldn't mind a few of those miracles you hear about sometimes either. I'm just sayin'.

Oh, yeah: this is Maureen if you hadn't guessed already. Carry on.

Oh, but seriously.

2007-02-10T09:01:00.000-05:00

You thought we were kidding?

Destroy and Create

2007-02-08T07:43:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
There comes a time in every renovation project where your patience or, rather, your impatience, gets the better of you and then, miraculously, all the moving parts suddenly sync with one another and the result is one very beautiful machine.

This is not that time.

Work is progressing, but it's hard to see beyond the destruction even if you understand that destruction is necessary before creation. Right now, the dining room is a holding area, which is a nice way of saying storage. Twenty-five cases of tile, nine wall sconces, four pendant lights, stacks of plywood, MDF board, 20 feet of cherry bead board that will be used for wainscoting, and 15 cases of glass blocks--basically, everything we need to finish the job is in that room. This, in turn, means that the amount of physical space we have to do the job has gotten smaller. With approximately five weeks, give or take, until we open, it looks like it will take at least that long to clear it out and clean it up.

All this is enough to make me forget sometimes why I'm doing this. But then, I had a meeting with our Chef and I remembered. It's about the food. It's about the experience I want to deliver to downtown Manchester. It's about having the guts to take everything I've learned over the last 20 years and put into play beneath an awning of my own.

When I first began thinking about opening a restaurant, I knew what kind of Chef I wanted to hire. Because I'd likely spend a significant amount of time in the kitchen at the start, the Chef should be on the younger side, energetic and dynamic; someone who'd served as sous chef for a few years and was ready for the next step of chef de cuisine. He/she would also be able to execute my vision of the restaurant's concept, could be trusted to manage the daily operations of the kitchen and be someone who had found his/her authentic culinary voice.

I believe we've got that Chef. Until we issue a formal press release announcing the hire, we'll refer to him simply as Chef. He came to us via high recommendation from a friend in the business, has worked as a sous at a local spot I hold in high regard, and most importantly, he aced the tasting--nailed the concept, showed off his technical skills and demonstrated the ambition to make his voice heard. It's a voice worth hearing is all I have to say.

So he and I sat down last night for the first time since he accepted our offer and we talked opening game plans and expectations. It was also the first time in weeks and maybe even months that I got to talk solely about the food, the belief system behind the concept, and the narrative or story I want the menu to tell. I got to talk about cooking techniques. I got to talk about ingredients. I got to talk about creating.

And it was good.

For a brief moment, the stress and adrenaline subsided and I forgot all about the drywall we tore down to string the wiring for the wall sconces the thin film of dust that coats everything (including me when I come home at the end of the day), and the mountain of materials waiting to be used that seems insurmountable.

Since We Last Blogged (a break down of the last five days)

2007-02-07T07:01:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:

Problems bank fraud policies have caused versus prevented: 3

Instances where I said the F-word in a conversation...with my mother: 2

Chefs hired: 1

Business cards printed: 1,000

Menu layouts approved: 2

Personal guarantees signed and notarized to waive exorbitant deposit fees: 2

Tax returns filed: 4

Solicitations to provide credit-card processing machines: 17

Life/business partners with water-on-the-knee: 1

Ounces of coffee I used to drink daily: 16

Ounces of coffee I drink daily now: 40

New coffees tasted in the search for a supplier: 3

Times the phrase "I'm tired," has been uttered in our house: 13

Personal emails and phone calls I owe: 11

Days since my appetite up and left: 2

Nights waking up in blind panic: 3

Stitches I've knitted in attempts to maintain sanity: 3,776

Realizations that we're fortunate to be doing what we're doing despite the aforementioned exhaustion, panic and a loose grip on sanity: countless

When Given the Choice...

2007-02-05T15:18:00.000-05:00

...between blogging or eating/sleeping, we are going to choose the latter. Watch this space for more updates over the next two days.

M & T

Resource Allocation

2007-02-01T23:58:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Now that the check for big-ticket items have been cut and we're close to hiring our management team, I'm becoming intimately acquainted with the concept of resource allocation.

Yesterday, I listened to a pitch from a security company whose product line ran anywhere from $2,000-25,000. At the essence of the pitch was fear: if we're leaning toward the low end of the range, then we're setting ourselves up for disaster.

This kind of decision requires a risk/reward analysis. Does a state-of-the-art video surveillance system that's tied into the POS system really pay for itself with the amount of shrinkage it reduces? Is your only choice to spend a ton of money now or lose that same amount slowly over time?

Or, is there another way? The research I've done says that following good cash-handling procedures and vigilant awareness reduces your risk of an external security breach by making you a less desirable target for theft and a little deterrence can go a long way toward achieving that. What remains is that if a thief really wants to steal from you, they'll find a way. Your goal is to deter them just enough not to make it worth their while.

That same research also says that you're most at risk for an internal security breach. In a restaurant, that can mean bartenders over-pouring drinks, bartenders and servers not charging properly for items, an excessive number of voided items on order slips, cooks and cleaning crews walking product out the back door, customers walking away from the bar on a busy night and not paying their bill.

Here, I believe, is where you have to make a philosophical choice: invest heavily in surveillance equipment that engenders a environment of fear and distrust or apply old-fashioned methods like strict inventory controls, hiring and training of competent and ethical staff and treat them with respect as integral parts of the team. The latter creates a working environment that's built on respect, empowers staff and allows them to invest themselves in the success of the restaurant. If you create that, then anyone who may be inclined to engage in dishonest practices will be less so. But if you create an environment where staff feels unappreciated and/or slighted and you make it easier to justify an over pour here, a voided item there.

A certain amount of shrinkage happens no matter what you do. So, you weigh the risks and rewards of paying now or paying later and hope you make the right decision. Pretty much like everything else in life.

All motion is cyclic. It Circulates...

2007-01-31T22:02:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
..to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point.
--Robert Collier

You know the saying 'two steps forward, one step back'? That's not exactly what the last few days have felt like, but it's not far off. More like two steps forward, two to the left, one back, three to the right, another one forward and so on. There is progress. There is motion. Just not always in the same direction or at the same time.

Our noses have been buried again small wares catalogues. We received the samples for our initial selections and while they're gorgeous, they are not unlike objects viewed in a car's sideview mirror in that they are either larger and smaller than they appear in photos. This wasn't the case for all our selections thank the stars, but, well: there's the one step back. Conceptually they're what we want, but practically speaking, not so much.

Ditto the flatware. In terms of design, the pattern aligned with our vision, but the weight of the individual pieces felt light in our hands. The pattern is also 18/8 (18% chromium, 8% nickel) versus 18/10 (18% chromium, 10% nickel), though both are considered ideal alloys for stainless flatware. Chromium is the component that gives the steel its stainless properties; the amount of nickel is responsible for the degree of sheen the pieces have. The difference between the alloy compositions is minimal--both are considered top grade and both protect against corrosion--but in a commercial setting, 18/8 will wear faster than 18/10, so we're rethinking that point as well.

Having to rethink decisions we've already made seems to be this week's leit motif. However, rethinking decisions based on facts is better than second-guessing yourself in a fit of insecurity. It just is.

One thing we don't have to rethink is the light fixtures. The pendants and sconces arrived today and they're nearly what we expected, save for the degree of opacity. But that's hardly what you'd call a problem. Special thanks to my best friend Kath, who incidentally works in commercial lighting, for placing the order. We said, "Let there be there light."

And there was. And it was good.

Catch-22

2007-01-29T23:31:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Tonight I read John Foley's latest post on The Restaurant Blog and found myself alternately nodding in agreement, laughing and experiencing a slight case of nausea. In his post, Foley outlines a two-tier skill set one needs to possess in order to be a successful restaurateur. Go on, click here to read it. I'll wait.

At the risk of being overly reductive, Foley's saying, albeit in a different way and in a slightly different context, what I said a few days ago: You have to wear a lot of hats. You have to be, as Foley says, more rounded than the head of Exxon.

I'd like to add to that list that you also need to have a thick skin. Even if your business plan is solid, your budget's tighter than a cork in a wine bottle and you've got twenty years' experience in the industry and the majority of them are in the market where you plan to open, certain organizations aren't going to want to do business with you. What at first seems like just hesitancy, but is really refusal cloaked in well-developed people skills is going to make you question not only how the hell you're going to pull off your venture, but why, in the first place, it ever seemed like a good idea.

Okay--I get it: restaurants are a high-risk proposition. It's not a secret. Even if you've never really thought about it, chances are that at one time or another, you said, "Hey, let's go to that little place on Such-and-Such Street," only to find out, once you arrived, that it was no longer in business.

Here's what I don't get: the most common reason that most first/new restaurants fail is undercapitalization. I'm willing to bet that a small portion of undercapitalized restaurants simply didn't borrow enough money. More likely though, they couldn't find a traditional bank or commercial lender who was willing to write the loan for the amount they'd need to succeed. Or any loan at all (enter bootstrapping).

Restaurants are risky, they say. Ironically, the majority of these lenders focus their local ad campaigns on their support of small business.

Anyway, the Catch-22 nature of it all is enough to drive me to drink. Think about it. Failure rates for first/new restaurants are most often tied to undercapitalization. I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe, just maybe, if lenders helped restaurateurs achieve a solid capital position the failure rate might not be so high and that market sector might become less risky. I'm just thinking out loud here, because--get ready for more irony--two years down the road when we have a track record we created without their support? They'll be knocking on our door with a check in hand.

Now, I'm not balking at the idea of opening a second location someday, whether the same concept or a different one. That's what money two years down the road would mean. What I am balking at is the idea that a second restaurant automatically has as much or greater chance of success than the first. I've seen first restaurants open on a shoestring and grow into amazingly successful businesses and then I've watched second restaurants, with more funding than they knew what to do with, flail or even fail for reasons that are much harder to identify.

This can't be news to the banks. And that makes it even more difficult to understand.

[Note: that isn't always the case. Michael Buckley's triumvirate--Michael Timothy's, Surf, and Buckley's Great Steaks--is a shining, regional example, all the more notable for Michael Timothy's and Surf being across the street from each other. ]

We found private financing with a small, independent lender who's taking a chance on us. And we've connected with small, independent vendors who are willing to work with us partly in trade--everything from signange to consulting to electrical. If I wasn't already a stalwart supporter of independent business, I would be now. This is how you answer the cry that downtowns everywhere are being taken over chains and box stores and corporate logos. You hang out our own shingle and you frequent places with shingles like yours.

MDMT

2007-01-28T07:29:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Tom was spot on with the distinction between the multi-tasking required in the kitchen and the multi-tasking that opening a restaurant demands. It's tempting--though perhaps not very nice--to say to him, "Welcome to my world...

...the World of Multi-disciplinary Multi-tasking (MDMT)."

I'm not saying it's easy to hold down a full-time job, contribute to the restaurant opening, manage seven-tenths of the household, wrangle the cats, retain my grip (however loose) on my sense of Self, nurture relationships with friends and family, and still sleep a minimum of eight hours a night*. But it is possible, even when the adventure you're embarking on is a bit more terrifying than exciting.

[Pause while author tries desperately to rid her ears of Peggy Lee singing I'm a Woman.]

The key for me is thinking of Z not as a business I own, but as a client I've been assigned to service. Approaching it in this way helps keep emotion out of it and enables me to make sound, rational decisions more quickly.

So how do you multi-task successfully across a variety of disciplines where successfully means not losing your mind?

Remember, always, that whether you're opening a restaurant, organizing your child's birthday party or taking up the violin, everything you're doing, no matter how big or small, directly contributes to your highest objective.

Each task Tom's performing has its own mini-objective (usually to cross the damned item off the list). Completing those tasks, however, contributes to the higher objective of opening the restaurant doors on time, on budget, and keeping them open. But the highest objective, here, is for Tom to work for himself and have that work align with his core values (passion for food, commitment to quality service and a deep love for the endangered species known as the independent downtown merchant).

As dissimilar as the items on Tom's to-do list might seem to him at times, they're all leading to the same destination. That's what he needs to remember when he feels like all he's doing is spinning his wheels.

Speaking of spinning wheels...actually, let's not. Mine's still in its box and there ain't no way taking it out is going to get the restaurant open (but maybe one day, the restaurant will support my fiber habit).

*Rest is sorely undervalued in our culture, but it's the one area of my life where I refuse to compromise. Without sleep, I'm rubbish.

If Tom's Chief Cook...

2007-01-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

...does that make me Bottle Washer by default?

More musings on this later. Til then, carry on.

In Which I Wear Many Hats

2007-01-24T23:36:00.000-05:00

The big news today was City Hall's final approval on our plans. Now, our subcontractors can move forward with pulling the permits they need to get their respective jobs done.

[A special note to Karl, who I know now reads the blog: Thanks for holding my hand throughout the process. You made an overwhelming experience less so and brought us that much closer to opening the doors on time.]

Plans approved, it was time to get on the telephone and start scheduling the crews who've been waiting for approvals along with us. Is it wrong to wish that the only role I have to play some days is General Contractor? I feel good about the progress we've made, the pace we're moving at, and comfortable with what we have left to do with what remains of the timeline. So why, on days like today, does it seem like we're no further ahead than we were yesterday?

I think the answer lies in the demon that is multi-tasking. You'd think it wouldn't challenge me the way that it seems to be, right? Working the line in a commercial kitchen all you're doing is multi-tasking: one eye on the starters for the the tables that were sat ten minutes ago, the other on entrees for a party of eight, and the eye in the back of your head is staring down modifications to a dish to accommodate dietary restrictions and all the while you're tracking inventory so the servers can communicate there are only two catch-of-the-day specials left.

The difference is that the multi-tasking I do in the kitchen is single-minded: produce quality product to be delivered the customer in a timely fashion. In other words, the only hat I wear in there is my chef's toque.

Today, you could name almost any department that makes up the whole of a company and I was at its head.

Human Resources: scheduled a meeting to further explore employee group plan options (health); interviewed a candidate for dining room manager and reviewed additional resumes.

Accounting: invoice and receipt filing--they're coming in fast and furious now that work's being done.

Food & Beverage: scheduled a tasting with a chef candidate for early next week (two starters, one salad, one entree; two items must be off our menu, two from the candidate's personal repertoire).

Finance: delivered pertinent financials to Point-of-Service leasing company (believe it or not, purchasing a POS system, after installation and training, is the greatest single-item cost--more than the bar, nearly ten times the cost of the light fixtures).

Information Technology (IT): confirmed our business DSL installation.

Marketing/PR: the only hat I didn't wear today because it's snug on Maureen's head.

No wonder my head feels to explode. And no wonder that the very last thing I want to do when I walk through the door tonight is cook dinner. It's also the very last thing Maureen wants to do as she worked in Boston all day and beause she manages our personal budget I know takeout isn't an option.

Cooking at home amounts to my contribution to the household. Makes sense, no? Trouble is, the last few nights I've been lacking in motivation and desire. Not that that matters to her because trust me, I get the way longer end of the stick when it comes to the house and by no means do my equal share. She'd said though, that once I went back to work we'd split up the cooking a bit. I am just now figuring out that what she means by 'back to work' is earning an income again.

If that's not motivation for getting the doors open and taking downtown by storm, I don't know what is (kidding). Dinner? One of our reliable standbys--mexican pasta. Seared pork, cut into small strips, red and green bell peppers, diced tomatoes, black beans and sweet corn, which I realize isn't much of a recipe, but give a guy a break, okay?

Can't. Help. Myself.

2007-01-24T08:02:00.000-05:00

Maureen's just sayin':

pal·ate [pal-it] –noun
1. Anatomy. the roof of the mouth, consisting of an anterior bony portion (hard palate) and a posterior muscular portion (soft palate) that separate the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
2. the sense of taste: a dinner to delight the palate.
3. intellectual or aesthetic taste; mental appreciation.

pal·ette [pal-it]–noun
1. a thin and usually oval or oblong board or tablet with a thumb hole at one end, used by painters for holding and mixing colors.
2. any other flat surface used by a painter for this purpose.
3. the set of colors on such a board or surface.
4. the range of colors used by a particular artist.
5. the variety of techniques or range of any art: a lush but uneven musical palette.
6. the complete range of colors made available by a computer graphics card, from which a user or program may choose those to be displayed.
7.(in ancient Egyptian art) a somewhat flattish slate object of various shapes, carved with commemorative scenes or motifs or, esp. in the smaller pieces, containing a recessed area probably for holding eye makeup and often used as a votive offering.

pal·let [pal-it] –noun
1. a bed or mattress of straw.
2. a small or makeshift bed.

pal·lette [pal-it] –noun
Armor. A small plate defending the front of the armpit when the arm is lifted; gusset.

/rant

Avoidance. Sort of. Not Really.

2007-01-23T18:02:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Am nearly out from under the weather, although winter-chapped skin and a nasal tone would lead you to believe otherwise. My sense of taste, however, has returned and just in time to sip my way through a package of sample teas that arrived in yesterday's mail. Three bags into my tasting, a fourth steeping now, and my choice of suppliers is simple. I'll opt out of revealing which Choice Organic Teas I've selected, but I'll promise you that each of them is perfectly lovely. I've also located a local, independent coffee roaster that, like COT, supports Fair Trade. Am very excited to schedule the tasting as, whenever possible, we'd like to do business with local independents (if you'd like to learn more about Fair Trade click here; to find Fair Trade Certified products near you, click here).

Tea is one of several things I turn to in moments of overwhelm. I'm sure Tom would prefer that I turn to it always as some weeks ago the panacea-of-the-day was dismantling my home office somewhere between the time he started dinner and well past my bedtime. Three hours and many reconfigurations later, it became a much better-functioning space (still in need of paint, still with no art on the walls or blinds in the window, but, you know: Rome. A day. Not built in).

I know, I know--my behaviors are transparent even to me. Create an illusion of control over the world? Check. A quick and easy sense of accomplishment? Check. Impose order on a room that has, for months and months also served as a catch-all for things like the cordless drill, shipping boxes and gift wrap? Check. Channel nervous energy? Check. (If you find yourself in a similar state of anxiety but without a home office to reconfigure, then I highly recommend the also-satisfying task of tidying the pantry cupboards.)

It may seem to some that I'm resisting overwhelm or worse, denying I'm overwhelmed by procrastinating and thus making matters worse. The truth is, I'm actually working with overwhelm the best way I know how: by performing tasks that produce tangible results. Call me daft, dotty or dim, but when the last book's spine is aligned with the edge of the shelf and various half-emptied boxes of corn starch are combined into one, I feel a little bit stronger. A little more equal to the tasks waiting for me. A little more David to the GIANT that is opening a restaurant.

Because, while I can afford myself the luxury of vacuuming the dryer vent or deleting watched items off the DVR, a moment spent in self doubt would break the spiritual bank.

This post? Provides the joy of having written without the pain of writing about the 427, 982 things that are freaking me out right about now.

Lead Time

2007-01-22T23:35:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Managing any project start-to-finish requires that you prioritize. Ideally, you want to complete the project on time and under budget; if you complete it on time and on budget, well, that's good too (definitely better than being late or over budget or both). The project plan needs to be flexible and by extension, so do you. Whatever challenges arise, whether known possibilities or complete surprises, you need not only to meet them head on, but meet them with fair, reasonable and unemotional solutions.

There is a possibility that we may have to push the opening back one week, which doesn't sound like a lot until you consider the revenue projections. Interestingly enough, the factors contributing to a possible one-week delay are things I could only learn by doing. In two words: lead time.

More interesting to me is that the areas where lead time might hurt us don't, per se, lie in the dining room. From demo to decor, the dining room will be ready. What we'll be waiting on are the small wares (2-4 weeks lead time), the point-of-service system (4-6 weeks lead time) and exterior signage (4-6 weeks lead time).

So why, with all of this taking up space in my head, was I experiencing a mild panic about staffing? The short answer is, I have no idea.

And then today turned out to be one of those days where Maureen says the universe was listening.

Even before we moved to California I hadn't really lived in Manchester for about five years. Add to that the time we spent in Carmel and I was essentially gone for seven. But the friendships and business relationships I established when I did live here full time? Still going strong.

I've already mentioned, though it will always be worth mentioning again, the counsel and support I've received from Tim, Ed and Pam. But this morning, an old friend from my days at Cafe Pavone and Villa Banca stopped by the restaurant to have a look-see. Joan and her husband also recently returned to Manchester, having lived the last three years in Colorado. We reminisced some, caught up on where we are in our lives now and then she offered up her help in every which way I might need it. Have I mentioned just how very good Joan is? To have the help of yet another person I trust completely goes a long way to keeping me sane. If this were a Ma$tercard commercial, Joan would be the priceless part.

Then, shortly after Joan left, Joe, who's the Assistant GM at Villa Banca dropped in for the 25-cent tour. With a lead for a server/bartender. And when Mike arrived with his tools in the afternoon, he brought a friend with him who's looking to add another part-time position to the one she's already got. Lastly, the ads we've got out there started getting quality responses.

Lead taketh away (small wares, POS, signage) and lead time giveth (thanks Joan, Joe and Mike!).

Maybe the universe was listening. So how about we generate profits by the end of the year? Shut up. It could happen.

All In Half a Day's Work

2007-01-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Wednesday. The demo and painting crew shows up at 8:00a and for some (stupid) reason it didn't occur to me that they would a) need ALL the space or b) move at the speed of light. In short, I lost my office for the day, which wasn't a big deal except for throwing me off balance.

So, I get these guys settled in and then I need to coordinate the delivery and placement of the dumpster. Having it sit on Elm Street was out of the question and behind the building, in the alley, there wasn't room. Fortunately, the owners of the building behind ours allowed us to park the dumpster in their lot for the next two days.

Of course the dumpster gets delivered while I'm in the middle of a pivotal meeting with Ariel and trying to make absolute, final decisions about the construction and design of the banquette seats. So I'm working with her, talking with the driver from the waste management company and then the painting crew chief, Fabio, rushes over to tell me there's water in the dining room.

There's water in the dining room ?!

Turns out the demo crew hit the one hot water pipe that hadn't been turned off. So, yeah: there was water in the dining room. Not a lot and nowhere near enough to cause any damage, but man. All this had happened and it wasn't even noon yet.

But by the end of the day, the ceiling had its first coat of paint; by the end of the next day it was finished (total gallons needed: 8); by the end of the week, the HVAC ducts and walls were wearing their new coats (of paint). And any trepidation I'd had about using bold color on the ceiling--and I'd had plenty--had vanished. The palette translated into fantastic and my vision is turning into reality now in ways that I can actually see.

This is the first week since we bought the restaurant that things seemed crazy and it's only the first of many crazy weeks to come: the police and fire departments both signed off on the plans, so the buildings department should be able to wrap up their approvals early next week. With that behind us, construction, electrical and plumbing can start.

My multi-tasking skills are being challenged. If I'm not in a meeting, I'm on the telephone. If I'm not on the telephone, I'm reviewing product quotes. If I'm not reviewing product quotes, I'm looking at signage and stationery comps. If I'm not looking at comps, I'm interviewing chef and dining room manager candidates. If I'm not interviewing, I'm rewriting menus. If I'm not rewriting menus, I'm tweaking the budget.

Hell, I'm always tweaking the budget.

Soup is Good Food

2007-01-19T07:29:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
While Tom's been focused on equipment and logistics (the demo started on Wednesday), I've been nursing a cold and directing what little energy I do have into two major projects at work. The lovely thing about having both a laptop and a wireless Internet connection at home is that one can, if so inclined, work from the comfort of a warm bed. I haven't as of yet, but I might: each time I think this cold has peaked, it worsens a bit. What started as a head cold has, this morning, moved into my chest.

Tom's feeling heaps better, though, and seems to have made it his mission to keep me in pots of soup. Earlier in the week it was a spicy Pho with chicken and ground pork, that, like most soups, was even better the second day. Last night, minutes after walking through the door, he started in on what he calls his Safety Soup. Safety Soup, so named in the early days of his career when du jour on the menu meant cooking a pot every two days, is easy to make, simple in essence and positively nourishing. If you do any cooking at all, you probably have your own version of Safety Soup. Tom's is tomato-based, contains the usual aromatics (carrots, celery, onion, etc.), chunks of chicken and tiny slabs of bacon (of course), seasoned with salt and pepper. If I asked him for the recipe, he'd say there was none and advise you to make it up as you go along which, for someone like me, is about as helpful an answer as 'cook it until it's done'.

All this is to say that I haven't visited the restaurant since Monday evening. I haven't seen the space emptied of table and chairs, haven't seen where the bar used to be (knocked down, gone, bye-bye), haven't seen the how the color we chose to paint the tin ceiling honors the decorative relief, haven't seen the primer on the walls, haven't seen anything that isn't an 'art shot' (further investigation led us to the conclusion that the blurry-photo issue lies with Tom's unsteady hand, not the camera).

But I have been moving along with writing content for the formal Web site, creative discussions with our Web designer, working with the agency on print production, talking with promotional item vendors about match boxes and coasters, and voicing pointed opinions on server/bartender uniforms, of which I have many.

Speaking of which, I'm of the pointed opinion that the folks at Tylen0l must have been under the influence of their own cold/flu products when they chose to coat their multi-symptom cold relief caplets in "cool burst". They're not chewables; you're supposed to swallow them. Perhaps this is targeted marketing for the segment of their customer base who takes caplets without water and complained about the subsequent medicine mouth. In which case, I'd like to suggest that the team responsible for package design put the phrase "cool burst" in significantly larger type as I purchased them quite by accident and was unpleasantly surprised by the taste of sickly-sweet mint (read: nauseated).

Sold: One 10-Burner Vulcan Range

2007-01-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
The original plan was to attend the restaurant auction with my friend, Tim, whose past experience with such events would benefit me, but it was not to be. The weekend's ice storm left his morning manager without power, which, in turn, left Tim without coverage at his own restaurant. I was on my own, armed with a plan and a handful of cash.

The cornerstone of that plan was to avoid overwhelm, not to be the metaphorical kid in the candy store. I arrived 30 minutes before the start of the auction to scope out the inventory. I knew what I'd come for--a 10-burner Vulcan range--but didn't know what else might catch my eye. Turns out, not much.

My plan also included identifying who, among the masses, were restaurant brokers and used-equipment dealers. Targeting those bidders, watching them closely would, I knew, help me to establish a baseline and keep me from over-bidding. The other attendees were an interesting mix of bargain shoppers and people like me seeking to outfit their restaurants at a price set by someone else's failure.

The bidders (myself included) were a pack of dogs circling the auctioneer, sniffing out the value of the lot, tracking his each and every word. The auction opened in the bar--stools, television, hand rail, the art on the walls--everything, even the silk flower arrangements, was for sale (it went for two dollars). A hundred plastic speed pours sold for a dollar; the blond granite bar top garnered $1,000. The lots were going fast, the majority of bidders devouring them like locusts in a wheat field while the seasoned bidders observed from the perimeter of the room. This told me what I'd already suspected: the best deals to be had were in the kitchen. And the kitchen lots were last on the auction's program.

When we moved into the kitchen, the energy shifted. Bidding increments increased from one or two dollars to $25 and $50 and the brokers and dealers pushed their way to the front of the pack. It appeared to me that they all knew at least knew of one another. There seemed to be an unwritten rule not to bid against one another else they they had prearranged agreements in place as to who was going to bid on what.

But I won the 10-burner I'd come for and it cost me exactly what I was willing to spend after factoring in delivery, minor repairs and cleaning. It wasn't a steal, but it was still a good deal. I made a significant equipment upgrade for what amounts to fairly short money. Should I be worried that no one bid against me? Is there something they knew that I didn't? If so, I'm sure I'll discover it soon enough. Meantime, I'll take one of the restaurant's line cook's word for it: it was the best range they'd had on their line, he said.

Within three hours, the auction was over. Within five, the restaurant was stripped bare (everything sold was required to be taken off premises same day). Nothing remained but empty liquor bottles and some misfit small wares that weren't worth five dollars.

Now it's time to turn my focus back to my to-do list with all the things on it that will keep the auctioneer's gavel from Z. Demo starts tomorrow.

Going Once, Going Twice

2007-01-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
All things considered, the weekend was fairly quiet as far as the restaurant was concerned. Maureen and I researched regional and local produce suppliers, finalized and placed the table top orders, and talked shop between movies playing on the DVR. The cold that's been plaguing me for the last 10 days settled in my ears, warranting a visit to the doctor today. A hundred and twenty bucks and one prescription for antibiotics later, I'm actually starting to feel better. Unfortunately, Maureen woke up this morning with what she calls a thick throat. She's been achy and cranky all day and the return (arrival?) of winter weather isn't helping.

Health matters aside, though we don't yet have our permits for electrical or plumbing, I did learn from the buildings department on Friday that we can go ahead and start in on the demo and the painting. I've scheduled the crew to begin on Wednesday (note to self: take more 'before' photos). Meantime, our interior designer, Ariel, continues to take my vision and run with it, all the while managing the various projects I've thrown at her with such finesse that I've nothing but confidence that my vision will become reality. And a fantastically beautiful reality at that.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Massachusetts for an auction that's being held at a failed Italian restaurant. The timing is right, not just because of where we're at with our own re-fit, but because the equipment being auctioned is, by commercial kitchen standards, still new (the restaurant was in operation for only 14 months and the lifespan of commercial equipment is approximately 10 years).

We may get some good deals, we may not. It's not how much we have to spend, but how much we're willing to spend and, in this case, there's equipment removal, hauling and installation to factor into the price. Even though this auction may be good for us, it's a hardcore reminder that the restaurant business carries a high risk. I can't imagine the owners of this place ever thought they'd be in this position a little over a year after opening.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they were excited, optimistic and convinced they'd take their town by storm. Especially when you consider that it probably took them more than a year and $500K to execute the initial build out of the space. It's too easy to Monday-morning quarterback their failure and insist the reasons they failed are the same traps I'll actively avoid: my offerings will be superior, my service standards higher, my location better, my marketing slicker. The hard, cold truth is that the reasons a restaurant fails aren't always that clear. Sometimes, the root cause of the failure is forever ambiguous. And if it's happened to you, you have to find a way to live with that. If it could happen to you, you have to be prepared to find a way to be able to live with that.

Looking back over my career, it seems I've always worked for successful operations and with some of the finest independent restaurateurs in the country. And yet, when I look at my resume--just the facts, ma'am--there's only one restaurant I've worked in over the last 10 years that's still in business.

If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go throw up now.

The Family Business

2007-01-13T19:20:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Yesterday Tom's mother sent us some photographs of her maternal grandfather's restaurant, in Middletown, New York. The Mid-Mont, named for its site at the intersection of the Middletown and Montgomery highways was, to Tom's best recollection, a bar.

A bar fit well with Tom's memory of his Great Grandpa, Carl Schumacher, as a big, strapping man--a firefighter--with a shock of white hair and a wealth of silver dollars in his pocket that he doled out to Tom and his sister.

The pictures, however, belie Tom's interpretation of what, exactly, the Mid-Mont was. Below is a view of dining room from the kitchen. What's off camera, to the right, is the bar Tom recalls as well as a banquet room.

Interior of the Mid-Mont

The original sign, made by Tom's Great Grandpa Carl

The Mid-Mont, mid construction, circa 1947

The Mid-Mont, exterior, 1959.
Restaurant on the left; motel just visible
in the center back; the family house on the right.

Back in the Saddle

2007-01-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Looks like the Manchester Daily Express link was only good for a day and the site doesn't archive past issues. I'll have Maureen post an excerpt from the interview over the weekend.

My fever finally broke last night. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that when I woke up this morning I felt more like myself than I had in about a week. It was hard, having lost an entire day, not to take it to full throttle. The desire was there, but my rational mind won out: there was no way I'd make up for lost time, so I focused only on the things in front of me.

Those things included a key decision: logo. Swanson Advertising delivered our color comps today along with quotes for stationery, menu templates and print ads. What amazed both Maureen and me was that we'd only given Swanson a verbal on colors and the comps they delivered so closely matched the interior paint palette that only a trained eye could see the difference--and we'd only finalized the paint palette the day before (Swanson hadn't seen it).

Nailing down the logo is key, right, because it carries across various media and applications: stationery, signage, advertising, Web and uniforms. We hope to add it to the blog's banner soon.

Something I'm learning right now is how to stay on message and what all the various ways of staying on message are. It's not just being able to rattle off your pitch when someone asks you what kind of restaurant you're opening or what food you'll serve. It extends to so much more than I was aware of (yes, Maureen, you were right).

Seriously Fun Food is the Big Concept and it encompasses each and every part of the experience our customers will have. Seems I've got the serious part down--everything I'm drawn to visually tends toward the elegant and refined. From my initial reactions to logo samples to the first-draft of my small wares list and various things in between, my inherent aesthetic is off message. Which isn't to say I don't like the choices that are on message, they're just not where my eye goes immediately.

Fortunately, I'm working with a great team that's teaching me how to re-train my eye and/or to trust their eyes and be done with the decision. We're past concept now. We're ordering product. Checks are being cut. And if we're off message, we're making mistakes. Mistakes that could be costly.

I was reading through the blog posts tonight and laughed when I read what Maureen had written the other day about all the factors that go into selecting a plate. Why? Because when we got the quote back from the supply house today, probably my favorite selection of the bunch costed out at 15% of the overall small wares budget ($28 per) and I'd had it mind for a single starter. Needless to say, as cool as a presentation as it would have been, it won't be on our order list.

The good news is that the small wares quote came in significantly less than what I'd originally budgeted for. Even better news when you throw in that the quote for seating construction was higher than I anticipated. I can only hope this trend of lower than + higher than = on budget continues.

And I keep looking at the calendar, wondering when the permitting process will be completed so we can start work and add a countdown to the Grand Opening to the blog sidebar. I left a message for the buildings department today. The electrician? Ready to go. Painters? They're ready and able to start next week. Me? I was ready yesterday. Or ten years ago. Take your pick.

Buzz

2007-01-10T18:04:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Tom has been felled, felled I tell you, by this cold. Six hours of talking yesterday didn't do him any good either. He was up early this morning for a meeting with the electrician, came home at 10a and slept until after 3p.

Now I'm sneezy, but I staunchly refuse to succumb.

Meantime, some buzz: a reporter from the Manchester Daily Express stopped by Z yesterday to interview Tom. The piece was published today, January 10th, in print and online. The online version is a PDF file, so you'll need Acrobat Reader to see it (and him in all his head-cold glory). Click here to view it online, then click "download a copy of today's paper in PDF format" right below the masthead.

The Union Leader also published a blurb about Z's impending opening. It ran in the January 6th edition. Click here to view, but don't worry about purchasing the entire article. All that's missing is that Z Restaurant, LLC is a partnership owned by we two.

Another Milestone

2007-01-08T23:36:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
We're on our way: the health department signed off on our plans today! I went to their offices this afternoon, picked up the approved plans and drove them to the Buildings Department for the next set of eyes to look them over.

This head cold's knocked for me a loop. Trouble is, Z has little sympathy. Fortunately, Maureen does and although I was hesitant, at first, to sip on the honey loquat and hot water she suggested, I have to admit after drinking it that I sounded more like myself and less like Marlon Brando with a throat full of gravel. If only it could lessen the pressure behind my eyes, maybe I could concentrate on important things. You know, like opening a restaurant.

Despite my inability to fully concentrate, I soldiered on and, because I'd actually used one of the organizational tools Maureen set up for me, I didn't miss a beat. Call sheets. Where you write down, in advance, who you need to phone the next day. Who knew? The payback is that tomorrow I have roughly six hours of meetings, starting at 10a.

Every day and every meeting brings the budget into clearer focus. So far so good: areas where costs have proven higher than anticipated have been balanced by others that came in less than my estimates.

Today there was only one meeting and it was with the representative from the state liquor commission licensing division. First step in the licensing process is completion of the mini application. This sets the wheels in motion for things like background checks, etc. Then, there's the longer, formal application ($100 fee). Straightforward, but you don't actually receive your license until after you've received your permit for assembly. And you don't receive your permit for assembly until renovations are complete and you've passed your inspections (health/safety, fire department, etc.). Do the math on a calendar and you'll see that straightforward or not, it's kind of nervewracking to realize this is one of those things that doesn't resolve until what amounts to the last minute.

Me again.

2007-01-07T18:18:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Tom's still under the weather, so it's me again, at the helm of the blog. And, given that it's Sunday night and it's back to work for me tomorrow, I'm going to keep it simple and see if I can't take some portion of the evening for myself.

Goals accomplished this weekend:

Selection of table top wares, which was a far easier process than I imagined or maybe we just got lucky. My aesthetic preferences aligned easily with criteria that, not being a chef, weren't on my mind, but were definitely on Tom's. Things like whether the design cuts too deep into the surface area, thus leaving only enough room for a presentation that works for one menu item instead of four. And how adding 2oz to your Pilsner glass makes certain cocktails appear sleek instead of squat.
Dismantling the existing shelving behind the bar; sorting inventory and identifying items we won't be using, but would like to donate rather than sell; and general out-with-the-old to make room for the new (note to the women who stood outside the doors today, lamenting the loss of their much-loved source for pho: change is good and we, we're going to be way better than good--promise).
Laptop optimization, services donated by my brilliant, generous and impossibly kind sister, elaine, who also pitched in with less exciting tasks like emptying menu sleeves and removing window decals. Her two cents about flatware selection? When buying for herself she avoids designs that lend themselves to collecting food particles that require another cleaning. Why create the opportunity for extra work, she says. Or the opportunity for it to be missed and land in front of a customer, I thought.

elaine (yes, the lowercase 'e' is on purpose), also took some photos for us today as I'd forgotten my own camera at the house. Above is a shot of our Coming Soon sign--not an easy one to capture well owing to the glare--and below, a photo of what I'll call the Good Karma Buddha. Tom teased the former owners about removing their altar from the space after the sale, so they got this one for us. I like him, although the dragon, who's supposed to be good too, kind of scares me (edited to add: must be a fear of success I have as Tom's just said that the owners told him the dragon brings wealth and power).

Oh, the Irony

2007-01-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Tom's come down with a cold. Ironically, he was exposed to the germs at the Health Department. I've taken approximately 5,000 milligrams of vitamin C today in addition to washing my hands something like fifty times to minimize my risk to exposure.

"How bad do you feel?" I asked him this morning.

"Bad," he said, stifling a cough.

But not bad enough to take to bed or stay at home. And even if he were feeling that bad, appointments in Massachusetts meant I wasn't going to be around to force him to rest (not that that would have done any good).

Fortunately, culling through china and other tabletop-wares catalogues takes little effort. Tom's gone through them all, marking the items he likes with Post-It notes. Now, after what seems like a long day with little finished work to show for it, it's my job to narrow the final candidates by removing the Post-Its from the pages with items I don't like.

Right after I disinfect them.

On another note, being that I'm a prolific tea drinker, Tom's tasked me with tea selections for the menu. I know which brands I favor and there's one in particular that I'm leaning toward, but I'd love to hear what teas are your favorites. Leave your thoughts in the comments section or email them to me at maureen_at_z@comcast.net.

Decisions, Decisions

2007-01-05T07:32:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
The other day, my friend and fellow restaurateur, Pam, asked Maureen if we were sleeping at the space yet.

I wish. Because that would mean the floorplans were approved and we were into the demolition/renovation stage. We had Spiller's print five sets of plans; one for each of the four city offices that needs them (already delivered) and one for us, more to work on decor than for posterity. These guys also printed the Coming Soon signs that now hang in the windows.

I've scheduled preliminary walkthroughs with some departments while the plans are being reviewed as a proactive attempt to identify any immediate red flags. Plan approvals aside, there's more than enough and then some to keep us busy.

Goals achieved this week included meeting with Swanson Advertising to finalize the black-and-white version of the logo so they can move forward with color comps. Maureen and I were initially attracted to different logo possibilities and then to different iterations of each of the possibilities. Was this going to be our first, big creative difference?

In a word: no. Our discussions were swift and productive thanks to invaluable input from our Web designer who evaluated all possibilities and iterations across the ways the logo will be used (print, Web, signage, uniforms, promotional items). That, in turn, made it easy for Swanson to guide us to a final version that is versatile, represents our brand and that we both love.

I also met with the vendor who'll supply our china, glassware, flatware, etc. I couldn't have scheduled it for a better time either. I thought we had until early February to make our decisions and place our orders, but it turns out the lead time required for pricing and order fulfillment means we pretty much have to select our tabletop this weekend.

This Just In

2007-01-04T07:57:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Some months ago, Manchester Hippo writer Susan Reilly asked Tom, along with several area chefs, to contribute to a planned feature article on local foodie finds. The cover story hit newsstands this week.

If you don't live in the area, you can still read the article by clicking here. I prefer the online version for the simple reason that the handsome bloke, the one in the orange shirt at the top of the page? It's Tom. (I assure you he's not that pale in actuality, but he's pretty much that tall.)

In Which Tom Crosses Lots of Fingers

2007-01-02T21:41:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Obtaining our permits is the highest priority right now. The city of Manchester's restaurant permitting process begins at the Health Department, continues on to the Building Department, and ends at the Fire Department. Each department receives its own copy of the plans and today's challenge was locating a printer who could read the plan files and, obviously, print them (mission accomplished).

I've got my fingers crossed that the permit process is quick and painless. When Little Saigon leased the space, they took on the initial conversion from plain, vanilla box to functional restaurant. In that sense, the build out is pretty close to brand new. That we're not making any structural or equipment changes are, I hope, points in our favor.

One thing I do know is that anything former restaurant owners might have been given a pass on, are often things the city will ask the new owners to remedy before re-opening. Whether this winds up being the case for us or not, there's little we can do about it except hope that we're lucky. I'm handling the permits myself because as of today? I'm my own general contractor.

How I came to that decision was the result of talking with at least half a dozen general contractors who were all too busy to take this job on in the timeframe we need it done. That's when I started getting nervous. Not so much because I couldn't find an available GC, but because if all the top-recommended ones were booked up, what did that say about the quality and reliability of the ones who were available?

I'll share the GC role with my long-ago roommate, Mike, who's a tile and stone mason by trade, but well versed in all aspects of construction. He was a bit skeptical at first, but once he saw the space and the plans, he was more than confident he could handle the job. As for me, the building trades experience I have comes from owning a four-family apartment building for the last eight years. Together, I think we'll pull it off. My natural fear, though, is by taking this on myself I risk delaying the opening which would be the opposite of good.

Before Shots

2007-01-01T19:54:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:

Happy New Year! Tom spent most of yesterday and today at the restaurant working on the floorplans required to obtain our demolition and construction permits.

Behold: two (poor quality) "Before" photos of the space.

Above: the view from behind the bar. Squint and you'll see the fuzzy glow of the front door EXIT sign near the upper right; the tall rectangles to the left of the door are street-facing windows that Tom covered with brown paper.

Below: the reverse angle; the bar is all the way to the back right. Together, these photos give you a good sense of the 15' wide by 65' long space we have to work with. (I don't have the ceiling height measurement handy, but it's quite high and the ceiling itself is decorative tin).

860 Elm Street is just one part of the building that locals knew as McQuade's Department Store and still refer to as the McQuade's building. If I recall correctly, Tom said that the restaurants stands in what used to be part of men's clothing.

Though I never visited MQuade's, I imagine it similar to the department stores of yore in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts where my parents shopped as young couple. In my mind's eye: pneumatic tubes carrying cash and coin from the counters to the offices; clerks who knew not only your name, but your budget and preferences; maybe even a lunch counter or a soda fountain, where you could order cherry cokes and egg creams.

But enough with the nostalgia (and that for an era I have no authentic memories of at that). We're not sure if it's Tom's camera or an unsteady hand that gave us the photos above. This weekend, we'll try my camera with me behind the lens.

The Last Vestiges of Normalcy

2006-12-30T12:49:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Was off work yesterday and met two former and much-missed co-workers at a bookseller's cafe for coffee, tea and lots of talk. They'd phoned to say they were running a bit late just as I was pulling off the highway--no problem, of course--but it did give me enough time to go on a last-hurrah book-buying spree:

Nigella. What can I say about Nigella? I. Love. Her. And I often tease Tom that he should marry her if she weren't married already for the simple reason that he'd be hard pressed to find another woman who shares his deep love of bacon fat. My love for her has less to do with bacon fat and more to do the ideas central in her work: originality is not the same as authenticity and learning how to cook begins with learning how to eat and we learn How To Eat at home.

I also purchased Spin to Knit. Tom, ever observant and known among family and friends as Perfect-Gift-Giver-Extraordinaire, eavesdropped on a conversation I had with the owner of The Elegant Ewe earlier in the year and presented me with an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel for Christmas. At first I wanted to learn to spin for its own sake, but now that we're in business for ourselves the wheel will, one day, allow me to spin yarn for less than I could buy it. Sadly, there will be no last-hurrah yarn-buying spree, but I did get lovely sock yarns from my brother Scot.

Rounding out the spree was Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. Pee-your-pants funny. Seriously. And there are real recipes too.

Little of this has to do with the restaurant, I know, and that's what you're coming here to read about. Driving home last night, I realized that this was likely the last normal kind of day off work I'd have in a good, long while. My afternoons of poking around bookstores and chatting with friends over coffee are numbered and I just wanted to write something to remember them by.

Hocus Focus

2006-12-29T23:37:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Even though we finalized the lease today and I met with our interior designer, Ariel Duffy, and had another meeting with a payroll vendor, it feels like I accomplished little today.

That's far from the truth--I discussed bar build plans with the contractor, cleaned up areas of the kitchen, and started my small wares needs list--but productivity, for me, has always had its basis in product. An order comes into the kitchen, I fire it up, plate it and scrutinize the presentation before approving it for the table. Clear start, clear finish. Clearly, I need to adjust my definition of productivity and, while I'm at it, stop judging myself.

What can I say? This part of a restaurant opening--the true startup phase--is completely new to me. I've been on the opening staffs of four restaurants in my day, in both back-of-the-house and front-of-the-house positions. In all cases, I came on board in the final weeks before we unlocked the doors. Vendor contracts were signed. Suppliers in place. Decisions around design and decor, smalls wares and table settings, and menu design and service protocol were already made.

At that stage, there's an easily definable rhythm to the day as, believe it or not, the pressure of the impending grand opening focuses the mind. Where I'm at isn't exactly soft planning, but without firm dates to structure a timeline around, it's not hard planning either. Right now, the challenge for me, is to focus.

But I'm fortunate that I have a sizable support group to call on for counsel, support and advice. I risk sentimentality here, but I'd like to acknowledge the members of that group. I'll shout out to Jack, too, the finance broker without whom I wouldn't be thanking anyone on this blog. In no particular order, then:

Bill Lee, owner of Bahama Billy's, who instilled the confidence that led me to the knowledge that I'm read for this challenge.

Noel Young, who was a gale force in helping me to realize my potential.

Tim Poplar, whose leadership and friendship heavily shaped my career.

Ed Aloise, who showed me, during the years we worked together, the blueprint for operating a successful restaurant.

And the passionate, energetic Pam Kelley whose encouragement and resources have been invaluable since we returned to Manchester.

Thank you to each and everyone one of you. The more frantic things get, the more and more I hope you keep taking my calls.

Commitment to Organize

2006-12-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
Today may have been my first full day to focus on Z, but a lot of the people I needed to talk to weren’t in the office. I spent my time setting up my own office in our waiting-to-be-refitted space. When that was done, I started in on my first to-do list. One item on that list was to create a system. A system to manage the information I need at my fingertips, the tasks I need to complete and the progress we’re making in relation to budget and timeline.

Anyone who knows me is familiar with my own brand of organization: what’s not in my head is scribbled, illegibly, on random scraps of paper scattered far and wide. Just in getting this deal done I began to understand that this haphazard system that’s served me in the past isn’t going to cut it from here on out. For the sake of my sanity and for the good of Z, I hereby commit to getting and staying organized.

Other items on the list? Telephone calls. Emails. Printer paper. Sketching floor plans. Without ordering food, writing inventory sheets and actual cooking on that list, this doesn't feel like opening a restaurant.

Maureen says:
Did I read that right? Tom's committed, in front of Internet, to get and stay organized? Be still my beating heart. Nine years of project management and coordinating two cross-country moves more than qualifies me to pitch in here, but I confess, it’s also for my own sanity. The less I hear, “Honey, do you know where I left the fill-in-the-blank?” the more harmony there’ll be at home.

So off we went to procure all manner of things necessary to support the way Tom naturally works with organizational methods that still make sense. While I do believe that we’re all infinitely capable of learning new ways to do familiar things, I also believe that to some extent we are who we are as people. Tom is never going to clap his hands with glee at the sight of my label maker and I’m never going to put anything I can’t afford not to remember on a Post-It note.

My goals for the week include signing up with the web host recommended to me by Indiana Michael who shan’t be confused with Boston Michael, though they are both v. v. talented web developers and designers. I’ve also committed to defining the site architecture and generating first drafts of site copy so that once we’ve finalized the logo, Boston Michael can start on the site design. I worked for three Internet startups in three consecutive years doing site implementation—crazy, yes?—and I’ve published various personal Web sites over the years (back in the olden days when they were called online journals instead of blogs), but this, this is different. I have personal and professional stakes in all matters. Yes, there’s revenue to generate and success to achieve, but there’s also the care and feeding of someone else's DREAM. Someone with whom I happen to share a home and life. It's been said that love means never having to say you're sorry, but in this case I hope it means I never have to say, "Honey? I deleted the Web site."

Some Questions, Few Answers

2006-12-26T14:22:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
By Christmas Eve, the adrenaline rush had passed through me, leaving in its wake what I’ll call an adrenaline hangover (headache; hot, burning eyes; an inability to focus on anything that wasn’t sleep for more than five minutes). We arrived at my sister’s late in the afternoon and while I helped plate some of the dishes she’d prepared, it was really Tom who stepped in, sleeves rolled, and ensured everything was not only ready in time, but was presented perfectly.

(I’ve got to tell you: the only thing better than a partner who cooks is partner who cooks and takes entertaining seriously. The only thing better than that would be if mine also found deep, personal fulfillment in laundry and scrubbing tile grout, but I strive to be grateful, not greedy. He did, after all, not only build, but also upholster, the window cornices when we did over the dining room in November.)

Guests began to arrive just after the stroke of 7p by which point I was content to sit back and enjoy watching Tom do another one of the things he does best: mingle. We hadn’t seen anyone, really, since we’d bought the restaurant and Tom was meeting a lot of new people and naturally the conversations centered on Z. What kind of restaurant will it be? What kind of food will you serve? When are you opening?

All good questions and all questions that Tom and I need to be able to answer without hesitation. Really good food—which it will be—is not an acceptable answer.

Another often-asked question is whether I plan to leave my job. Um, that would be a big, loud, resounding NO. For one, I happen to love my job, but it’s also not a wise idea to walk willingly from a steady source of income when you’re opening a business, the viability of which could takes years to prove. A restaurant consultant here in town, whom Tom knows from over the years, told us that's a Year Three Consideration and only then if Z’s generating revenue to support the decision.

In other news, that KitchenAid ice cream attachment that I gave to Tom for Christmas isn’t going to see any play at the house. The KitchenAid, she done got a new home on Elm Street.

Holiday Anomaly and Eggnog

2006-12-26T13:44:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
The holidays. The calls to deck the halls, make merriment or spend time with loved ones go unanswered. If you’re in hospitality, you work ‘em. You can sleep after New Year’s. That’s how it’s always been for me, so this particular holiday season was a special anomaly; it was our first back in New England and our first Christmas Day together (when we lived in California, Maureen flew back East to be with family). This holiday season will also be the last with an abundance of free time on my hands. That’s the intention anyway.

So what did we do with the time and energy? Maureen put me to work, of course. There was the Christmas Eve open house at her sister Elaine's to attend. Would I make tiramisu? How about the Pave Potatoes I’d made at Thanksgiving? There’s a good chance, actually, a better-than-good chance, that I’ll be in Z’s kitchen in more than an Executive Chef capacity. Meaning, at the start anyway, I may be doing the vast majority of the cooking. I’ve spent the last two years in general management roles so I’m eager to return to my roots.

So. Tiramisu. The key to a superior one is the quality of the ladyfingers. You need to have a ladyfinger that will retain its shape after soaking in espresso, otherwise the entire dish turns to mush. I've found that only imported lady fingers fit the bill and even then brands vary. We were fortunate to find the perfect ones right here in town at Angela’s Pasta and Cheese Shop. My recipe, however, is secret and so I won't be posting it on the blog; ditto the Pave Potatoes (it's going to be a side dish on Z's menu).

One recipe I will share is the eggnog I decided, last minute, to make for the open house. Maureen had never had it made from scratch and I, believe it or not, had tasted the store bought only once (once was enough to tell me not to sample it again).

Homemade eggnog was a holiday standby in my family and, on occasion, my mother might have let me sip from the “adult” version when my father wasn’t looking. I'll never tell for certain. The following makes a tremendous amount of 'nog --about two gallons--so adjust accordingly. Don't think for a second I'm going to tell you the nutritional values. Besides, once a year won't do you in.

+++++

12 fresh, organic eggs, separated***
1 quart heavy cream
1 quart light cream or half-and-half
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
¼ c. brandy (optional)
ground nutmeg to taste

Directions:
Using either a KitchenAid or hand mixer, combine all 12 egg yolks with 1 cup of the sugar. Beat well until mixture is pale yellow and ribbony. Transfer mixture to a larger mixing bowl and set aside.

Wash and dry your mixer bown, then add 2 cups of heavy cream, ½ cup of sugar and the vanilla. Whip until soft peaks form. If you're using brandy, now's when you drizzle it slowly in, while still beating. Wait until the soft peaks reform, then gently fold the cream into the egg yolk mixture you've set aside.

Wash and dry your mixer bowl (last time, I swear). Add the egg whites and mix on low until frothy. Increase mixing speed and gradually add remaining sugar. Once all of the sugar has been added, increase the speed to high and whip the whites until stiff peaks form, being careful not to over whip. Gently fold the egg whites into cream and egg yolk mixture. Stir in remaining cream and all of the light cream. Refrigerate until serving time but at least two hours.

Don't worry if immediately after you finish the eggnog looks too thick to drink. After a couple of hours it will begin to weep and separate, naturally thinning itself. If after a couple of hours it's still too thick for your taste, stir in more light cream or whole milk.

Serve in mugs with nutmeg sprinkled on top. You'll never drink store bought again. Promise.

***Lots of supermarkets now carry pasteurized egg whites and yolks. If available, these are the safest option. Simply follow the conversion guide printed on the carton. For my own recipe, I used fresh, organic eggs from a local, traceable source.

No Turning Back

2006-12-23T13:31:00.000-05:00

Maureen says:
Did I need a lot of coaxing? You bet I did. I’m what you’d call selectively risk averse. Ask me to risk my heart and leave behind an entire established life to move to the other side of country and I’m your girl (this is exactly what Tom asked me to do after dating for a mere three months; we lived for two years in Carmel, California and returned to New England in August ’06, in large part, because we liked what we saw happening in downtown Manchester). Ask me to risk my finances and an entire established life to pursue a business venture with a success rate a coin flip could determine and I no longer know your name. I’m exaggerating, of course. I didn’t turn my back on Tom, but I did make him go through the painful exercises of answering the hard ‘what if’ questions, outlining worst-case scenarios, and detailing exit strategies that can be put into play if the coin toss isn’t in our favor.

But, like Tom, once the papers were signed, the monies distributed, and the keys in our hands, I experienced a sense of relief. There would be no more point/counterpoint discussion about whether or not to move forward with the venture. The deal was done and I was done creating anxiety around it.

Or was I? There was, after all, that restaurateur couple in Milford this summer, who, it was discovered, had been squatting inside their restaurant before they skipped town (they were flushing the toilets with water dredged from the river). A restaurant, I’d heard, that had been going for and getting $30 a plate. Maybe it was the price point that contributed to their demise. Who knows? It’s not my place either to speculate or pass judgment, but the end to their story is the sort, that if I don’t keep up with yoga practice, will surely keep me up nights even I agree with Tom when he says the key to any business, but especially restaurants, is what you do with the money that comes through your doors.

Fear, anxiety and tales of others’ woe aside, it’s something exactly like a gift having your life partner be so obviously fulfilled. After 20 years of increasingly supportive roles in the restaurant business, Tom’s not only taking center stage to star in his life, he’s producing and directing. Me? I’m the writer.

We've Only Just Begun

2006-12-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

Tom says:
We bought a restaurant. We bought a restaurant in downtown Manchester, NH and we bought with it with every cent we have plus the belief we have that when you’re brave enough to leap, the universe conspires to make the net appear. And we need the net: whatever turn-of-phrase you’ve heard describe the process of opening a restaurant, it applies here—no exceptions. Lighting the stove with $100 bills is one we’re particularly fond of, but once the papers were exchanged and the keys were in our hand, I was actually relieved that we’d leveraged our future. I think that qualifies as some form of insanity, but I’ve been in this business twenty years and know that I’m in good company (Hi Pam! Hi Tim!). Each and every day of the last twenty years has been leading up to this one and there are moments when I can’t quite believe it’s here.

I/we own a restaurant?!

Still, the relief of having closed the deal is waning fast. In fact, it’s turning into something that hints of dread. To quote the Carpenters, “We’ve only just begun.” If this is my Everest, I’m only three-quarters of the way to the summit. The hardest part is yet to come: getting the doors open. Then, as any climber will tell you, once you reach the summit you’re still only half done. You have to get back down the mountain (alive) so you can tell about it. In this case, that means keeping the doors open. Restaurants are risky businesses--just ask the banks. The success rate is on par with marriage: only one, they say, out of every two will make it and the definition of making it is vague at best.

This venture will prove either to be a dream realized or a nightmare (on Elm Street) we—my business and life partner, Maureen—can’t wake from. But no matter the outcome the experience will be worth it because we were brave enough to take the chance (even if Maureen needed a little coaxing. Okay, a lot of coaxing, but that just means she’ll work even harder than she already does at anything she puts her mind to).

We’ve started this blog for two reasons: we want to document this phase in our lives and, with time already being tight, to create a place where family and friends can come for the answer to the question everyone’s already asking—How Are Things at the Restaurant?

I almost forgot: the restaurant’s called Z. More details to follow. For now, just the facts: We’ll be located at 860 Elm Street in the space that was formerly Little Saigon, next to The Chair Gallery (where, incidentally, we purchased our own dining set earlier this year). We don't yet have anything like a hard opening date, but mid-to-late Q1 ’07 is our target.