Chris KoszykThe writing on the wall.
Start-Up Chronicle
Getting a restaurant off the ground.
“Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011. Remember this date, boss. Go home and drink a bottle of wine and circle this day on your calendar. You won’t see another one like it.”
Oh, Lord, let him be right. It’s around midnight when Chef Joe utters these words. His sly smile disguises a squinty-eyed intensity that, by turns, submits freely to Murphy’s Law and then tackles the adage from the blind side. Joe Isidori played semi-pro football. A linebacker. The night we just experienced will be not be drawn up on some coach’s blackboard, studied, X’ed and O’ed into memory. It will be forgotten as soon as humanly possible. So right about so many things, please Lord, let Chef Joe be right about this night. And, Lord, as a personal favor, when you give me dementia, would you let this night be one of the first things to fall into the great abyss.
But I get ahead of myself. Let’s rewind the clock 24 hours, to the end of the previous day, Wednesday, when prospects were floating along so elegantly, so debacle-free. Before leaving the restaurant, just after midnight, I checked out the lavatories, as I usually do, for one can get a pretty good read on an evening from the contributions on our chalkboard. What a splendidly eclectic, inebriated night! Arcane designs and clever agitprop, Red Sox fomentation, hearts with initials and humbling compliments.
On one wall were two perfect stanzas of Jabberwocky that begin: “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.” Below Lewis Carroll’s profound nonsense was a quote from the Buddha: “‘The path to this secession is the eightfold path.’ — Gautama”
Any time you get the Jabberwock and Shakyamuni Buddha in the same room, much less the same bathroom wall, something extremely frumious is about to happen. Could go yin, could go yang, gotta go extreme.
That Wednesday, it should be noted, was the anniversary of Buddha’s first sermon, so any positive action performed on that day is magically multiplied in merit. Monks in Massachusetts purchased more than 500 lobsters and dropped them not into hot water but the cold blue sea near Gloucester; this lobster liberation extended many sentient lives many years.
After reading about the lobsters the morning of the 4th, I read Yelp, where mark K. from Hoboken synopsizes everything we had hoped for the restaurant: “If the bland preparations and convalescent home flavorings of other Hamptons fare has you down, this is the antidote. Grilled squid. Seared tuna with black truffles. And desserts worth the calorie overload. Comparable with some of the best meals in the city. If you’ve all but given up, give Southfork Kitchen a try. It does not disappoint.”
While you cannot take these on-line plaudits too seriously — lest you have to ascribe the negative ones equal credibility — those stars can fortify your reputation. And your reputation is crucial. So, as if on cue, Southfork Kitchen also won five awards on Open Table, including the best food on Long Island, the best seafood and the designation that we are “fit for foodies.” Out of five stars per category, we are awarded 4.5 for over all, 4.6 for food, 4.3 for service, and 4.2 for ambiance.
We are feeling our whole oats now, ready to take on the world, end restaurant slumming and promote dining equipoise. Which is all well timed because an influential restaurant critic, a world-famous seafood chef, sundry notables in and out of the restaurant business, plus 80 lovely guests are all coming to dinner on this night. I hope we do better than the Dow Jones; one day after 500-plus lobsters dive to the bottom of the ocean, the Dow plunges 500-plus points. The wheel turns.
I walk into the kitchen at 7:30 p.m. It is disquietingly quiet. Not calm and serene, more like all quiet on the Southfork front. While the dining room is filling up and the kitchen is twiddling its thumbs, something is cooking, and not in a good way. A storm is gathering. An enemy is lurking. I half expect to hear, “Incoming!” A scud missile or a drone is surely headed our way. On it’s fuselage will be stenciled M-U-R-P-H-Y.
Bam! The missile strikes — tables are waiting an hour for appetizers, servers are rewriting orders in longhand and huddling with managers, bartenders are rushing into the kitchen and leaving with heads shaking and tails tucked between legs. Nervousness rules. The kitchen is no longer quiet, as pans are slammed and voices raised, tickets are lined up like soldiers in formation awaiting orders; missions unaccomplished, promises unkept.
On the floor, three 8 o’clock parties arrived simultaneously, were seated, and were followed by the restaurant critic’s party of four, and then a couple of groups sauntered in at 8:05 and sat at the bar and another few people settled in at the communal table and suddenly the deluge had overwhelmed the servers who overwhelmed the kitchen: orders were misheard and misfired and to top it off, the computer started spitting out wrong instructions and the kitchen staff was totally perplexed. Added to the regulars and industry people was a rush of diners getting a jump on the weekend. They had just driven here from somewhere and were hungry. This was Thursday. And Thursday was having its way with us. We were folding like used napkins. Cherished guests are calling me over and saying things with undeleted expletives like, “We’ve eaten here before and it was always sublime. What the heck has happened?”
Tongue-tied, I pan the dining room. I am in a horror film directed by Fellini. Faces are distorted with anger and misery. I can read the invisible subtitles: “You entice me here with stars and you rain on my parade! Eliminate my wait. Bring my food — pronto. Pronto! Et tu, Brute?”
I duck into the kitchen. Chef Joe is beside himself, or wishes he were. He could use the extra pairs of hands and another set of eyes. The submarine he is commanding has sprung multiple leaks and the radar system is on the fritz and the pirates are at the hostess stand. Words ricochet around the tiled room like stray gunshots: “Did we fire 23?” “Fifty-four said no bacon.” “Tell them to wait.” “One hundred is threatening to leave.” “Get me a runner!” “Bouche for six!” “What the …?”
One error rubs against another and ignites a chain reaction. No one is happy — not in the front or back of the house, not at the bar and not at the tables, and certainly not inside my psyche. I walk into the garden expecting to see the White Rabbit nibbling the cilantro and screaming “Off with his head!” I might like that. Headless man in bottomless pit. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be the source of unhappiness, owner of another slice-and-dice, slash-and-dash Hamptons restaurant, where service is wretched, attitudes desultory, and the food, no matter how good, has been marinated in tension for so long that guests have already swallowed more vino and vexation than they can handle. Off with my head.
I want to flee. I want to be a flea. Deranged thoughts and wordplay are a distraction, are signals to return to the scene of the culinary crime and face the music. The music is best heard in the bathrooms. In the bathroom. I find this chalk message: “Local means closer to home — not two hours for a salad.”
The mirror looks at me. The face says, “This restaurant is the worst mistake you ever made. Bolt! Now! Who would notice? What good are you any way? You can’t fix the faulty orders or expedite the food. You can’t undo what has already been done. You have given slow food a whole new meaning. There are 100 unhappy people out there, and you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem. Eldridge Cleaver? You’re quoting Eldridge Cleaver? Must be a flashback. Next, it’ll be Beaver Cleaver. Stay away from all cleavers!”
I go to the four tables who have suffered longest and I say, “Forgive us, please. We are having a terrible night, unlike any other, and you should not be burdened with any of our behind-the-scenes troubles. Our profound apologies. You are here to enjoy yourself, and we are not fulfilling our part of the compact. We will be happy to pick up the tab. This debacle is on us, if you decide to stay and give us a chance. Or we can import chicken from down the street.”
All four tables play along. At approximately $100 per person. That’s about $2,000. It is August. And I am losing money and face and optimism. Open Table stars are falling from the sky like hailstones. And battering my ego. Oh Lord, Odin, O’Murphy, Danny Meyer, whatever name you go by, spare me complacency and cockiness, grant me the strength to leave the lobsters alone, and protect us from another storm on Thor’s Day. Amen.
Coming next: The aftermath: what happened and how we corrected it.
Bruce Buschel owns Southfork Kitchen, a restaurant in Bridgehampton, N.Y.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a078ccc96ef2a8f41e5b3cd3de52e0e8