Its opening day at d’Vine. The months of stress had prepared me well for this moment. The phone was ringing off the hook with people wanting to make bookings. We hadn’t really understood the tendency in ‘texas to go mad for any opening of any business. But we were getting it quickly now. My missus was still pregnant, baby still not showing signs of wanting to enter the world. Our expensive consultant chef was still in our kitchen but we had lost faith in him. It was too late to do anything about it so we carried on anyway…
Final check. Everything in place. Just need customers now. They say, build it and they will come! And they did, in droves, some even turning up on opening night without a booking and we worked our socks off. And the food came out slowly but not as slowly as on the trial run. People, I think pitied us, we had no complaints, that I can remember anyway.
We had taken a decision to only employ good looking waitresses at d’Vine. We dressed them up nicely, we trained them but I swear some male customers thought that they were part of the meal. It was a bit of an eye opener and for these young girls, some offended by the suggestiveness, it caused a few tears to be splashed more than once.
d’Vine was finally trading. But we had our problems. The developers hadn’t done their home work very well and had installed not enough power to the restaurant. So on opening night, every time someone stuck their hands under the hand dryer in the bathroom it would spike the demand on the power and the breaker would trip on the distribution board. Not a big deal you would think, teething problems. But here is the rub of this little problem. It wouldn’t trip in the restaurant, oh no that would be too easy. It was tripping in the main meter room, where the power came into the whole site. And in order to reset this we had to leave the restaurant, walk the hundred meters or so across the car park and reset the breaker and then walk back. We would then have to reset and reboot all the equipment, the tills, the back office computer. And then someone would dry their hands. And it would all start again. Ah the good old days. And the biggest lesson from all of this? This is very profound. If you’re going to open a restaurant make sure before you spend a cent that you have a dedicated 3 phase 150 A supply.
A few days after opening my son eventually decided to show his face to the world. Quite a moment in our lives…
d’Vine rocked for years. We had our problems like other restaurants. We had staff who thought that stealing was ok, others that were amazingly dedicated, and some who were incredibly talented in getting people to part with their money. And one in particular, who when asked to recommend a pasta replied, “aargh! I hate pasta”. I kid you not.
As the business started to settle, certain trading patterns started to emerge. There were times, obviously, when the business was busy and other times when it was quiet. We wanted this business to be efficient and we were looking for some synergy for our kitchen to try and get the most out of the times we were open. Not far from where we were there was a conference center that was lacking in love. Nicely decorated, had some reasonable equipment but so poorly run as to be ridiculous. I don’t know the ins and outs but it was something like the wife got it as part of a divorce agreement and really didn’t want to be there.
It fitted us to the tee. We concocted a plan and made the approach.
Until tomorrow.
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