My thoughts on a wintery night

And winter cometh with snow and wind and rain and ice and many a Xmas get together was canceled and many a restaurant seat remains vacant in the GTA this evening. 

 

 

Having spent 17 years owning my own restaurant, I feel the financial pain caused by mother nature and the frustration of seeing your loved one, your precious, your dining room sit empty on stormy nights. 

 

 

Owning a restaurant is more like having a disease than a vocation. It consumes you as it demands your complete and utter attention. Unless of course if you plan to fail.  Having fallen in love with good food at my paternal grandmother knees, I had no plan of failing. 

 

 

I eagerly entered the maelstrom of restaurant ownership on July 31th 1978 twenty days after marrying the love of my life. Combining the vast resources of three university friends we pooled our meager savings totaling $1,000 and purchased a restaurant. None of us had any real training and we learned to cook from books and experimented on our customers. Being ex students, we were used to living on starvation wages and that was a good thing. But slowly I learned the craft and after seven years of modest success, sold La Maison and purchased Delisle Restaurant in 1985. 

 

 

By 1985 I had caught the wine bug and Delisle was one of the few wine bars in the city. The interplay of food and wine and the ability of successful combinations to increase the pleasure of the two fascinated me. I spent ten years at Delisle constantly refining the elements of successful restaurant management. First, service: So many restaurants ignore service when they’re hot and trendy and wonder why everyone moves on when the next place opens up. Every customer is your best customer.  Second, value: There is value at every price bracket and restaurants do not have to be inexpensive, but if they want to charge, they have to deliver. Included in value is the quality of the food you serve. Third, ambience sets the tone. People want comfort at all levels of dining but décor separates the weak from the strong. Fourth, and perhaps the hardest, all three elements have to be in balance service/food/ambience; if any one of these is out of balance the harmony is destroyed and the restaurant is doomed.

 

 

After ten years Delisle was one of the most successful wine bars in Canada and excelled as much in its cuisine as it did in its wine selection. Those are memorable years of which I am proud and nostalgia makes me feel for my restaurant comrades. On nights like this, no matter how well you nail all of the elements for success, mother nature delivers a low blow and denies you your daily bread.

 

 

Just my thoughts on a wintery night.