Restaurant opening

My 5 months of FREEDOM are almost up. We open the restaurant again for the new season on Saturday and because it is school holidays it will be busy. The scallops are fat, the crayfish plentiful and because it's too early for kingfish I'll put a crispy skin salmon dish on the menu. Probably with lemon rissotto cake and I'll smoke the frames for stock and reduce it down with veges, port, balsamic and brown sugar to make a black treakle sauce. My son and his partner are excited as two year olds to be taking over, with a little mix of trepidation because they have never been in the business before. It's nice to have their vision and energy around.

Opening the restaurant

What the restaurant should look like!

The countdown to opening the restaurant again has begun in earnest. It's our 10th year and are by far the longest running establishment in our area which boasts about 20 eateries. It's a cut throat business with the two cafes closest to us each having eight different owners since we started and many other venues failing. Maybe prospective buyers see them in the summer time when it's completely manic and imagine how much money they can make but the reality is less than ten punters in the winter time is the norm and that's only if you are popular. So our decision to close for five months has been a good one economically and it's given us a life outside of the business which is important to our survival.

So it will be good to open again with seasonal products like asparagus and strawberries (not together!). The Coromandel green lipped mussels are fattening after spawning, the scallops from our bay are small but of good colour and a fisherman is now catching paddle crabs which haven't got a lot of meat but are and subtle and sweet. Crayfish are plentiful and have only gone up $2 to $38/kilo for second grade (loss of more than two legs), the first kingfish, my preferred fish to cook, have been sighted and the oysters are fat. Add these to the local fruit, oranges, tangelos, mandarins, tamarillos, avocados, macadamias and free range eggs (from our old business) and organic milk and you have a wonderful canvas to paint a menu.

There has been a big shift away from out of season and/or exotic foods but we have always used as much local as we can get because of isolation and courier charges and it made sense.

So now we're busy changing the restaurant from sculpture studio to eatery and where do we put eight big sculptures!

Live music

Wow we're half way through our winter break of 5 months. The lady chasing us to buy the restaurant offered us next to nothing so we will be back with a vengeance come October. Already my mind has shifted towards new menus, new art attacks and I have started booking musicians. I am amazed at the explosion of music venues, apart from bands in pubs, since we started nine years ago. It's great for the musicians to have so many to choose from but I am concerned that there just aren't enough punters to go around and we are adamant that we won't book gigs that are playing in other local venues.
It's not easy hosting live music. At first people would walk away rather than pay a $5 cover charge although they would come in and buy a beer for that. We lost money on every gig for the first couple of years so it took a greater vision of helping struggling musicians, educating people about the value of performance and building ourselves into a serious music venue. We still have trouble with some agents in the industry who think that because we are small (110 max.) we don't qualify for the big names but we have done the hard yards and their 'big names' had to start somewhere. The musicians once they have played here love to come back because of the intimate atmosphere where they can get a rapport going with the audience.
So now most people recognise the value of paying musicians well (the movies cost $15!!) and are willing to pay $5 up to $30 depending on the artist.
They probably recognise also that by supporting other musicians coming into the area it keeps me off the stage! I'm learning new songs I promise!