A Grande Opening Affaire

This weekend (Friday & Saturday) was the grand opening of our Super Suppers. Yeah, yeah, we've technically been open for 6 weeks or so, but our owner is no fool. She's been around the technology merry-go-round enough to know that you don't have the actual grand opening on the day you actually open. My former project management partners in crime understand this completely--how many times did we have customers who insisted on throwing some big whingding the day they went live on their new system, only to have it crash and burn (sometimes literally--the server caught on fire right before go live at one site), and garner them heaps and heaps of bad publicity. This leaves a bad taste in the customer's mouth, and then there is no pleasing them ever, no matter whose fault the disaster was, if there was a fault at all.

Friday was our official ribbon cutting ceremony...Chamber of Commerce reps, giant scissors, posing for pictures...you know the drill. A few folks actually showed up to make meals, and we had a buffet of food from this month's recipes. Saturday was more of the same, although we had more people show up to make meals. The first customers of the day were a couple with 2 little girls (5 and 4), and their grandmama in tow. I'm thinking this will be a nightmare because of the children, when they lugged in little step stools for the girls. Hush my mouth and call me corn pone, but they were beautifully behaved. They helped their mom and grandmama with the meals, while dad made the more complicated ones, and they had a grand time. If only they could all be like this...but they aren't, as we see in our next little vignette.

About 30 minutes before we close, a name-dropping, Junior-Leagueing soccer mom strolls in with her 8-year old son. She proceeds to allow him to sit upon the bar counters (where people make their meals!!) and assist her with making stuff. I think when at least 3 staff members and at least 2 customers no less make comments about how he might get hurt, wouldn't it be better if he were on the floor, and other polite noises of we would really like for you to make your child get down, that you might get a small clue that maybe people don't want your child's butt where they are making food. And that maybe other customers might not think it's cute when he grabs a handful of something and puts it in your food. Hey, it's your food and your child's germs, so you eat 'em up yum, but I think we might want to revisit the concept of sharing...as in we don't want to share germs, do we?

The child himself was extremely well-mannered in that he said please and thank you, but the fact that his mom really needed a good smack between the eyes with a clue-by-4 doesn't bode well for his future. Every time anyone said anything to her, she just waved her hand and said, "oh, he's fine." No, he's not fine. If he falls and breaks his pwecious noggin, who you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters, but your sue-happy lawyer.

On the good news side of things, we did discover a new halfway decent BBQ joint in town. I don't understand why good BBQ is so hard to come by in this area. The other BBQ place in town has barbecue that looks like something that came out of an Alpo can and tastes like it to boot. It looks a lot like that Lloyd's stuff you see in the freezer case. (Which is sooooo totally not BBQ in any shape, form, or fashion.)

I've got one more week off before I start back to school and have more exciting tales of culinary adventures. I do have a cooking gig this week with my retired lady, who is having company and wants me to make up some meals for her. It's good practice, and she likes having the company. I'll post a rundown of the menu I'm doing for her later. I'm doing some dishes I've done for her before, plus a couple of new ones, one of which is a SS dish. Whisk me luck on those!