12.06.2007

A New Restaurant


This past summer, there was an article in the local paper about a new development being built and to be completed by Winter 2008. It is a new restaurant and retail site designed like a European village and market area, with a bistro, chocolatier, bakery, cheese maker, produce vendor, and some high end clothing retailers. I thought, what a unique idea, not like your average strip mall....gee, wish I could afford to open a restaurant there....

Meanwhile, my chef had the same itch. So, he and I have been talking for 3 months about doing a restaurant of our own, in some strip mall, some business zone, or I dunno, something doesn't feel quite right. Shooting around ideas, writing menu descriptions, scoping out new development areas, tossing around ideas about raising money for a new venture next year, if we're lucky, if anything of our talks comes true, if we maybe, oh, I dunno...hit the lottery??

Then suddenly, last week, I thought, what the heck, let's look into that European village. What do we have to lose? So I checked it out on the web and sent an email to the property manager. Maybe he won't answer? Maybe we're too late? Maybe we don't have enough money or good enough credit? Maybe he will laugh at us?

But he didn't. He emailed twice. He was interested in us. Write a proposal for a restaurant concept and menu. Meeting in two weeks. Okay, great! I'll get to work on that, and maybe they won't laugh at us. Or maybe they are just are being polite? Doubt creeping back in.....and then it happened. On Tuesday, the developer of the Village mystery shopped our restaurant and approached me with an offer to open a bistro there! Woo Hoo! I'm so excited! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Now, we still have to get our proposal together, debate the menu, debate a name (we like 'bisque', the develop likes 'bistro-??? some name I can't pronouce or spell'), even debate this partnership and profit sharing. So maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. But here's keeping my fingers crossed for a new restaurant in 2009! Woo!

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