WHAT are we doing WRONG?!?!?

ok...

seriously...

WHAT are we doing wrong when we get a comment like this via our website survey...

"REALLY would like to hear local, live entertainment. Along with the food, that does more to bring the ambiance to a totally different level than anything else. We have amazing jazz artists in the area for example, who would be perfect. Tasty local food, tasty local musicians--recipe for success. "

Tell me, please...

We feature LOCAL, LIVE ENTERTAINMENT usually at LEAST 3 nights A WEEK....

I'm gonna guess this person has never been to our place, or they would know that...
right?

Are we completely missing the mark with our advertising - ALL of which says "Live Music" in it somewhere... ???

Are we talking to the wrong people???

Is it just that we're not solely a jazz house and this person doesn't care about any other kind of music?? We were a jazz fest venue!!!

My forehead is bleeding from the brick wall I've been banging it against...

Someone, PLEASE... tell me what we're doing wrong, or not doing enough.... cuz i'm out of ideas.

new fall directions...

wow... i guess august was busy, eh? no blog posts all month! crazy...

anyway... looks like there are outside factors at work that are helping us make some of the harder decisions about what we're gonna do around here.

the hardest decision of them all is/was... do we stop or continue to provide retail "grab-n-go" sweets like a proper bakery??

Here's the truth of the matter... we never intended to continue being a "proper bakery" when we bought the "proper bakery" three and a half years ago... we saw this great place, and instantly had a vision of what we could turn it into.

So now... three years later... we're realizing that vision but have also maintained almost all the retail baking that we started with, as well as grown the wedding cake/occasion cake side of the business by accident.

So what's the problem? Well... #1. Time. Operating a "real" restaurant does not leave a lot of time to also operate a "real" bakery... at least not with the same amount of staff. #2. Space. The storage space required for the ingredients & packaging for both bakery & restaurant exceeds what we can comfortably manage. #3. Refrigeration. We cannot install a walk-in cooler nor freezer due to the configuration of our space and the fact that to VENT these things we'd have to go through the apartment upstairs or through the concrete exterior wall, which happens to be underground... both scenarios costing WAY more than we can afford. That means, we have to rely on stand-alone units... three of which we lost over the course of this very hot summer. Most recently the only freezer we had that would accommodate full trays of sweets (the size they are when they're made before they get cut down to service size).

This most recent "death" has led to the current crux... we've got nowhere to STORE the sweets between when they're made and when they're put out for sale... and because of time issues, making small batches isn't really efficient because, for one, i'd have to make nanaimo bars every other day to keep up!!

So that then leads to...

a) do we stop making nanaimo bars (and all the others) altogether??? i think we might get lynched if we did that.
b) do we reduce the number of available sweets and rotate the selection? that might be the most logical and least unpopular option.
c) do we find a new baker who has their own commercial kitchen and contract out our recipes & the storage?? that might work but would most definitely put the prices up.
d) do we change our selection entirely to items that are simpler to make in small batches and still cost effective? this might work...

We don't want to price ourselves out of the market - we are by no means "pastry chefs" so creating desserts that end up costing too much per serving because we're only making a dozen at a time because they take so long doesn't make any sense...

We don't want to lose our customers who only come here for the desserts, tho because of our dwindling and inconsistent supply over the summer, maybe that's already happened...

We don't (at least right now) want to start a whole new line of products that we find we can't keep up with and end up going thru this process again...

so what DO we want?

We want our customers to be happy. We want them to know they can count on us to have their favourites pretty much any time they come in. We want them to come back regularly. We want them to tell their friends. We want to focus on lunch & dinner, and special desserts for in-house service.

Any suggestions on how we do ALL that?

thoughts are welcome & encouraged.

vol-au-VENT

ok, so ya, i vented a little bit in that last post... hopefully i'm allowed and hopefully i didn't upset too many people.

i'll try to keep things more positive and upbeat... but fact is, sometimes this job is bloody hard and there are days when the thought crosses our minds to just stop... go get real jobs and have a paycheque again... and benefits (hm... i've never had a job with benefits... dunno if i could cope!)

thankfully, those moments are usually short-lived, and tempered with the knowledge that we actually do love what we're doing...

that whole line about doing what you love and the money will follow... i guess they never promised how close behind the money would follow... :D

but we're not really here for the money... i mean, it'd be nice if we didn't have to WORRY about how things were gonna get paid, but we're keeping our heads above water and it gets better every day... generally.

anyway - i just wanted to apologize for venting a little ... and reiterate how much we truly love and appreciate our customers - particularly the ones we see all the time who support us so amazingly, and help us out with honest feedback and helpful ideas... and the NEW ones who are just discovering us! Thanks for taking the trip off the beaten path and coming in our door!

Happy Sea-Cav!

bistro or bakery...

so, we knew when we made the decision to go for our vision that we might end up annoying a few people...

a few of the people who only come here for bread, specifically...

we knew that when we changed our hours and started achieving our goals that some people might not find that to their liking or convenience...

mostly those are the people who only come here for bread.

DON'T GET ME WRONG... we LIKE those people who only come here for bread, and we're grateful that they DO come here instead of going somewhere else... but we really do apologize for creating the concept that we are a bakery first... that was never our intention and from the get go - march 1, 2006 - we have been working at dispelling that myth.

yes, we bought a bakery... a bakery that happened to have fantastic recipes... and a ton of potential to become the bistro/restaurant that we'd spend the previous 6 years talking about and trying to realize...

now... if we'd been able to buy said bakery with a ton of extra cash available, we'd have gone directly to bistro without passing go, and we wouldn't have even needed the $200... but we didn't. We mortgaged our entire lives to scrape together enough to get us open and running... with just enough to manage on for the first few months.

this has been both a blessing and a curse.

as some of you may notice... restaurants that open with a big bang and a ton of capital outlay, don't always succeed... in new york city, for example, 1000 new restaurants open EVERY YEAR... and only 1 in 5 are still open at the end of that year...

we have been forced to grow only as quickly as cashflow has allowed - in many ways not a bad thing.

The curse: This resulted in being perceived as a bakery for a lot longer than we intended...
The blessing: it also gave us a long time to earn fantastic customers who come regularly for their bread and baked goods... and lunch... and NOW, dinner,too.

The curse: we've had to "make do" with old equipment, flatware we think is a bit ugly & pedestrian, 69cent mugs from the dollar store... etc
The blessing: we HAVE made do with old equipment, less than magazine quality flatware and 69cent mugs from the dollar store that have a certain funky charm about them...

The curse: we had to wash & sanitize dishes (which included, of course, muffin tins & cake pans & bread buckets & mixing bowls - all stainless, all requiring scrubbing with steel wool... every day... ) by hand for the first 18 months, which physically wore us out and severely limited how quickly we could grow
The blessing: we learned the importance of taking some financial risks to buy a dishwasher and other equipment... and that the adage of spending money to make money is very true

The curse: we often can't take advantage of sales on equipment that would really make our life more simple and/or efficient
The blessing: we don't buy stuff that we don't really really really need just because we can get it on sale

Even just today... i learned about an amazing financial management tool that could really help us improve cash flow and guide us thru the maze of when to spend how much on what... it's truly an incredible tool, which i would jump at... except that it costs a lot up front that i just don't have - even THO it could pay for itself in a few months and help us get AHEAD in not many more months further down the road...

but we don't have that big deep pocket backing us up... we dont even actually have a change dish beside the bed to back us up...

we've got our wits, our drive, our love of what we're doing, and our wicked-ass, amazing, loyal, supportive and delightful customers to keep us going... and slowly, bit by bit, we claw our way up and out of the pit, and eventually we'll build a little hill of "extra" cash (is there really such a thing as extra cash??) that might allow us to buy that new fridge or pay for an ad, or heaven help us, take a vacation, even!?

Anyway, the point i was getting to... and yes, i'm sure if you've read more than one post here, you've noticed it can take a while to get anywhere... we have strived for 3 years to become a bistro and are finally there in our eyes, while we now can probably count on another 3 years trying to convince everyone else.

So, we apologize if the bread isn't ready at 10am... seeing as we're not open til 10:30 we're ok with that... we apologize if the bread isn't ready at noon... in fact we apologize that we're not making bread every day...

fact is... we're not a bakery. we've never wanted to BE a bakery... we're a bistro that happens to bake enough bread that we have some left over to sell...

and we'll be super happy when the general perception of who/what we are changes out there too... we know it will take time, and sadly it also means we'll likely lose some customers who are not prepared or willing to change along with us... but hopefully they'll find somewhere else to get what they want when they want it, and the folks that ARE willing to come along with us will do so and allow us to continue living our vision and enjoying it with us.

summer frenzy

ok... so call us crazy but we've committed to minimum 12 hour days (which actually means 15-16 hour days when you count prep & cleanup) for at least the summer...

not sure what we were thinking except that we're finally doing what we wanted to be doing all along - serving great lunches & dinners & drinks at a great price to great people...

i'm thrilled to report that we've had a fantastic response to our "test runs"... the soft opening for dinners on the weekends... now, granted, many of the folk who turned out for those are already dedicated & loyal customers & friends, and maybe they were being nice, but we think we're onto a good thing here and really hope that EVERYONE will come give it a try.

Currently, the most expensive dish on the menu is $14 for a single serving... there is Machos for 4 for $30, but that's what... 7.50 each?

There will be the occasional special that goes over the $14 mark, but most mains will be in that close neighbourhood. Starters range from $5-10, and desserts max out at $6 for the most decadent...
Bar Drinks range from $5 up... which from what we can tell is about the best price in town (aside from specials) which was our intent all along. We're not "about" the drinks, they're simply to compliment the food... or provide a little relief from crazy summer heat on a blistering afternoon...

we're changing the approach to retail bread & dessert sales... THIS IS A BIG NOTE... Fresh bread will ONLY be made on Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday...We welcome your orders in advance while we work out new daily quantity requirements.

All our bars & savory snacks will still be available for now, but soon you will just have to ask for your favourites, as we won't be displaying them as usual. (That said, anyone need a 6' display cooler? $1000 obo).

Lunch menu will evolve a bit further... will likely add lunch size options of some more popular dinner items and a couple hot appetizers to the existing menu... that remains to be seen precisely.

your comments & feedback are welcome - even the negative stuff... in FACT, we LIKE to know the negative stuff so we have an opportunity to address it. We can't fix what we don't know is broken... right? Complete our survey, if you like... we'd appreciate it.

we look forward to seeing your smiling faces come visit us for lunch & dinner...

kera & ian