Restaurant blog

[RAGER]

So some may remember me talking aboot being involved in a restaurant venture.  Looks like the deals been squared away and we will take possession the end of this month.  we'll close the doors for up to 2 weeks while we tear out carpet, flooring, repaint, repair, redo the brewery, and generally douche and exorcise the place.

The last couple months I've been working hard on menu development and execution, meetings with purveyors, and attempting to cost things out.  I still haven't gotten a test kitchen budget to prepare batches in full sizes yet.  Hopefully that happens in the next week or so.

I still don't have my kitchen staff complete.  We figure we can do it with 4-5 total bodies in the kitchen.  The owners have someone they want to bring aboard.  I will meet her on Monday.  Hopefully she will be my second in command.  She's supposed to have skills and cred.  They also say she's smokin' hot which makes my girl a bit nervous.  She's got nothing to worry about.  My head is in the game only.  Don't care what she looks like as long as we can work together and I doubt she's got anything on my beauty.

Stay tuned...............................

[neighbor664]

Cool! Where is this, where are you located? What sort of cuisine?

[RAGER]

Portland area.  Brewpub.  We'll brew 5 of our own and have 15 guest taps of very rare small batch beers.  Cuisine will mainly be snobby sandwiches, with locally sourced ingredients, local charcuterie, cheeses from small creameries all over the world, in house pickled things, house cold smoked items, house smoke pastrami, house made soups, monthly prix fixe dinners with beer pairings, etc........

within 3-5 years from now I want to open a breakfast only place in a nearby town that focus on locally sourced high end breakfast fare with a lowbrow feel and serves a variety of red beers and mimosas.

[mortlock]

i hope things work out for you..judging by what i see you post here, you will be a huge success..

watch out for that chick whos coming on board..they have a way of wrecking things.

[mertz]

Rager! Congrats! So happy for you!

[mertz]

i hope things work out for you..judging by what i see you post here, you will be a huge success..

watch out for that chick whos coming on board..they have a way of wrecking things.

[I,Galactus]

Congrats and best of luck!

[rayinreverse]

Who is the brewer?
Or even better, I know a guy that does pint glasses and growlers.

[El Zombre]

Good luck, man! A brewpub that focuses on real good food to pair with well curated drinks is my favorite kind of place to eat at. Are you going to go full on snooty and call it a gastropub?

[RAGER]

Well we are a brewery so we'll just stick with brewpub but if the critics want to call us a gastropub then so be it.

[libertycaps]

Good luck, man. What part of town?

[yeezuz]

i vote for brewing your own root beer. i had some macadmia nut root beer that flipped my lid the other day. and we wanna see the menu when you've got it all figured out. best of luck!

[RAGER]

I highly doubt that we'll brew root beer but we may carry one on tap.  We will have to have some soft drinks for the lunch crowd I suppose.

[deleted account]

congrats and best of luck!  what happened to the previous owner?  best scour the vents for chicken milk bombs

[NCR600]

Rager, I'd send you my congrats, except for the fact that I now officially fucking hate you.

5 house taps and fifteen guests?

I just went to one of the better brewpubs in Sydney and they had 4 house taps (3 of which sucked) and 4 guests, which were ok, but nothing special. When you consider that Sydney is a city of nearly 5 million, and the barman felt obliged to enter into a speil about how they don't serve any mainstream brews when we walked in before offering us a taster of a watered down version of a US pale ale, it ain't good enough.

Good luck man, I wish I lived somewhere that could support a bar selling 20 taps of interesting beer to punters. Shit, gimme a floor to sleep on and I'll come over and put down a few test brews for ya!

[GodShifter]

Yeah, good luck, Rager, brutha.

When I take my trip to Oregon, if you're up and running by then, I'll stop in and sample your wares.

[RAGER]

Yeah man, the owners of this place already have an existing bottle shop and taproom that always goes big.  I've spent a lot of time there.  that's how I have come to be involved in this venture.

Mondays meeting was postponed until yesterday.  Went really well.  Met my sous chef.  She seems cool and I think it will work out well.  And in the looks department, she's got nothing on my girl but she's cute enough.  What ever that means.

We'll open May 15th I think.  And the bottle shop is hosting a small brewfest in June and we will be doing the Brewers Dinner the night before.  4 course prix fixe with beer pairings.  So after we've been prolly getting our asses kicked for a month after opening and dealing with all the logistical shit of opening a restaurant, we turn right around and do a fancy dinner for 30-40 people.  So I need to come up with that menu too.  When that time comes my posting here will prolly be infrequent but I'll still try and post some shit from time to time.  I'm ecstatic.

Godshifter, let me know when you're coming up, I'll try to get you a good seat.   Would love to meet ya.

[RAGER]

Menu is getting hammered out.  Working on costing everything.  Sown to the nitty gritty.  We lay hands on the place in 1 week and the power will be shut off for 2 days while some electrical work is being done so that kind of delays us for 2 days right off the bat.  Looking to re-open end of May. 

[MadJohnShaft]

Wow!


Take charge of your public image, get your friends and family to steadily go all over the Internet and give your place positive reviews Yelp, Around Me, google, yahoo.

Invite the local news shows, go on them with a flight of snobby sandwiches, or this new home-made meat trend that is so hip.

That's the way to make some money, son. Spend all day promoting'

Hire a bunch of hot chicks.

[mertz]

Rager! Your cooking sound fabulous! It's gonna be a success! No doubt in my mind!

[RAGER]

Meeting with one of our top purveyors this morning.  They will supply most of our pantry items.  My buddy is the chef there.  he gets to test everything out.  he has an Iberico on his stand to do with what he wants.  Lucky summbitch.

Yes, cute girls and snobby sandwiches are all on deck.  interwebs promoting has already started.  much anticipation already building.

[MadJohnShaft]

Portland is the food truck capital of the world now right?


'Awesome food truck food, at a table - with Beer!'

Bacon is in.

Don't forget vegan shit for the girlfriends

[libertycaps]

Right now a new eatery/bar is a tough sell in PDX. People just don't have disposable income.
And tr00 GRYMM "foodies" cook for themselves.  
Hope you don't have to start doing 60hr weeks, man.

[Dunedin]

Right now a new eatery/bar is a tough sell in PDX. People just don't have disposable income.
And tr00 GRYMM "foodies" cook for themselves.  
Hope you don't have to start doing 60hr weeks, man.

I would think 60 hour weeks are par for the course in Ragers profession.

Good luck in the venture Rager, if it wasn't several thousand miles away I would definitely show face.

[libertycaps]

Right now a new eatery/bar is a tough sell in PDX. People just don't have disposable income.
And tr00 GRYMM "foodies" cook for themselves.  
Hope you don't have to start doing 60hr weeks, man.

I would think 60 hour weeks are par for the course in Ragers profession. Good luck in the venture Rager, if it wasn't several thousand miles away I would definitely show face.

Gonna have to go with the cliche "Fuck that!" comment. Glad i don't do food for a living.