Idle hands

I wish that I were able to say that the restaurant is always busy. That we are breaking sales records on a weekly basis and that no matter how hard I try, I cannot begin to keep enough product in house, prepped and ready to go. That would be a good problem to have. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Don't misunderstand me...we have our busy nights. The typical weekend nights come through regularly, but being newish and unknown has it's drawbacks. Put simply, there are nights that just don't deliver more often than I'm comfortable with. It comes down to a lack of exposure. Response to food and service has always been overwhelmingly positive, however not enough people know we exist and those who do cannot come in every night. Time will take care of the issue, but in the mean time...

I firmly believe there is always work to be done in the restaurant, but sometimes all that work is finished with time to spare. I've found myself in that situation a few times over the past year. You can only prep so much, and only make the space so clean before the list is finished. I've managed to work this to my advantage recently. There was a period of time that I worked too much, mainly because I was not efficiently using the down time that we are so unlucky to experience. Now that I have figured out that little trick, I tend to have a few extra hours of free time each week, which can be nice. Staying busy is important for more than just the obvious reasons, though. Idle hands will inevitably lead to a negative outlook on the situation. It's boring to stand around, and no one wants to work somewhere that is boring. Not to mention the financial implications it has. Staying busy means staying positive. As chef (or any leader for that matter), others will feed off your positivity and that is the only way to keep everyone motivated...I started this post a few days ago and had to leave it for a while. I've lost my momentum, so rather than continue I'm going to close it out with tonight's most ridiculous food idea...

• Tiny "bucket" of fried quail served with tiny mashed potatoes, tiny coleslaw and tiny biscuit. Hopefully this will not be seen in reality anywhere any time soon...