03. Week 1 of opening a restaurant
Post-lunch, pre-dinner service thoughts. Is this still a food story?
On weekdays, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. is the perfect time to eat. The Salcedo Village office workers (bankers, lawyers, what have you) are back in their corporate towers, official receipts stored away, ready to take on the rest of whatever happens at a white collar nine to five.
We opened a smallish restaurant called Kodawari at the heart of one of Makati City’s more posh areas: Salcedo Village. My partners Jake and Ryan were driving around the area and saw that a spot had recently freed up on one of the older buildings along L.P. Leviste. Sure, it’s right next to a greek orthodox adoration chapel, but that probably adds to the charm! Old building problems will be dealt with eventually. We’ll find a way to make it work.
My job has always been in branding. I think about how to sell things, how to communicate a vision, and to talk in a voice that isn’t my own. This is why you can imagine the absolute shock of working a week in service. It’s really not for the faint of heart (me). I was wiping down glasses one extremely busy Sunday when Christian, one of the waiters who used to work as a bartender, commented “baka ‘di kayo sanay sa ganitong trabaho.” Absolutely correct. Taking orders, bussing tables, and standing for long hours is the farthest thing from getting exasperated over Google Slides. Client work is obviously not the best training for service and hospitality work, but it’s come in handy when I have had to de-escalate an irritated patron or listen to a chatty customer (always male! why!) give his unsolicited expert opinion about what we should be doing which leads to a dragging monologue about himself and his life experiences.
Weekday afternoons are quiet. It’s quite literally the hours that the restaurant can rest and rejuvenate. We prep for dinner service, clean the floors, empty the trashcans, and take breaks. Between the rest of the staff, I’m practically a trainee. They’ve given suggestions on how to make the flow on the floor more efficient and less energy-consuming. Everyone’s got their own station, someone else handles the POS, and we clean and set tables before seating any guests. If we’re anticipating a large group, we need to time it accordingly to when other groups might bill out and we can join tables together. It’s a lot of informed guesswork and also making sure people feel like their needs are being attended to. As for me, I’m now a big believer in late lunch / early dinner / heavy meriendas. After bussing out plates of unfinished restaurant food, I’m less interested in eating out and often just daydreaming about the food we usually have at home. Or hotpot.
Jake tells me I’m always just looking for something to worry about. He’s right, but the way I see it, a restaurant on soft opening is really a lot of problem-solving. You can’t see what’s wrong with a space until you’re actually using it. Things like storage, electrical, plumbing, waste management, and breakage are things that begin to pop up once you start building up the system that is a restaurant operation. That’s on top of making sure your guests feel welcome, the food is good, and their meal goes smoothly. I know we don’t have much of a tipping culture here like in America, but damn, tip your waiters! That shit better be centralized! If I haven’t emphasized it enough, this is really a challenging industry. Hats off to anyone who’s in F&B who might be reading this right now.
It’s week two, and I’m pulling back a little from the front-of-house operations so I can return to hunching over a laptop. But not completely. While the opening excitement is still in full swing, I’ll still report in to support on the restaurant’s busiest days (we’re guessing it’s Thursday to Sunday) then take the early week to focus on the backlog of my day job as well as Kodawari’s brand needs. The idea of dropping the former to take on the restaurant full-time has been broached, but in the meantime, I’ll see how I can balance my time between the two in a way that doesn’t kill me.
It goes without saying that my own schedule has drastically changed. The precious time I have for myself is only either in the early morning and slow afternoons. I’m trying to make it a point to still find time to write. I have to! Otherwise I’ll go crazy! You can’t expect me to listen to all these Makati *ncels and not have an outlet for it somehow (just kidding, they’re not really incels, but they’re definitely prime specimens of MEN who have nothing better to do).
That being said, thanks for reading this one till the end. April’s newsletter will be more thought out, I promise. To all of our friends who came on opening week, thank you for your support. If you’re reading this and you might be thinking about stopping by the restaurant, I’d love to meet you! Let me feed you! Alexa play Cater 2 U by Destiny’s Child!
In service,
Toni
Can't wait to visit!!