Friday, February 15, 2008

(over) 1 Month Later

Well its almost been one month since I quit my lame ass job in San Diego and moved to Savannah, GA to get my feet wet in the restaurant biz. For those who dont know my plans I've put up some money to join a group of partners to buy an existing restaurant and to help start a new restaurant in the city of Beaufort, SC this summer. About 3 weeks ago we FINALLY got ownership of the existing restaurant in Savannah and have recently begun having architects start the plans for the Beaufort location.

Here is the Savannah restaurant.



I used to work at this place when i was in college and its here i met the other partners im working with now. Its pretty big inside and an extremely complicated opperation.. 14 teppan tables that each sit 8-10 peeps, a full bar, and a separate sushi bar that seats over 20! Not something i really wanted to be involved with because of just how complicated it is to run but it does make money at the moment.

Here is the location for the Beaufort restaurant. ( right next to Kmart oh soo classy)







This place is going to be significantly smaller(just over 3000sqft) than the savannah restaurant and much simplier. One teppan grill and sushi bar will basically cook for the whole restaurant. Instead of needing 7-9 chefs every day well only need 2. woot. Oh this is the place that still needs a name... Currently the front runners for a name are.. Sugoiya ( Thanks sam for suggesting the "ya" sufix which means shop), Toraichi's (Kazuyas fathers name that means #1 tiger), Okiyama (i made this up..i think it means big mountian), and finally.. Okazakiya( Okasaki shop??) . WE gotta get a name decided on soon cause we need to start on our sign.

Work so far has been extremely exhausting. uggh.. Damn manual labor sux! It can be fun and really interesting though. Theres just so much going on during a busy night. The restaurant on a busy night is a very err dynamic environment. Lots of customers everywhere, waitstaff running around, tables being sat, cleaned, people needing this or that. Lots of shiet to worry about in short amounts of time. Its not easy managing everything i gotta say. I definitely have a new respect how difficult restaurant management is. Oh and a busy night is like a friday or saturday were we can have over 500 customers a night.

Im sure many of you are wondering exactly what ive been doing. uh well really ive been trying to do alittle of everything learning how to host, cashier, cook, wait tables, and clean. Ive mainly just kinda been in the role of the support guy who helps out where help is needed and does stuff that isnt getting done. I havent had a set role really so far. Usually on a busy night im just running around every where helping bus boys, sitting customers, boiling some edamame, or taking checks to the cashier. Its kinda hectic but its nice being able to help everyone out and know that things are running alittle more smoothly cause im around..usually.. heh. You know.. I do alot of freaking sweeping.. uggh i hate sweeping but if i dont sweep this crap up who is?





OH ive also been making menus.. heh thats been kinda fun but damn i suc at graphic design and photo shop.. heres some menus ive made so far. oh yeah i suck at spelling too which has led to some annoying reprints..heh



Can you find the typo in the to go menu? $%#@!!!! it sux having to fix 300 of those with white out.. I took the food pics for all the food on the appetizer menu except the gyoza and edamame.. what do you think?

anyways please ask any questions you might have.. ill try to answer them in future posts.. this first post is kinda dry sorry.. Theres alot going on so its hard for me with my poor writing skillz to express everything efficiently.

crap i should probably write about how this compares to my old job huh? maybe next post.