July 14, 2012
Hi Everybody,
These past months have been the hardest of my life, starting with my right hand girl Ali leaving us after 5 years of hard work. We hired two new girls with a new title: Operations Manager. For the past 4 to 6 weeks they have worked so hard, meeting with us all day - even skipping a few lunches. Alyssa and Ploy will be our hand to hand combat with all of our customers, our wine list, legalities, social media, management, restaurant policies, etc. We never realized how much of a work load it would be when we want everything to run properly.
After 21 years with the company, Bill will take the podium as our Front of the House Manager. This has been discussed for years, with all approval from our regular customers, staff and my family. We finally have put a "Tiger in the Tank," so this vehicle will run a lot smoother!
Also, I lost quite a few more personnel up front -- twice this year we had maternity leaves, and one of our wait staff members had his appendix removed, followed by cracking his foot bone. Those took him off the floor from late January until early this month.
Thep, my Thai chef who stayed with us for more than 10 years, left for vacation in Thailand and was involved in a huge accident. All of his family passed away, as many of you may have seen in the newspaper. He is schedule to be back by year end if all of his health is back in place.
In the meantime, we hired two new chefs! Vinnie was an Executive Sous Chef from a star michelin in Chicago, and Arthur was on TV for Restaurant Impossible! They took the titles of Sous Executive and Chef de Cuisine, respectively. We will continue to improve our kitchen throughout the summer.
On top of that, about five more employees have left or will be leaving us. Sounds like cleaning the house? No, this all happened naturally, most of the positions needed to be restructured for quality purposes. Some of them enjoyed the changes, some not.
As we always say in business as we flip the sign -- the show must go on!
A little more, Alyssa and Ploy will now join me on the blog. They will let you know more about my creations, what's new on our menu, even giving my recipes away sometimes. There will be more fun at the Grass!
Your chef,
Max