October 2006 Archives
Hard to belive, but true. There's at least one more unauthorized Half & Half cafe in the world. I had head rumors of this, but it wasn't until I stepped off the El at Damen Ave that I actually came face to face with the reality that we are not alone. Although I appreciate the Hitchcockiness of it all, I'm not sure whether I am playing Jimmy Stewart or Kim Novak in this scenereo. Had I just discovered our Midwestern doppelganger? Do I want to kill, or make love to it? Could its sandwiches be as unique and succulent? Do they sell coveted t-shirts and beer cozies? Do they have a blog on urbanhonker.com? My brain is swelling a little. They do get solid reviews on
Google Maps, though after some research I am somewhat assuaged that we won't be receiving any cease and desist postmarked from Chicago.
Considering I left my purse on the #4 bus at 6:15 am last week, AND got it back approximately 2 hours later on my bus driver's return trip through Downtown (Thank you nice person who found my purse and nice bus driver who kept it for me!), I shouldn't be complaining too much that I left my new-ish moleskine date book on the plane. Had the flight been full capacity, as they only seem to be anymore, I wouldn't have strewn all my belongings on the empty seat next to me and none of this would have happened. Thanks alot,United! Not the biggest deal in the world, as nothing was really filled out beyond this week. However, it was the only place I was keeping the schedule for Half & Half art shows for 2007, sooo if you are reading this and I have talked to you about doing an art show before July, please remind me again. I have a gap of at least two people, and I will know who you are once you reveal yourselves to me. Anyone else interested in an art show, please bring in a disc or something, I still have 6 months to fill up, and I am very partial to group shows/concepts.
Otherwise, Betsy (aka Mom) and I are having a great time here, doing our thing in Chicago. The weather is crappy, and the rain here so much worse than Portland's. For one thing, the actual rain is colder, and it is constant. Even on the rainiest day of the year in Portland, there are occasional breaks, and it always seems to stop at night. It's been raining since we got up, it rained through breakfast, our first movie, through shopping, dinner and our second movie. Do I use an umbrella? Well, no. Considering everyone else is using one, there's really not room on the sidewalk for another umbrella. Umbrella's don't work in cities! Am I right? The alternative is to wear a raincoat and let your pants get soaked. That's how we roll in Portland. Because what's a little room temperature rain on the front of your pants. It's water, it dries. Otherwise, Chicago is delightful!
I had my coffee too late in the day. Memorable food notes: Had a perfect lox plate at a fancy grocery/cafe called Fox & Obel, and a very solid dinner at the Frontera Grill, a mexican restaurant that doesn't need any more PR than it already gets (though it's all pretty well deserved.) At the end of the meal, the famous chef/owner Rick Bayless came out of the kitchen to do his ceremonial rounds, and Betsy nearly had to be physically restrained. She just wanted to touch him, as he's the most famous chef she has ever seen in person, with the exception of the more obscure but highly revered French chef Freddie Girardet. Him, she touched.
Once again, I've let a couple of days turn into a couple of weeks with nary a blog entry. However, this is a case of sheer busyness rather than blogger's ennui. Right now I am enjoying the free wifi at PDX Airport, on my way to Chicago for a Mother/Daughter weekend. It's positively serene at PDX on this Wednesday afternoon, and it's just occured to me that maybe a H&H outpost at the airport isn't a bad idea...meet interesting people, charge double, diffuse irate travelers, contract all kinds of airborne germs...On second thought, no.
Big and Little Jeffs decorated Half & Half for Halloween and I urge everyone to check out the spooky 3-D portrait on our bathroom door: only 6 days left! And speaking of 3-D, Cyrus Smith and Brett Superstar did an amazing job with the Half & Half sponsored 3-D hole at the Holocene Mini-Golf Invitational. It's even functional!
One of the things that's been preventing my blogging recently is this whole autumn pie renaissance, and I am working on a menu of offernings for Thanksgiving which will be announced sometime next week. I will be doing a limited run of pies, so order yours soon! Well, the plane is boarding, gotta fly!
One of the many joys of restaurant ownership is the maintenance of the bathroom(s). For coffee shops and cafes, where the average tickets are low so that the customers can be many, your staff-and-customers-only washroom is in constant danger of becoming a Public Restroom and all that comes with it. It is subject to the worst deprivations of an already unsavory arena, and it is one of the most irritating and time-consuming of policies to deal with as an owner or manager. Filthy hygiene and drug abuse are the two biggest offenders, though I must say for a cafe in the middle of Downtown Portland that does not keep its bathroom door locked to the general public, our restroom gets far less abuse than I originally feared.
There was much deliberation, when we first opened, whether or not to employ 'the key' for our restroom. This is when a door remains perpetually locked and you must ask for 'the key', always tethered to a whimsical object like a spatula or a ping pong paddle. We chose not to employ the key system because we really did not want to be bothered with handing over this tool every 3 minutes throughout the day. We will use 'the key' for emergency situations (the occasional Rose Festival), and once it came in handy when a 6 year old girl locked herself in the bathroom and couldn't figure out how to unlock the door. We felt, and still feel, that our place is small enough that you can monitor the bathroom without making it an inconvenience for nice, normal patrons. We are, after all, selling coffee and beer. And for the most part, our honor system works. Plenty of parents with desperate children come to the door, with desperation in their eyes, and fearfully ask for use of the facilities. Hell, you don't have to be a child to need to use the bathroom NOW, and I would never deny anyone that service, whether or not they're a customer.
It's the twitchy guy with bad skin, accompanied by an even scarier friend, who I try to intercept whenever possible. Once every couple of months, sometimes more, sometimes less, someone walks in who you just know is going to smoke crack, shoot up and fall asleep, pee all over the floor and/or smear shit all over the walls. All of these things have occurred in our restroom. Although there has not, to my knowledge, been any occurrences of prostitution, so there's at least one more hurdle to cover. 9 times out of 10, we can stop people from disgracing our bathroom, but deviants can be elusive. Like the nice guy who would come in during a busy lunch period and ask for a piece of tinfoil. Turns out he was not wrapping up his leftovers in the john. And he got away with it more than once, because he would prey on a different employee every time. When we finally called his bluff, he asked if we would give him the tinfoil anyway and he would smoke his drugs somewhere else. Then there's the league of mentally ill patrons who though often very nice, can randomly leave scatologic expressions in their wake.
The reason why I am blogging on this heartwarming subject today is because we just initiated another employee in the importance of bathroom stewardship. As our beloved worker directed a tweaker to the bathroom door, Jeff and I simultaneously told him, "You're going in there to clean up after he leaves." Ten minutes and no sounds of ministrations later, after pounding on the door and asking our 'patron' if I needed to call someone, he quickly exited the cafe leaving a trail of stale smoke in his wake. Living the Dream!
I'm not one to get super pumped about Fridays; usually they're about an extra long prep list at the cafe and a to-do list for home sizable enough that I can already feel Monday's breath on my neck. But this week I was particularly glad to realize it was the beginning of the weekend because it was a sign that this crappy week was coming to a close.
It was not crappy in that is was a slow week. It wasn't, for which I am grateful as it was possibly the only redeeming feature of the last 5 days. We had great sandwiches this week (including a vegan butternut squash and sage 'cream' cheese panini that will be available through the weekend) and I made my best buttermilk pie yet (the secret: room temperature buttermilk and really fresh eggs). Nothing broke or was broken by someone. Well, that's not exactly true... On Tuesday afternoon I did our weekly Cash & Carry run (Cash & Carry being our wholesale paper and dry goods supplier), and I'm pretty sure I broke their automated door. I got in line to pay and realized I left my check in the car, and with more force than absolutely necessary I actually pushed on the sliding doors as they were opening, because I'm an idiot, and suddenly the doors were off their tracks and not closing at all. No one working seemed to notice so I just kept my head down, wrote the check, and left as quickly as possible. I think this was the highlight of the week, raising my adrenaline and making me think I 'got away' with something, when it probably happens several times a day. Or else I did several hundred dollars worth of damage to their doors. One or the other.
What made it a crappy week was the collective fatigue and seasonal ennui shared by 90% of our customers and myself. The mornings are darker, the days are colder, the bus rides are more aggravating (PLEASE do not use your bus ride for clipping and filing your fingernails!). We will all adjust to the change of seasons once we can rely on wearing sweaters and raincoats regularly, but this is the week that everyone in the world, including myself, seems to be so tired. The limitless espresso has helped, but the donuts have been a mixed blessing.
Warren is the eighty-something year old man who keeps an office in the building upstairs of Half & Half. You would recognize him immediately because he always wears the same outfit: sneakers, light blue dungarees, blue button-down, royal blue Detroit Lions windbreaker and a Detroit Lions baseball cap. I have never seen him in anything else, and he's been on the block since time began. He drives a light blue sedan, so now that I think about it, he is either completely dedicated to the colors royal and light blue, or else there is some kind of tie-in with professional sports in Detroit. The legend is, when he finally retired, Warren's wife got so fed up with him hanging around their house, she kicked him out during the hours he used to work. So now he just rents an office at 917 SW Oak.
Warren gets a small cup of coffee every time he goes to the office. Very occasionally he will have a tuna melt for lunch. We girls are all in love with him, so we subtly position ourselves at the counter when we see him coming. "Hello, Dear!" is his greeting to the ladies, and for Jeff it's "How ya doin', ol' buddy!" We might remark on the weather outside, or what kind of day we're having: "Couldn't ask for a nicer day!"--And yet I so often do. What am I missing, Warren?
A 4-second exchange with Warren makes you feel good as kisses from a puppy but if you really want to get in his inner circle, I suggest you brush up on your football, particularly the football played by the Detroit Lions. Jeff, much to my dismay, loves professional sports. And while I can't abide watching it or having it as the soundtrack of a weekend at home, I love listening to Jeff and Warren talk about their football. It makes me feel five again, listening to elders extol the victories and denounce the failures of teams as if there was something important at stake. If only Warren was up there watching Days Of Our Lives, we would really have something to discuss.