Beginnings and Gifts

Only I would unexpectedly leave a 20+ year successful corporate career to open a restaurant and event center the year before a major pandemic. As my life has unfolded before me, I’ve always risen to the next challenge, hungry and ready for something unique and unexpected. Always looking for new ways to solve problems or take on bigger challenges, it was always about making things better. For me, it is always about the end goal, never really about the role. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. One thing I can never say is that I shied away from an offer to take on something to make it better. This time is perhaps the most difficult - but also most rewarding - challenge yet. It would get easier with an anonymous gift.

Reflecting, I’ve always wanted to run a restaurant, but was always too scared to take it on. I’d spent 20 years carefully planning my corporate career. I had a Master’s Degree and a 5-year career plan. Plus I knew that years of competitive undercutting had left the hospitality industry running on fumes with barely any profit margins. Was I ready to possibly go into debt? To work nights? Most locally owned restaurants are a labor of love, not of profit. I had been daydreaming about the day I could retire and run a simple little cafe, event, or culinary center. I started business plans, all written down in my beautiful moleskine books. I canvassed commercial properties dreaming of how they could work. I drew my optimal kitchens on those pages, made mock menus, and wrote down recipes in-between the numerous task lists for my corporate roles which were increasing in responsibility. I would record the names and places of restaurants I loved during my travels so I could visit their web sites later and revisit the experiences and emotions I felt dining there, marveling at their ambiance or my favorite dishes.

The beautiful building I bought on the online auction block is historic and I’ve always loved it. I would drive by from time to time and each time I would wonder at its architectural splendor. The lofty dormers of the building have handcrafted details and the brickwork is a masterpiece. I would stare at its lumbering structure and wonder what it was like on the inside. I would dream that there was a wonderful restaurant to eat at locally within its walls. I had no idea that someone would be me someday and the restaurant would be mine.

All of this has been unplanned and unexpected. As I sat there looking at commercial buildings nearly two and a half years ago, the building was up for sale. It wasn’t just for sale, it was on the auction block. There was no doubt it was old and it needed rescue. Scared and unsure what I was doing, I scheduled a walk through the next day. What was I doing? I told myself I shouldn’t do it. It was fear talking. I consulted with my moleskine, writing down all the pros and cons. I walked through my lists with my husband and family. I went through old little black books, pulling out all the assorted details of a business plan for a restaurant and event center. Tuesday when the bidding began I still asked myself if I was ready. I bid anyway. Ten bids in, I told myself I wouldn’t win the bid anyway. 20 bids in, I was scared I might win. 48 bids in, I stared at my name as the winning bidder and promptly had a 24-hour anxiety attack. Eventually, all those hand-written notes turned into a 35-page business plan.

The day I pitched it for the first time to our local chamber of commerce for assistance, I felt so scared. Afterward, Lyn and June - the start-up partners who came with me for support - told me that had been the most amazing thing they’d ever witnessed. I was on fire with passion and I had my ducks in a row. That presentation got us an endorsement with our bank and funded the purchase of the building with a little capital to get us started. That first season, we took off like a rocket. We were on fire and everyone wanted to try the new place out. It grew too fast. So much has changed since then. Employees have come and gone, and Lyn and June have both moved on to new adventures. Lyn has started two new businesses since then, and June is in a new career that she is absolutely in love with. I’ll never forget our time together however as they helped get all this started. I look forward to the times they come in to help with things.

Today, the sun is shining for the first time in two weeks. I’m sitting in my office looking through the pub windows out onto the glistening snow falling slowly in the sun. I can’t help but reflect on my life and how it has changed in so many ways through the last two decades. As I’ve taken on each new challenge, only truly one thing has remained the same. My little black notebooks that are glimpses into my soul. Where I’ve been. The jobs I’ve done. Conferences and corporate retreats attended. The ideas I’ve had. Inspiration from all the travels taken, from college classes now over - all of it leading up to where I am today. Somehow, although I abhor clutter, I can’t seem to make myself recycle all of my old moleskines. Every one of them the same medium size, lined pages with beautifully used black covers. Everywhere I have gone, I’ve had one of these with me to write and draw in. Dozens of them are now stuffed away in my top office drawer, waiting for me to re-open them and relive old ideas and make them new again.

Getting back to reality, I stare at my current blank page and begin to plan for the week pondering tasks. Orders. Schedules. Training Plans. All made possible by a surprise $20,000 gift provided by a local that asked to remain nameless here. I still can’t believe it came through right when we needed it most. Other aid we received had already been spent and other funds had dried up before we could apply. We were worried about making it through winter without laying off more employees. I was job hunting for a second job and completely unsure how to juggle both running a restaurant and a full time job. This experience had tested my business knowledge to the fullest and I’d learned to be scrappy. I knew I’d make it work, even if I needed to take on additional consulting gigs. What a blessing this gift was for all of us. It was the small bridge of hope we needed and another step toward true recovery.

Wall posters. Job posts for Spring. Instagram, Facebook, Google and Radio Ads. I get back to my task list for the week again in my little book and I’m still grateful we can actually confidently hire and train new hires at the restaurant a little bit again. We are getting ready for Spring and I am eternally grateful to our benefactor. Maybe they were here once as a business owner and understand the labor of love that a small business becomes. Even though we cannot open fully yet, I know that now we’ll make it to Summer and tourist season and although the industry has some healing to do, I am confident we’ll make it. Through it all, I’ll have my trusty moleskines to keep me organized, and to help me plan the next big adventure. Who knows, perhaps in another stroke of crazy genius I’ll save a second historical building.