A lot has happened in the past year. Yesterday was the 2nd annual neighborhood picnic. Last year Good N Baked (Don's baking company) had a booth at the picnic, and this year Toast had a booth at the picnic. It was quite a journey from the days when Don was baking at the local church to now having a kitchen (and staff!) of our own.
It's been too busy to post recently, so most of you probably didn't know that today would be the opening day for Toast. We actually didn't find out for sure until Wednesday when the final inspection was done. You never know how those things are going to go, so it was impossible to set the date before the inspection. Don has probably gotten 6 hours of sleep since Wednesday.
The worst was last night. We ran around all day, between the picnic and the finishing things for the restaurant. I was feeling really good yesterday, so even I worked almost all day, not stopping until the menus had been finished at 10:30 pm. Unfortunately that may have been a bit much, since I've already about had it for the day and it's 9:30 am. But we got things done, and that's what matters.
Anyway, Don fully expected to be at Toast until about 2:00 this morning, and right when he and Jonathon were leaving it started pouring rain (crazy stuff for August). They discovered that the electrician had forgotten to seal a hole he had made in the roof, so there was water coming through the ceiling. Good thing they had been there at 2:00 am, or there would have been a nasty mess when they showed up to prepare for the day. So Don had to get up on the roof in the middle of the night and seal the hole, mop up the mess, and ended up getting about 1 1/2 hours of sleep before heading back to work at 6:30 this morning. Poor guy! Better to have that happen the night before opening than during brunch though.
Here's Don hard at work. The t-shirt he's wearing is one a coworker of mine got him that is from this book series that she loves. Apparently there is a great love of all things toast out there in the world. Soon we'll have to have our own Toast shirts made up.
Our friend Mike R. came up with the idea of the painted plexy glass around the bar, and he did all the work for it. I think it was a brilliant way to bring all of the colors together, and it should take the kicks from feet pretty well. We've been really lucky with the help our friends have been able to give us with this project.
That's another friend of ours, Mike, and his girlfriend at the bar eating breakfast. And our friend, and server, Jason chatting them up behind the bar. Shannon didn't want her picture taken, which is why she's a bit cut off. It was 8:00 on Sunday after all, so I can't blame her.
The lovely flowers from Barb and Larry. The flowers match the decor amazingly well. We put the flowers in the bathroom (I hope you're okay with that mom and dad) to make it a little more pleasant. What do you think of the orange walls? Pretty bold, but it does tie in with the bar surround.
Emily and Tifany, the other servers. They are really sweet women. It's a good group of people that Don hired.
One last shot of Toast, the specials board. I ate a quick breakfast of flapjacks (very good, in my unbiased opinion) before heading home to rest a bit. I need to go back, but needed a little time to myself to recover from yesterday.
A shot from last Sunday of the belly. It's definitely gotten bigger since then. The kid has been really active this week, and that along with lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions made for an interesting week of new pregnancy sensations. Only 5 weeks until the due date! Now that Toast is open maybe I can work on getting the house ready a bit (or at least keep it clean). I hope the folks at Toast are ready to see a lot of me, because I might be taking advantage of their cooking skills for a while.
Oh, I was doing a few things at the restaurant yesterday when this older gentleman came in. Don had been telling me about this man from Oelwein, Iowa who stopped by every day, and I was positive this was the same person. He was, and we chatted about Iowa for a while. He left about 50 years ago, but has fond memories. His fondest memories are of kolaches. One reason he stops by every day is to ask the guys when they are going to make kolaches. Oddly enough I've been dreaming of kolaches for a couple months, before I knew of this man and his mission. So we've both been working the kitchen on the kolache idea. They've been noncommittal to this point, but I think I'll wear them down. How can they deny a pregnant woman's request? If anyone has a good kolache recipe (Amber?), I'd love a copy.
It's been too busy to post recently, so most of you probably didn't know that today would be the opening day for Toast. We actually didn't find out for sure until Wednesday when the final inspection was done. You never know how those things are going to go, so it was impossible to set the date before the inspection. Don has probably gotten 6 hours of sleep since Wednesday.
The worst was last night. We ran around all day, between the picnic and the finishing things for the restaurant. I was feeling really good yesterday, so even I worked almost all day, not stopping until the menus had been finished at 10:30 pm. Unfortunately that may have been a bit much, since I've already about had it for the day and it's 9:30 am. But we got things done, and that's what matters.
Anyway, Don fully expected to be at Toast until about 2:00 this morning, and right when he and Jonathon were leaving it started pouring rain (crazy stuff for August). They discovered that the electrician had forgotten to seal a hole he had made in the roof, so there was water coming through the ceiling. Good thing they had been there at 2:00 am, or there would have been a nasty mess when they showed up to prepare for the day. So Don had to get up on the roof in the middle of the night and seal the hole, mop up the mess, and ended up getting about 1 1/2 hours of sleep before heading back to work at 6:30 this morning. Poor guy! Better to have that happen the night before opening than during brunch though.
Here's Don hard at work. The t-shirt he's wearing is one a coworker of mine got him that is from this book series that she loves. Apparently there is a great love of all things toast out there in the world. Soon we'll have to have our own Toast shirts made up.
Our friend Mike R. came up with the idea of the painted plexy glass around the bar, and he did all the work for it. I think it was a brilliant way to bring all of the colors together, and it should take the kicks from feet pretty well. We've been really lucky with the help our friends have been able to give us with this project.
That's another friend of ours, Mike, and his girlfriend at the bar eating breakfast. And our friend, and server, Jason chatting them up behind the bar. Shannon didn't want her picture taken, which is why she's a bit cut off. It was 8:00 on Sunday after all, so I can't blame her.
The lovely flowers from Barb and Larry. The flowers match the decor amazingly well. We put the flowers in the bathroom (I hope you're okay with that mom and dad) to make it a little more pleasant. What do you think of the orange walls? Pretty bold, but it does tie in with the bar surround.
Emily and Tifany, the other servers. They are really sweet women. It's a good group of people that Don hired.
One last shot of Toast, the specials board. I ate a quick breakfast of flapjacks (very good, in my unbiased opinion) before heading home to rest a bit. I need to go back, but needed a little time to myself to recover from yesterday.
A shot from last Sunday of the belly. It's definitely gotten bigger since then. The kid has been really active this week, and that along with lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions made for an interesting week of new pregnancy sensations. Only 5 weeks until the due date! Now that Toast is open maybe I can work on getting the house ready a bit (or at least keep it clean). I hope the folks at Toast are ready to see a lot of me, because I might be taking advantage of their cooking skills for a while.
Oh, I was doing a few things at the restaurant yesterday when this older gentleman came in. Don had been telling me about this man from Oelwein, Iowa who stopped by every day, and I was positive this was the same person. He was, and we chatted about Iowa for a while. He left about 50 years ago, but has fond memories. His fondest memories are of kolaches. One reason he stops by every day is to ask the guys when they are going to make kolaches. Oddly enough I've been dreaming of kolaches for a couple months, before I knew of this man and his mission. So we've both been working the kitchen on the kolache idea. They've been noncommittal to this point, but I think I'll wear them down. How can they deny a pregnant woman's request? If anyone has a good kolache recipe (Amber?), I'd love a copy.
Comments
Congratulations to you both for all of your hard hard work! I'm so glad it was such a successful opening day! Hooray hooray!!!
Jean and I have made kolaches (lots of years ago). I just looked in my recipe box and I don't have a card for them. I'll bet Jean does though....I remember doing poppyseed, apricot and I'm not sure what other flavors. YUM! If you can't find a recipe have Betsy check with Jean. Her's was a good one.
I'll have some of that smoked trout and tomato omlette please. And pistachio and lime scones, oh my!
Congratulations on the new place. I want one of your tees when you get them. I'll gladly pay!!!!!!
I wish that I could be there for the belly-watching, too. You look SO cute.
Congratulations to you both.