Movin' on Up

I've been meaning to write a post like this for a while. Today I feel a great sense of relief and accomplishment and scout is kicking away happily, so while I have a minute, it seems only appropriate that I take the time to write.

First, I need to express my overwhelming gratitude I always feel anytime I write or post pictures or update what's going on in my life. I feel gratitude first and foremost to the Lord for the incredible support and help we are given to be able to do anything even remotely successful. Next I just feel so much love for my friends and family, and sometimes even from friends of friends! I just wanted to thank all of you for all the kind words/encouragement you always give me and my endeavors. I feel like so often in this world others look to people who might have more than them, or who might be doing bigger things than them, have more money than them, are more beautiful than them (etc) and find ways to shoot down what they are doing. They find negative things to say or just keep their mouths shut....which is a terrible and negative way to view life! My dad always taught me differently. When someone is successful or does something great, its only natural to support them and give words of affirmation...so in any realm of life when I receive it from YOU, I totally appreciate it. I totally feel that love and internalize it.  I really don't know how to adequately describe how I feel about this. Just know that you are important to me and your support truly means so, so much to me.

I look back at just a little over a year ago and I am in awe. Not with my self, but with how far things have come. If you would have asked me last year where I thought my restaurant was going, there's no way I could have possibly even dreamt up where we are now. I still vividly remember riding on the train from  Auschwitz to Salzburg, looking out the window at the picturesque, bright green rolling hills and snowcapped mountaintops, thinking up business strategies  and discussing menu ideas with Lance. (I'll have to dig up our beginning notes. I bet in retrospect these are hilarious compared to what came to life). I remember thinking exactly how I wanted to run my shop. I knew exactly the kind of employees I wanted, and I knew exactly what kind of boss and manager I wanted to be. Another thing my dad AND mom taught me growing up was how influential a person in a leadership position can be. Often times (when we were older), my dad, for FHE, would use inspirational youtube clips or music videos, often spot-lighting people who use their position in life for good and for the betterment of others. I vividly remember people like that in my life. Those people who I could feel had a very real love for me and concern for my future and my well-being. Sitting on that train I remember thinking of all those people and their traits/teaching skills and how I wanted to incorporate that into my business. Most of all, I wanted my little restaurant to be a place where people felt real love, comfortable, creative, and needed.  That, of course, was mostly geared toward my employees, but I really feel the atmosphere of any company or restaurant or store starts at the top and permeates its way down to each customer and each experience. So above all else, that's what I knew we needed and everything else would fall in to place with a little prayer and hard work.

I can't speak for my employees and how they feel about their job. All I know is that I can honestly say I do have a very real love for all of them and deeply care about them. I can say that I really believe inside the walls of The Awful Waffle we're a little family and community. The cool part about it is that even though we're a tight-knit group, there's always room for more people. In fact, new people are welcomed. I love throwing in new personalities to the mix. With the expansion that's happening, we've added i think 15 new employees to the payroll. The other night we had a sleep over in our new, beautiful space. We played games and spent time together - veteran wafflers and newbies. I really think it felt pretty seamless, and we all were laughing together by the end of the night.

All that being said, more than how excited I am about our expansion, I am really proud of the atmosphere I/we've cultivated. It's pretty cool seeing that in a flowered place.

The road to where we are, in terms of expansion, has not been easy. I remember working 60 hour weeks at the little shop. I would sleep 2-3 hour nights, just to get up in the morning to go at it again. I slept with my phone under my pillow just in case there was an emergency to tend to, I'd be able to respond quickly. It was tough but really exciting creating the set protocol of how to make food, making great relationship with vendors (I love PepsiKen and my food distributor rep, Matt from Nicholas), creating an energy in the shop, fixing problems... the hardest part was starting out on such a tight budget and being forced to buy used equipment. One thing I learned was that used restaurant equipment is being sold for a reason. It's on it's last leg/broken. One refrigerator was promised to us that it was in perfect working condition. It was cold for 7 days and then completely stopped working. One fridge has leaked buckets since the first day we got it. The other one lasted about 4 months then totally died all together (we lost about $1000 in meats and cheeses). Our grill misfires and makes a decision to only heat one side sometimes. And it's never the same side so that's fun to figure out each day. The fryer altogether stopped working as well. Our fry-cutter wasn't installed right so it's on it's last leg too. Interestingly enough, the waffle iron we carried across belgium is the last working piece of equipment in the shop. Also, when we expanded, we had to re-wire all of our electrical systems. This wasn't done totally right so often we had breakers go out. We had to sort of do a puzzle-game to figure out what we could have plugged in at what times and for how long.   Along the way with all these malfunctions were stressful, often cost a lot of money to repair, and was always stressful. All my girls and I have come to an agreement that these times are the reason we're all so close. We had to problem solve, work together, and make do. We've had the worst landlord, issues with the city (our sign was 2 inches too big?!? so we were fined?!?) and have had some nasty customers.

One of the harder things for me was nasty customers or rude people. It's given to know that you're going to have certain people that love to make you feel they are above you, or love to belittle. There are those who go to restaurants and send everything back because it's not perfect. You have the typical happy valley cheapskate who thinks the food is too expensive (really?! no one is making you eat here! What are you complaining about?). The worst for me though are those yelp and urban spoon reviews that aren't the nicest. I feel like people on there are what I like to call "Keyboard Warriors". They will write and write and write but don't have the guts to say it to your face. The funny thing about this is that I have an extremely strict customer service policy with my girls. If someone's order is even a LITTLE wrong or over cooked or whatever and the person talks to us about it, we over-compensate. We usually give them a lot of free food to make up for the error. But no, these Keyboard Warriors have their opinion and feel the need to make it loud and heard. It's really hard to take something you've worked so hard on, cried over, lost sleep over, studied, prepared for, put your life savings in to, and devoted your life to only to be torn down by someone who thinks they're entitled to their hateful opinion. Don't get me wrong, I am the first one to SEEK constructive criticism and not only listen but to be proactive about what I'm critiqued on. But often, reviews on these websites aren't intended for constructive purposes....The worst one for me was a blog review from a member of the relief society presidency in my ward who not only wrote really hateful (and tasteless!) things about my BRAND new restaurant, but also had a lot of facts wrong about my place. That one was so hard for me for so many reasons.

The good news is, there have been WAY more positive things than negative. I've had some eloquent, beautifully written reviews about my place. My all time favorite is from Native Square. They're some pretty legit ladies over there who know their stuff. Every post they've written I've agreed with them 10000%. That only makes me feel like their opinion about us is not only valid but also in good company (pizzeria 712 anyone? yum). We have the most amazing loyal customers who rave about our food. My favorite thing is going places and overhearing people talking about it. I've had this happen to me more times than I can even count. That's also so validating to me because its unscripted, uninhibited conversation. Of course, the most amazing positive thing about this whole thing is the flattering offer we received from The Village to put our humble place in their beautiful one. They wanted us and they believed in us as not only an incredibly successful restaurant but people they wanted to work with.

And here we are. One year later. We started out with 200 square feet of cooking space, one waffle option and one crepe option, outdoor seating with no heater or refuge from the cold or rain... and now we've moved into this European, humbly swanky, 4,500 sq feet location with the best equipment on the market AND a second company added to The Waffle. I don't think people find success like that with dumb luck. It comes from a lot of hard work, being as honest as you can in everything you do, being prayerful in everything, and surrounding your self with good people. I feel more blessed than I could ever possibly describe. I feel so much gratitude and thanks towards so many people in my life. Particularly my managers/team leads in my shop. If you haven't had the opportunity to meet them - Jared, Martha, Jen and Jill - you really should stop in and ask for them. They are wonderful people who have made my life easier/better over the course of this year. Thanks to them, the new shop has taken a turn for the better and all the crazy new elements that we've added to our menu (bratwursts, italian pizza, italian gelato, savory crepes...) are amazing and artisan. I really don't think this project could have been done with out them.

Today was a success. We catered the ribbon cutting ceremony of The Village (around 200 people) and I think it went quite well. The food came out in a timely manner- delicious and perfect. I am quite positive I have hired the most incredible employees (Celeste being among them!!!) who made a potentially stressful/disastrous occasion into a not only successful but also a FUN thing.

There was a lot of rambling in this post, but I don't really apologize for any of it. I feel so much passion and happiness because of my restaurant, and one measly post could never do that justice, so this (incoherent?) post will have to suffice.

OH, and I have the best baby in the universe.

:)