whats it like to run such a high-profile business in such a small town?
It’s bizarre, especially since we now employ about 108 people. On a busy evening we might have 200 dinner guests. So it has certainly altered a lot of aspects of the region. The town was just about bankrupt prior to our opening, and shortly after we opened the town instituted a food and lodging tax, and now it’s quite flush. In many ways it has been very good for the town, very good for real estate values. For us, living in the country is a wonderful antidote to the high-pressured, stressed environment of a restaurant like ours. On a good day it’s the best of both worlds, because it’s like working in a high-speed New York restaurant, but then you step outside at 9 o’clock at night and everybody’s in bed, and it looks like you may have just dreamed all the excitement. I’ve read that your waiters spend a year in training “before they’re allowed to speak to a customer.” Is this true? And what is your philosophy of service? Well, that’s before they can enter into dialog with customers. The
