Carpaccio

This is going to be the new place of employment until I leave for law school.

Carpaccio Tuscan Kitchen and Wine Bar.

We had our first meet and 'training' session yesterday with most of the staff and management in attendance. The restaurant itself is still under construction, as is the web site I linked. But once it's finished, you'll have your link ready and waiting. The meeting was designed to give us an introduction to what the place is all about, what the layout is going to be like, and what our coworkers are going to be like.

Gabby (no idea how to spell it, but he's from Beirut) will be the GM. He has a phenomenal track record for taking restaurants and turning them in to money making machines. He tripled the annual profit at Ruths Chris in Eastport over a 10 year period. I was caught a little off guard when he compared Annapolis to Pikesville as the hardest places to establish successful restaurants. His reasoning for Pikesville was because of the 'difficulty of the Jewish client, and their need to complain about everything'. But, he went on to say that he was raised with a lot of Jewish friends, so it's okay. Kind of a 'I'm not racist, I have black friends' cop out, maybe?

Rachel, with whom I interviewed initially, is going to be the face of the management team, from what I understand.

None of this is particularly important, though.

The restaurant sounds like it's going to be pretty phenomenal. It will be the first restaurant I work for that actually knows what it's doing, and has definite business plans, ideas for improvement, etc. Here is the gist of what they are all about...

We have a 2am liquor license for every night of the week, and will be open that late every night. The full menu is available until 10 on weekdays, 11 on weekends. We have a late night bar menu available until 1am every day. There is also a to go window in the back of the restaurant with a menu very similar to the bar menu. We are going to have a happy hour every day, and I believe lunch specials for all the businesspersons that work in Park Place and the surrounding area.

We are also going to give a lot of industry love. Other restaurant folk, who are generally the best clientelle to have because they have lots of easy cash and tip well, will be treated very well. Being a part of this restaurant from the beginning will be a nice change, because I will hopefully get to establish my own list of regulars who are with me from the beginning.

We are slated to open around April 12th, but will do a couple friends and family type nights before the restaurant is officially open to the public. Food will be on the house, but drinks will be full cost for those events.

All in all, I'm more excited than I ever thought I could be about another restaurant job. The way the talk is going, we are going to make more money than we know what to do with. We'll see how true that ends up. For now, the mood is very optimistic.