Owning and running a restaurant, I am naturally inclined to keep things like merchandising and packaging on my mind. I feel it necessary to seek specific purpose when presenting something, be it the food, wine, website, or the physical structure of the restaurant. One of the first things I thought of during our renovation last summer was that we needed a proper wine room. Aside from the primary concern of storage and temperature, the purpose was to make a statement about the importance of wine to the experience I wanted my guests to have. I had it built in a fairly unassuming fashion with an oak structure, steel rods for the 'racks' and glass encasing and decided to place it slightly angled at the back corner so that it would be in direct line of sight from the entrance to the restaurant yet not dominate the space as it would if it were built in the middle of the dining room (one of the original ideas that was kicked around). That wine room is probably one of the more successful examples of merchandising in the restaurant. A less successful example would be the oak tables I had my carpenter friend make for me. It seemed fairly obvious to me at the time that the room needed to feel warmer and, in a sense, more domestic. For a while I left the tabletops bare (aside from the place settings). I wanted to showcase my lovely new tables and thought linens to be somewhat of an obsolete notion (both for environmental reasons as well as aesthetic ones). Later I decided on recycled brown butcher paper to cover most of the surface area of the tables while leaving the sides exposed. This kept in line with the aesthetic and was still a better option than linens, in my opinion. Not everyone agreed. It seemed that a certain highly opinionated contingent preferred the elegance that comes with linen tablecloths. After much debate, I relented. If the linens made these guests feel more comfortable, I'd be cool with it. After all, there's nothing worse, in my mind, than a restaurant that blindly upholds an ideal or sensibility above the practical appeal to the audience. It's a two-way street. While I won't stand for someone walking into the restaurant and requesting Chow Mein, I will gladly (or begrudgingly) make certain concessions on issues like how to dress the tables. But to the linen contingent, please know that the day will come when I will again pull the linens and you will be left staring at beautiful, environmentally friendly butcher paper.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Good Looking Bags
My old jeans were getting smelly, so I bought a new pair today. The jeans themselves were no revelation--they are the exact same kind as I always wear, just new, stiff and not stinky. The bag they came in, however, was pretty neat--cotton tote with an almost minimal design (skyline? Rorschach test? wav forms?) which I could plausibly reuse. (Ed. Note: 'Neat' is my new favorite word, replacing 'Nice') Owning and running a restaurant, I am naturally inclined to keep things like merchandising and packaging on my mind. I feel it necessary to seek specific purpose when presenting something, be it the food, wine, website, or the physical structure of the restaurant. One of the first things I thought of during our renovation last summer was that we needed a proper wine room. Aside from the primary concern of storage and temperature, the purpose was to make a statement about the importance of wine to the experience I wanted my guests to have. I had it built in a fairly unassuming fashion with an oak structure, steel rods for the 'racks' and glass encasing and decided to place it slightly angled at the back corner so that it would be in direct line of sight from the entrance to the restaurant yet not dominate the space as it would if it were built in the middle of the dining room (one of the original ideas that was kicked around). That wine room is probably one of the more successful examples of merchandising in the restaurant. A less successful example would be the oak tables I had my carpenter friend make for me. It seemed fairly obvious to me at the time that the room needed to feel warmer and, in a sense, more domestic. For a while I left the tabletops bare (aside from the place settings). I wanted to showcase my lovely new tables and thought linens to be somewhat of an obsolete notion (both for environmental reasons as well as aesthetic ones). Later I decided on recycled brown butcher paper to cover most of the surface area of the tables while leaving the sides exposed. This kept in line with the aesthetic and was still a better option than linens, in my opinion. Not everyone agreed. It seemed that a certain highly opinionated contingent preferred the elegance that comes with linen tablecloths. After much debate, I relented. If the linens made these guests feel more comfortable, I'd be cool with it. After all, there's nothing worse, in my mind, than a restaurant that blindly upholds an ideal or sensibility above the practical appeal to the audience. It's a two-way street. While I won't stand for someone walking into the restaurant and requesting Chow Mein, I will gladly (or begrudgingly) make certain concessions on issues like how to dress the tables. But to the linen contingent, please know that the day will come when I will again pull the linens and you will be left staring at beautiful, environmentally friendly butcher paper.
Owning and running a restaurant, I am naturally inclined to keep things like merchandising and packaging on my mind. I feel it necessary to seek specific purpose when presenting something, be it the food, wine, website, or the physical structure of the restaurant. One of the first things I thought of during our renovation last summer was that we needed a proper wine room. Aside from the primary concern of storage and temperature, the purpose was to make a statement about the importance of wine to the experience I wanted my guests to have. I had it built in a fairly unassuming fashion with an oak structure, steel rods for the 'racks' and glass encasing and decided to place it slightly angled at the back corner so that it would be in direct line of sight from the entrance to the restaurant yet not dominate the space as it would if it were built in the middle of the dining room (one of the original ideas that was kicked around). That wine room is probably one of the more successful examples of merchandising in the restaurant. A less successful example would be the oak tables I had my carpenter friend make for me. It seemed fairly obvious to me at the time that the room needed to feel warmer and, in a sense, more domestic. For a while I left the tabletops bare (aside from the place settings). I wanted to showcase my lovely new tables and thought linens to be somewhat of an obsolete notion (both for environmental reasons as well as aesthetic ones). Later I decided on recycled brown butcher paper to cover most of the surface area of the tables while leaving the sides exposed. This kept in line with the aesthetic and was still a better option than linens, in my opinion. Not everyone agreed. It seemed that a certain highly opinionated contingent preferred the elegance that comes with linen tablecloths. After much debate, I relented. If the linens made these guests feel more comfortable, I'd be cool with it. After all, there's nothing worse, in my mind, than a restaurant that blindly upholds an ideal or sensibility above the practical appeal to the audience. It's a two-way street. While I won't stand for someone walking into the restaurant and requesting Chow Mein, I will gladly (or begrudgingly) make certain concessions on issues like how to dress the tables. But to the linen contingent, please know that the day will come when I will again pull the linens and you will be left staring at beautiful, environmentally friendly butcher paper.
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