so, we’re losing harp at lightnin’ salvage to make way for a ‘dark’ beer. tonight i’m experimenting with a smithwick’s beer, given to me by a distribitor.
the photo is my friend matt’s saw. matt has just started his builder company and i’m trying to help him with a logo. i’ve sent the photo to the head of LSE, brent, to design, and bell builder co. will be officially born.
today was the most challenging yet, at least it felt that way. i’ve stressed myself into a kanker sore, trying to figure out how to do two very large catering orders and feed 100 seat busy restaurant on a saturday night… from two baker’s pride ovens and a salad station sitting over there off 23rd. i impressed even myself even though the night had it’s share of mistakes…
today also, my mother brought an rv load of women freinds in to experience satchel’s. i think there were 10 or more crazy women sitting at one of our tables yuckin’ it up. what a sight they must have been! i was in the throws of a crisis the whole time they were there, and was only able to stop and say hi for 15 or may-be 20 seconds. but they seemed to be living it up and didn’t need my help.
dino lorenzo played lightnin’ salvage and you can’t help but love dino. classic guy.

we even cooked pies for jeremy foley, billy donovan, and urban myer tonight. that was the first time i ever fed the three of them on a saturday night. i was trying not to mention about that, but it’s actually a pretty exciting event for a gator fanatic. i went to uf. my parents both went to uf. my grandparents are old school gainesville, circa 1930′s. being invited to cater pizzas for a coaches party felt pretty good. i couldn’t be there myself, because of the english department party, but i do love the english department too, you know. english department had us cater last year too. english department 2. coaches party 1.
2>1. english department.

i saw this gainesville icon bracket in today’s paper. (pam gave it to me. i think it was today’s.) what is the most gainesville thing about gaineville? biggest icon. the swamp won. for a while i thought it was the swamp restaurant and later i figured out it was the stadium. i couldn’t believe that satchel’s even made the list. we’re so young and new, how could we be in the running fro the gainesville icon already? well, we lost out in the first round to burrito brothers. but the only real beef i had with the whole article was that they called my van a “vw” and it is a FORD. now, i know, that may not seem important to most people but i spent over 10 years living inside and traveling with that vehicle, and it’s like calling my mother my uncle, it’s just not right. it’s a ford falcon to be specific and that it a far cry from a vw van. vw van says hippie. ford falcon says working class family man. anyway, my debate has been to write a letter to the editor or to volley for a notice under the corrections section. jake says the corrections section, i think letter to the editor.

i could tell you about jake, josh, ed, big jon, ruthie! i work with these people all the time. but there is obviously no room for another word or even period

gina responded to my ad in the satellite looking for an artist. she has painted adam and eve in the garden of eden on this board behind lightnin’ salvage. of course, now the new challenge is to landscape the area and add some lights.
i must admit, i’ve had some stressful days lately. many little things pile up and make me crazy. i’ll spare you most of the details and just tell you about tonight. . tonight, work was quite challenging. we were so slammed early on that we had a two hour wait for take out pies. two hours! and then we made a couple mistakes, dumb mistakes, which slowed us down considerably. at the worst part of the evening we sent out 2 orders, to table 1 and 12, that took over an hour to get there. over an hour! this is pretty bad. i can’t remember ever having food take this long. i’m looking at a ticket that says 5:56 and it’s 7:05. pathetic. of course, once we get behind, more and more customers are asking how long their food will be. so the servers come in and ask us, i have to stop making food, find the customers ticket, then look in the ovens and make a prediction. when this happens 10 times in an hour, it makes the pies take an extra 5 or 10 minutes because now we are busy trying to tell people how much longer they will wait. the term for tables asking about their pie is “pie curious.” “we’ve got a pie curious on table 1…” i feel so defeated when pies take that long to come out. there is no doubt we are doing our best and working fast, and some nights we can be slammed and it’s easy. but tonight it was hard.
i walked out of the kitchen and out in front of the building for the first time around closing. “why is there no music?” was my first thought. inside there seemed to be music playing. i checked. someone had turned off the music in the front and on the screen porch. so, all day friday we had no music for half the tables. this bummed me out. especially because i just went out to an asian restaurant last week and noticed how dead the atmosphere was because there was no music. our business will survive i guess, even if all the new customers who sat on the porch don’t know we were playing sam cookes greatest hits, or johnny cash or tom petty. music is pretty high up on my list of importance regarding ambiance. no music is like having the flourescent lights on or something. it’s wrong.
tomorrow has the potential to be even harder. we’re doing more catering than we’ve ever done in a day. i’m sure it will all work out. no, i’m not anxious about it. no, not at all. ha
i’d tell you a story but i have some other things to do before bed. good night and if you waited too long tonight, i am truly sorry.

my son started kindergarten and i have drop off duty which means i am up mighty early these days, trying to adjust to making breakfast, packing lunch, rubbing my cloudy eyes.
satchel’s has been having some large parties lately. tonight there was a party of 40 and 18, right at the same time. sheesh. how did they find us? i thought we were a secret. ha.
this saturday i have more catering than we’ve ever done in a single day. a couple big orders and i’ll start preparing for them on thursday evening. i was planning to load up a photo here, but the bed is calling me and i’ve got to get the pics off the camera… so, until next time… eat more pizza. love a calzone. make friends with a satch salad

well, i got 2 calls from concerned waste pro employees today, and now i have cell phone numbers of 3 top dogs in the company. i had sent an upset email and left a phone message. so 2 high ups were on it today and trying to appease me. i am currently not as mad at them and hoping this will be the last of the trouble.
i walked into the kitchen at 4:30 and was instantly slammed making pies. 4 and a half hours later was the first time we had the board cleared of tickets (9PM). of course, more tickets soon appeared and we were making pies until almost 11pm. slammed all night. we had a new guy expediting (cutting and sending out the pies) and a new guy washing dishes. everyone did a top notch job and the best part was everyone’s good attitude. big john has to work a double on saturdays for another week or two and he stays in such a good mood it is crazy. today, saturday, was our busiest day of the week. i was in such a great mood to be cooking pies, the whole restaurant and kitchen was listening to my ipod, and i felt pretty challenged by the nonstop orders and yet excited at the same time. the best part about saturdays is everyone knows that tomorrow is sunday. as much as we all like making money and chumming around at work, and busting out dishes, salads, or pies, we all also love the sunday monday weekend. satchel’s kicks our ass all week but we do get a break, thank God.
i don’t remember any mistakes tonight, oh there was one: we sent out some calzones to a table that were supposed to be a to-go order. the table also had a large pie. the in house order had the same 2 calzones as the to-go order but the to go order was supposed to be first. so, the table got their calzones early, and the pie took another 10 minutes. the to-go order pick up was 10 minutes late so they never even knew the difference. the in house folks got their calzones early and had to wait for the pie. i’m sure about 1 percent of you followed that story but it doesn’t matter. the point is that it was a small mistake that didn’t much matter. the pies tonight were all practically perfect, i know because i cooked each and every one. i’m trying to remember a pie that was not perfect… oh, there was a steak and cheese calzone to-go that was a little less that perfect. it looked like it folded up a bit or something. i’m telling you, the rest were on the money. there was that one wet pie that had so many veggies, but it still tasted like a million bucks i’m sure. county road rocked the house of lightnin’ salvage. i slipped back to LSE for about 10 seconds at one point to check things out and the sunset was happening… what a nice night all around. good music, good pies, good times.
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again no doubt: if it weren’t for the 2 days off, i wouldn’t keep doing it. as much as i love what i do, as happy as i am to go to work and make beautiful pizzas, it’s the weekend that keeps me going. i get to hang with the family, work around the house, relax, and order take out. speaking of beautiful pizza, we have 5 t-shirt designs coming out soon. there’s the classic whale on the front, box design on the back, in an assortment of cool colors, the owl design, drawn by reba, the day manager, coming out in brown and grey. there’s the transcendental gator shirt coming out in a different style than before, there’s the eye heart junk LSE shirt with a new back and new colors, and finally, the satchel’s beautiful pizza shirt, designed by one of our best pizza cooks, coming out in sport grey. hey people. this is your chance to get some classic t’s. we may never print any of these again. get them while they are still available. never wear them and sell them on ebay in 6 months. gotta go. it’s been a pleasure feeding you.
satch

so, when our regular dumpster company said they were raising our prices $40 a month, we found another company with more service for $80 less a month. the problem? they don’t pick up the dumpster. we have had to call them every time and today i finally lost it. i get to work friday afternoon to find an overflowing dumpster and no one to call because it’s after office hours. the one contact phone i have, the guy doesn’t return my calls. now i have no idea if i’ll be up there tomorrow with my truck, loading it up with bags of garbage. one thing i do know, monday morning i’ll be on the phone to another company. i made it so clear when pick ups had to be. and i don;t even have a contact person who will return my calls. say no to waste pro. now i see why it was cheaper.
so that single incedent nearly gave me a stroke. i swear. i could hardly breathe i was so mad. the salesman came with this big talk about how great his company was and drivers were, and how we wouldn’t have to worry about anything, yatta yatta… then, our garbage doesn;t get picked up for the third straight week and he doesn’t return my calls.

we are starting to see a downturn in business. our business is the slowest of the year in the coming months, at least traditionally. families change their schedule, students are back but pinching pennies or just not turned on to satchel’s so much. the football games wipe us out too. tonight was slowish. lots of people got on the waiting list but then left. the parking lot was half empty at 9. but the pies are still jammin and we could use a bit of a break…
i gotta go. i need to practice some deep breathing to try and get this whole waste pro disaster from stopping my heart.

today was the biggest to-go order we ever had, for some chemistry students at flint hall. we sent out 40 large pizzas and 20 large salads…. wow. i’d like to say that i made it happen and pulled it off flawlessly but it was my mom’s birthday and so my wife and i took her out to dinner. she is always helping us so much, watching the kids anytime so we can do whatever we want, that tonight was finally a chance for us to get a different babysitter and take her out. i had originally turned down the big order but the day kitchen manager assured me he could handle it and convinced me to take the order. well, he pulled it off, not single handedly of course, but with the help of other dedicated employees who i appreciate. it seems as if i am allowed a restaurant and a personal life at the same time. amazing.
the drainage issues are still being worked out. there is a possibility that we are getting closer to resolving them. where do we put all the water that has been falling from the sky? our new motto, “keep it moving.” there was a new act at Lightnin’ Salvage tonight that i heard was quite good.
that new restaurant, buddhas belly is supposed to open next week, last i heard. don’t worry i’ll be the first to give a review and update right here on the satchblog.

i wish i knew what i did that made this picture upload. i tried several times tonight and could not get a picture to work and then all of a sudden one came through. computers baffle me. this woman currently has her collection of bugs and creatures on display at LSE. wild waters was nice. now back to a pile of work tomorrow. we’re still flooding, the french drains not working so good… the handicap bathroom still not finished… our biggest order ever this week, 40 large pies. if i were you i would not try and order take out wednesday night before 7pm. i’m nervous. more later.

the work weekend was good. we were pretty slammed friday night and not so much saturday night. friday nights are always busy and saturdays are sometimes busy. we didn’t have mistakes, unless you count the occasional hole in a pizza which i don’t. there was a summer graduation ceremony so we saw a couple caps and grandmas. the pizzas were looking extra delicious, crispy and just downright perfect mostly.
i had been talking about the work shoes i lost and after a month i had to buy a new pair. well, of course i found the old pair after wearing the new pair for 2 days. they were under the seat in my truck. i had looked under the back seat and passenger seat but somehow failed to look under the driver seat. so, now i have 2 pair which won’t hurt because i’ll probably be in this restaurant business for about a hundred more years and so will wear out both of those pairs of shoes.
the other weekend, the not working weekend, is going great too. got a few “outfits” for the boy to start kindergarten. he won’t wear things that don’t match. we didn’t teach him this, it’s just his personality. today i think wild waters is in our cards…
more later, gotta take care of a screaming kid.

I hired a guy to do some yard work for me recently. he bid the job at $300. it was a lot of work but he brought his cousin and knocked it out pretty quickly. he was a black guy. i pay people with checks all the time. anyway, i was looking at my bank statement online tonight and looking at images of the checks i paid out and low and behold, the black guy i paid had to put his fingerprint on the check, the babysitter’s check didn’t have that… what’s up with that? do they fingerprint everyone who cashes a check over a certain amount? or just black guys? i wonder.

well. i worked hard today. and i saw some other people working hard. i ran into a guy digging a trench and another guy under a house doing some plumbing, sweating like crazy. i rolled some dough balls, ran errands, fixed the cuisinart, tried to figure out how to rid my world of flies… i was painting on this flybait i got off the internet when i heard the woman in the parking lot…”meet us at 706…” and that got my attention of course.
turns out they “got screwed with the seating…” and were off to find something else. i know they waited a long time. i know the hostess is trying her best… but we obviously are not flawless and sometimes mistakes happen. we drop a pizza, we send a calzone to the wrong table, or we skip someone on the waiting list on accident and then try and fix it.
i want to guess they waited 45 minutes, but i don’t really know. and it broke my heart to see the 2 carloads of them driving off because we pissed them off. (not because they didn’t want to wait… they actually had already done the whole waiting part.) but i do know that when we try and seat 400 people a day we’re going to mess up with a few.) if we never messed up we’d be the olive garden, right?
oh, and the best/ worst part was when TK got called for his table and it was in the garden and i said under my breath, “it’s going to pour in 5 minutes and you’ll be drenched…” and then laughed and made them sit there and told them it was a perfect night for the garden. i was called away home moments later and on my way home i ran into a pretty drenching storm. i can only imagine the hostess tonight, dealing with more than her paycheck pays her for.
it was a really nice night though, with the rain and lightnin’ and faraway rumbling thunder.
gorgeous summer florida hot steamy night.
i think the heat makes people crazy, that’s what i think.

trying to make a short video is a lot of work. i really want to learn how to make videos so i can make a satchel’s pizza movie one day. in order to practice my editing abilities i bought a book. i struggled with that first youtube video for weeks. now i put this one together in a day. i’ve got a long way to go but i am learning some basics… titles, cropping footage, and the hardest part, getting it formatted for the web. here’s my newest short movie, starring my kids of course…

i go to cnn.com to get my news. i check the headlines every day, on rare occasion i actually read a story. i like to see what photo is on there. i wish there was a photo on here to see, but the problem of me uploading photos to this blog has not been solved, nor do i forsee it getting solved in the near future. i would have to call a computer tech agency and have them out to the house to figure out my problems, and well, it could be a while before i find time for that. so what if i can’t get photos to my blog? does anyone really care? anyway, i digress. so, i went to cnn and there’s a photo of all the republican hopefuls to get the nomination for president. every one of them in a dark suit. of course, somewhere a fashion law was written that the dark suit is the best thing for a presidential like person to be seen in. it’s just like all the people opening corporate stores, in the right locations, following all the guidelines for success. it’s sick. it’s boring. if any one of those guys had on a pair of slacks and a linen shirt with the top button open, i’d be desperate to find out what he was about, even as a republican. the democrats are the same, i don’t remember seeing a picture of them all and at least there’s a woman and a half black guy and a fat guy… but i’m sure they all wear the dark suit, except maybe hillary gets to wear a blue dress.
anyway, i don’t know why that makes me so mad, it’s just that they are all so desperate to look alike. they may have extrememly different views and opinions but they are all flat out desperate to look exactly like the next guy. what about that one foreign leader who always wears that sweater? morales? is that his name? bolivian head of state i think? now, that guy is cool. he has a down to earth, for the people look… a working mans look almost. it alwasy depresses me when the presidential election comes around. i’ve voted for ralph nader twice and he doesn’t even blip on the radar screen. when i listen to what these people actually have to say, nader’s the only one who even sounds remotely like he has some ideas. but i don’t won’t to get into it too much. nader wears dark suits too i’m sure. it’s politics and people have their beliefs on the subject and my rants won’t change that. dark suits…. barf-ola
i guess that’s why i don’t even have a suit that fits me. they look like straight jackets to me.

saturday night we were hammered. i tell you, we were worked like mules in that inferno of a kitchen. we close at 10, at 9:20 we were told we were on an hour wait. i didn’t believe it. at 10 we were told there was a half hour wait still. that’s when it sunk in. it wasn’t going to stop. the people kept coming. it was like we were at grand central station and trains full of people were unloading into our doors every 15 minutes. all hungry for pizza. i love it, don’t get me wrong , but i just don’t fully understand it, and my weary bones need a full day to recover from it.
cory and jake did an awesome job through the whole night, kept cool and efficient, without complaint. (joey too i guess, although he did ask me to give him a ticket one time and he already had it) … makes me proud.
my home list of projects could very well be longer than my work list. every time i turn my head i see another days work on some long awaited project. c and i started cleaning out our garage today, a little fun we have about once or twice a year. the junk out there is so thick, it’s what i always imagined the junk museum to look like… baskets full of screws and nails and washers, buckets with shells, bowls full of pocket change and broken pens and hair ties, boxes full of rope and string, everywhere things are dusty, dirty, rusty, old. it’s almost a shame cleaning it all, it seems to be so perfect in it’s imperfection. but then again it feels somehow strangely exciting to clean it all, go through things, throw things out, make giveaway piles, put similar things together.
i really love that restaurant, for all it’s faults and problems. sometimes i find myself thinking about it on my day off, how the busloads of people are always all around the buildings, hugging their relatives, holding their kids, smiling and waiting to eat. this last week i got to see glimpses of it all from the prep room window as i was helping to cover for the prep guy who is on vacation. it’s an amazing thing and i’m glad to be a part of it. it’s much bigger than me now, i like that about it.

i’m feeling a little like the weather today, drizzly and sub par. i have run myself ragged. seems that i always take on just more than i can actually handle… satchel’s and LSE are busy. i mean to tell you, the people do come. last night, wednesday, was our first installment of new song night, where songwriters get a chance to play some tunes. it went really well. it was a huge success, especially for a first time event. that happens on the first wednesday of each month and i’m excited about it. the prep guy is out of town all week on vacation so there’s a few of us working doubles to fill in for him. i’m scheduled doubles for friday and saturday. we still need to hire someone to wash dishes. we have 3 or 4 shifts a week, a couple day shifts and a couple night shifts. it is a really demanding job. the place is busy and the dishwasher has to be motivated and efficient. one guy left a note today that he read my blog and was available to work. i lost his number somehow. so if he’s still reading the blog, he should send me an email (contact info on the website). my computer has a mind of its own and now formats my photos differently than it did a few weeks ago, so now they do not format properly for this blog. this is depressing, especially since i have over-taxed my computer guy so much lately that i cannot fathom trying to fix this problem right now. there’s just too many other pressing issues.
we made a specialty vegetarian pie yesterday. it was a real hassle to make happen because the kitchen is crowded and busy from early in the morning. the pie was portobella mushrooms, tofu, kale, swiss chard, red onions, garlic, and squash. it was so good, but we sold ONE all day. i don’t have the desire or the energy to try and make that happen again. i mean, we could really push the idea and get the servers to push it and make wednesday the specialty pizza day, but it’s just too much hassle. i’d love to make specialty pies every day but the truth is that we’re too busy to add anything to everyone’s already long list of responsibilities.
i finally broke down and traveled out to the birkenstock store today to get a new set of work shoes. while there i saw the new morrison’s cafeteria next door and thought, “hey, i’m hungry, i’ll try that.” what a mistake! the buffet is huge so you think it’s a great idea. well, i couldn’t finish the chicken breast it was so tough and dry. the carrots and green beans were worse than i remember my elementary school cafeteria being. the were brightly colored and flavorless that they didn’t seem like real vegetables at all. i went back for a second round to try and find something i could eat, but the spaghetti had a weird flavor that made it inedible to me, and i ended up just eating a piece of thawed out frozen chocolate pie. i figured that they must figure that if they make the food bad enough, then no one will be able to eat $6 worth of it. i probably ate $1 worth. lord help us all, how do they get away with food that bad? the dessert station looked like they went down to food lion and stocked up on a few cheap cookies and cupcakes and frozen pies. they would be better off taking the ryan’s approach with the soft serve machine and the toppings and some pudding… i should have known better. it’s my own dumb fault.
i’ve read the first 2 harry potter books to my boy, and we’ve watched 2 movies now. so, that’s fun. the books are far superior to the movies of course. i like that he tells me stuff like…”hey, i didn’t think the library looked like that, i imagined the library was round…” it is interesting all the ways our minds imagine the events in contrast to how the movie portrays them.
i do love my job. i love lots of parts of it. my most favorite thing this week was getting the huge lot of temporary tattoos in for LSE and working with judy to design a display for them. judy made a box, painted silver, and brought in a new table even. the tattoos are really cool, even off they do cost $2 and $4.
this is getting to be too long. let me try and spend a few hours seeing if i can figure out how to get photos on here again. ta ta.