i saw this van at albertson’s recently. i had to snap a picture. it’s not often you see a van that is so packed with crap there is barely room for a driver….

we’ve got our new POS system in full swing now. it has it’s benefits and pitfalls but mostly it’s good. i mean, all the tickets come straight to the kitchen from the table and we can read them without calling the server back and asking is that a bacon or broccoli? things are better at the register, quicker and smoother. danny taking orders in LSE keeps 30 people from coming into the dining room TWICE…. once to order and once to pick up. now we run it to them back there and they never have to come up. the long lines that we used to have seem to be happening much less….so all that is good. i guess the main complaint i have is that it takes longer to take an order now than it used to…. we really need an app that is more customized for us to improve the order taking experience… that’s something i am hoping can happen in the future… something i am looking into…

it was a slow weekend… steady but not as busy as usual. life has finally almost returned to normal for me this week, after months of long days and nights and short visits with the kids.
right now my house is filled with the smell of boiled peanuts. i’m getting them ready for tomorrow. tomorrow is a trip with the family to itchetucknee, to the great outdoors cafe, and to pick blueberries in alachua. after that to my mom’s house for dinner which is always the highlight of my week as my mom spends all day preparing the best meals and desserts imaginable. for those of you who may not know this about me, itchetucknee is my favorite place on the planet. c and i used to go every week before we had kids. we’d just get a whim and go…. drive the van out there, doors propped up on a tree at home, boiled peanut shells flying out the doors like a trail, and a bubba keg of sweet tea to balance the salty peanuts…. tomorrow we re-live that but now with kids… they love the peanuts…. the van is retired but the camo truck will do. i’ve got the sweet tea ready and the peanuts are smelling oh so good right now…

people never stop asking me to open another place. they ask like i could just snap my fingers and there it would be – cranking out killer crispy pies day and night. tonight a customer said his sister lives in indiana and when he texted her where he was she instructed him to kidnap me and take me up there to open a pizza place. last week i got an email from a couple in austin texas asking me to please come to austin and open a pizza place. every year i get an email from someone in high springs asking me to come consider high springs for a new place. in lowe’s on wednesday the paint counter lady asked me to open a place on the westside of town…. but you know? it’s having 2 full days off that keeps me going as it is. and if i am working around the clock in the one place after 8 years, then where is the time to open the new place? don’t the kids need a papa? my 6 year old girl has me wrapped so tightly around every finger and toe… when we are in the pool she says, “throw me up and catch me!!” and i do. “throw me up higher and catch me!” she yells again. and i do. “throw me into space and catch me!” this game never gets old. never.

i came home early tonight, what with the rapture expected and all that. no, we were much slower than usual so i’ll use the extra hour to blog tonight about nothing and boil peanuts and finish my latest painting.
i looked at an article trying to figure out how this old man had decided today was the rapture and it explained about these 3 magical, special, biblical numbers and how when multiplied together they give a number that when added to the calendar starting at christ’s crucifixion, add up to today. wow. like this wingnut could actually calculate the actual day of the crucifixion even…. and it amazes me that i heard so many people talking about this. of course, people love to think about the end of the world and the rapture. it’s intriguing for sure but no person will ever predict an event like this. i don’t doubt that a rapture may one day happen but i can be certain that no human will predict it.

and in an effort to alienate a portion of people out there i should mention that obama is a bad-ass. i happened to hear some of his middle east speech while driving a couple days ago and was impressed. i only wish that words could be transformed into actions and that middle east peace was actually tangible. gotta go stir the peanuts. kina, i bet you’ve never even had boiled peanuts because you aren’t a southerner at all. you don’t know what you’re missing. boiled peanuts and itchetucknee are the definition of heaven to me so it IS like the rapture for me.

so, we get asked all the time about rehearsal dinners. our dining room only seats about 40 and people usually have about 40 or 50 and want to have a rehearsal dinner on a friday night. we can’t do it. we don’t take reservations and we can’t have one big party take up our whole dining room all night and make all the regular friday night customers mad right? i wish we had a huge extra dining room and a bigger kitchen but it is what it is…

now, often people want to “reserve” our back lounge area for a party but we don’t reserve that either but try and explain to them the times when it would be likely empty and they could use it. if we have a long wait for a table we need that area to entertain the guests that are waiting. we provide live music and people get a drink and watch a band and the wait goes by quickly….

however, all of that being said, we also cannot tell people not to come. we explain the situation and try and steer them in the right direction. that’s all we can do, our restaurant is first come first served…. so, we’ve had parties that took up the lounge for the whole night instead of 4 or 5 different groups coming through and using the space to wait and we’re not about to kick people out, we’re in business so people can have fun…but in the back of my mind i know that when one table sits for 3 or 4 hours, it means 3 or 4 groups have to wait longer for a seat……. it’s part of the challenge of being a busy place. “it’s a good problem to have” is what i hear when i try and explain to anyone some of the tricky situations we find ourselves in….

now we have a large group that is going to bring their wedding party in on a saturday night and enjoy the lounge. their party will likely take up the whole lounge for some duration and since they are arriving early enough to physically occupy the space it is theirs to enjoy. on the same night, at the same time, there is another equally large wedding party that is coming but want to sit “inside” for the A/C… hmmm.

so, let me explain… it’s a saturday night, a large group has gathered in our waiting area to party and eat pizza. an equally large group is gathering at the host station looking to get sat in the dining room and the host will likely be spending 30 minutes to an hour trying to get them all sat as tables become available… and if they need to wait for a table, they can go to the lounge area where…. there is another huge wedding party…. and then there are the regular crowd that come on a saturday night… they will see a long waiting list and go back to the lounge area to wait and see a huge party and possibly parts of another huge party all looking for somewhere to wait….maybe 85 people between the two parties…. but between the 2 areas we can seat 140 so it’s not impossible…..