Confessions of a Restaurant Owner

Confessions of a Restaurant Owner:

It was about one year ago when my wife Raquel and I decided to open The Bacon Strip - Our second restaurant.  We had just spent the previous 12 months learning the restaurant business for the first time after opening our 21 and over restaurant Five Star Dive Bar. We had plenty of marked successes, why not have a family place? What could go wrong?.... Right?

Well, the short answer is LOTS.  I am writing this blog mostly for our customers and friends but also maybe a little bit for myself. It seems important at this time to summarize some of our last year in the breakfast business and quite frankly, I feel the need to apologize to some of you.

You see, we learned how to operate a restaurant, while operating a restaurant. Sometimes I think we were more ambitious than smart. Whatever the case may be we messed up a bit more than we thought we might. We learned that our equipment wasn't right our employee training wasn't thorough enough and sometimes we just plain old dropped the ball. I can tell you though while this business is hard- We LOVE it.

We love the look on your faces the first time you taste our maple cinnamon flavored bacon. We also love all of the people we see on Tuesday morning for breakfast, and again on Wednesday. We have spent the last month re-designing the way we approach and operate this business in every way possible to make it better.

We have tried staying open in the evening with our 5-star menu. We have tried an overnight breakfast buffet for our bar customers - since we can't service a full menu when 100+ of them walk through the door all at once at 2am :-) Sometimes it seems that we change things too frequently in an effort to see what really works for us and you.

Which brings me to my next topic.....

Starting this Tuesday morning at The Bacon Strip, you can expect our final complete breakfast and lunch menu (3rd revision), as well as our permanent hours: Tuesday - Sunday 7am-2pm

Yup. We changed our hours of operation one last time. We plan to focus on what we do best - Bacon!

We have a deep passion for our little breakfast place. We love our customers, and our employees are an extension of our family. I realize that some of our lessons learned in this business were at the expense of our customers and for that I am deeply sorry.

We are set to give our customers the very best breakfast experience around, and we hope to become one of your favorite places to eat with your family. Come in and say hello to Chrissy, Bobbie, Becca, Kylee or one of our chefs - TJ or Billy.

We are putting our foot down and are expecting nothing but the best food, service and experience from here forward. We have learned plenty and have already started to put into action. We sometimes refer to this in our private conversations as somewhat of a re-launch of our concept. But really we have been revising all of these things I mentioned over the past few weeks and months. We'd love to feed you for breakfast and lunch through the week and weekend. Why not bring in your morning business meeting? Or maybe just meet a friend for breakfast.

If you haven't tried us yet - now is the time. If you come in often (most of you) see you soon! If you tried us once and didn't have the best experience - all I can ask is if you'll give us one more shot.
Let's have some great coffee and even better bacon (eggs on the side)

Thank you :-)
Jason Curtis