Gracie O Malleys Press release

Press Release ~ June, 2008

Contact Information:

Doc

2238 County road 30-C
Port St. Joe, Fl. 32456
850-229-1779

Gracie O' Malleys Pub and Eatery, Port St. Joe Florida~ Tuesday, June 24, 2008~ After six years of construction on this restaurant we are finally open. But we could only stay open for two weeks! Oooops, my bad.

We have had a lot of problems ...the entire crew walking out on me during the dinner rush, the local Port St. Joe residents (not coming in for food only beer and) taking bets on how long it will be before we have to close again, and after only two weeks of being open we had to have the entire staff dismissed and close the doors to regroup.

I didn't know the restaurant business was going to be this hard.

The first thing to do was look at our staff. The customers were right to be shocked about our service staff. Most of my servers never waited on tables before in a restaurant or even knew how to serve a meal. Some of my people had an idea of how to use a computer to take orders, but they were more likely using the computers for gaming - more than placing orders to the kitchen. Although they showed up regularly, we wished they had all quit the first day. So we fired everyone including the manager and headcook.

The decor I thought was nice and clean. But anything new will look new for a while. My first mistake with the dining room was our unfinished parking lot outside. It made for a mess on our rugs in the dining room. Who would have thought that people could track in that much dirt from the parking lot. Rugs in the dining room-another mistake on my part. Since it rains here on a daily basis, my unfinished parking lot became a mud bath for customer's shoes and as they entered the restaurant the rug soaked up the dirt from their shoes as they walked to the tables. Our new carpet looked like it was five years old the first week.

I had such large expanse of wood walls that I decide to hang mirrored pictures on the walls in the bar to give greater depth to the room. As some of the customers pointed out, it just looks like a "garage sale" had puked on the walls with mirrored beer signs. Just like the erratic tattooed servers I had serving tables, the customers immediately noticed how odd the atmosphere in the restaurant appeared. I had added some "pub" atmosphere by hanging antique guns on the walls so people would stop staring at the odd wall mirrors. One of the ladies who came in asked if I collected Pirate memorabilia, because it looks as though the walls might have been haphazardly decorated in a Caribbean motif. I tried to have a "Pub" feel and I ended up being walls filled with garage sale doodads.

Getting to the menu... we had some problems again. I told my first manager (she's not here any longer) "just look at the menus" - we have to give our customers. They were cheap looking Xerox copies. Badly presented and the menu had no thought about the style before they were printed. This menu does not have a single item on it that says; "Irish". I asked our former head cook how were we supposed to be an Irish pub without Irish food on the menu? He told me he didn't know anything about Irish foods - I hired the wrong person again.

The cooking of and, getting the food to the table was another problem. Since we didn't have anybody that ever designed a kitchen before and knew about the flow it needs to be efficient for the cooks to process the orders from the dinning room we had more problems with cold food as well. We didn't have a place to hold cooked plates warm. We built the kitchen without warming lamps to keep our finished meals hot. And, there is nowhere in the kitchen to place the hot food under radiant lamps even if we did have them. So you know we had a lot of complaints about cold food. Even if the food was cooked right on occasion, it always came back to the kitchen to be warmed up.

I suppose the cooks were right, the kitchen is hard to work in. Since we didn't put enough refrigeration in the kitchen for cold food storage, they always had to run down stairs and outside to the refrigerators to replenish used food stocks. The cooks even complained that there was enough room to prepare the food. Maybe that is why they quit one night in the restaurant in the middle of serving dinner. They must have been tired having to run back a forth to get food to cook. That is probably another reason why the food that did make it to the dining room was cold. I know we had a lot of complaints about over cooked food as well. That must be because the cooks had to hold it warm in the oven to long. Maybe they just didn't know how to cook- just like our servers never before served customers in a restaurant setting.

Now that we have been closed for a while and changed the entire staff, I hope we don't have the same mistakes again. We have a new cook that cooked for a school in Alabama . We hope she knows how to run a Pub better than the last cook. "We will get on the menu first thing after a new crew is assembled" our new kitchen leader says. I hope she will last longer at this job than the other one she had at the bar/restaurant in Mexico Beach that lasted two weeks.

We should be able to stay open a little while longer this time around. I would like to have a running restaurant that can stay open for at least a month this time.

Gracie O Malleys Press release

Press Release ~ June, 2008

Contact Information:

Doc

2238 County road 30-C
Port St. Joe, Fl. 32456
850-229-1779

Gracie O' Malleys Pub and Eatery, Port St. Joe Florida~ Tuesday, June 24, 2008~ After six years of construction on this restaurant we are finally open. But we could only stay open for two weeks! Oooops, my bad.

We have had a lot of problems ...the entire crew walking out on me during the dinner rush, the local Port St. Joe residents (not coming in for food only beer and) taking bets on how long it will be before we have to close again, and after only two weeks of being open we had to have the entire staff dismissed and close the doors to regroup.

I didn't know the restaurant business was going to be this hard.

The first thing to do was look at our staff. The customers were right to be shocked about our service staff. Most of my servers never waited on tables before in a restaurant or even knew how to serve a meal. Some of my people had an idea of how to use a computer to take orders, but they were more likely using the computers for gaming - more than placing orders to the kitchen. Although they showed up regularly, we wished they had all quit the first day. So we fired everyone including the manager and headcook.

The decor I thought was nice and clean. But anything new will look new for a while. My first mistake with the dining room was our unfinished parking lot outside. It made for a mess on our rugs in the dining room. Who would have thought that people could track in that much dirt from the parking lot. Rugs in the dining room-another mistake on my part. Since it rains here on a daily basis, my unfinished parking lot became a mud bath for customer's shoes and as they entered the restaurant the rug soaked up the dirt from their shoes as they walked to the tables. Our new carpet looked like it was five years old the first week.

I had such large expanse of wood walls that I decide to hang mirrored pictures on the walls in the bar to give greater depth to the room. As some of the customers pointed out, it just looks like a "garage sale" had puked on the walls with mirrored beer signs. Just like the erratic tattooed servers I had serving tables, the customers immediately noticed how odd the atmosphere in the restaurant appeared. I had added some "pub" atmosphere by hanging antique guns on the walls so people would stop staring at the odd wall mirrors. One of the ladies who came in asked if I collected Pirate memorabilia, because it looks as though the walls might have been haphazardly decorated in a Caribbean motif. I tried to have a "Pub" feel and I ended up being walls filled with garage sale doodads.

Getting to the menu... we had some problems again. I told my first manager (she's not here any longer) "just look at the menus" - we have to give our customers. They were cheap looking Xerox copies. Badly presented and the menu had no thought about the style before they were printed. This menu does not have a single item on it that says; "Irish". I asked our former head cook how were we supposed to be an Irish pub without Irish food on the menu? He told me he didn't know anything about Irish foods - I hired the wrong person again.

The cooking of and, getting the food to the table was another problem. Since we didn't have anybody that ever designed a kitchen before and knew about the flow it needs to be efficient for the cooks to process the orders from the dinning room we had more problems with cold food as well. We didn't have a place to hold cooked plates warm. We built the kitchen without warming lamps to keep our finished meals hot. And, there is nowhere in the kitchen to place the hot food under radiant lamps even if we did have them. So you know we had a lot of complaints about cold food. Even if the food was cooked right on occasion, it always came back to the kitchen to be warmed up.

I suppose the cooks were right, the kitchen is hard to work in. Since we didn't put enough refrigeration in the kitchen for cold food storage, they always had to run down stairs and outside to the refrigerators to replenish used food stocks. The cooks even complained that there was enough room to prepare the food. Maybe that is why they quit one night in the restaurant in the middle of serving dinner. They must have been tired having to run back a forth to get food to cook. That is probably another reason why the food that did make it to the dining room was cold. I know we had a lot of complaints about over cooked food as well. That must be because the cooks had to hold it warm in the oven to long. Maybe they just didn't know how to cook- just like our servers never before served customers in a restaurant setting.

Now that we have been closed for a while and changed the entire staff, I hope we don't have the same mistakes again. We have a new cook that cooked for a school in Alabama . We hope she knows how to run a Pub better than the last cook. "We will get on the menu first thing after a new crew is assembled" our new kitchen leader says. I hope she will last longer at this job than the other one she had at the bar/restaurant in Mexico Beach that lasted two weeks.

We should be able to stay open a little while longer this time around. I would like to have a running restaurant that can stay open for at least a month this time.

Gracie O Malleys - what else can go wrong?

Press Release ~ June, 2008

2238 Conuty road 30-C
Port st. Joe, Fl. 32456
850-229-1779

Gracie O' Malleys restaurant, Port St. Joe Florida~After six years of construction on this restaurant we are finally open. But could only stay open for two weeks! Oooops, my bad.

We have had a lot of problems...the entire crew walking out on me during the dinner rush, the local Port St. Joe residents (not coming in for food only beer and) taking bets on how long it will be before we have to close again, and after only two weeks of being open we had to have the entire staff dismissed and close the doors to regroup.

I didn't know the restaurant business was going to be this hard.

The first thing to do was look at our staff. The customers were right to be shocked about our service staff. Most of my servers never waited on tables before in a restaurant or even knew how to serve a meal. Some of my people had an idea of how to use a computer to take orders, but they were more likely using the computers for gaming - more than placing orders to the kitchen. Although they showed up regularly, I kinda wished they had all quit the first day.

The decor I thought was nice and clean. But anything new will look new for a while. My first mistake with the dining room was our unfinished parking lot outside. It made for a mess on our rugs in the dining room. Who would have thought that people could track in that much dirt from outside. Rugs in the dining room-another mistake on my part. Since it rains here on a daily basis, my unfinished parking lot became a mud bath for customer's shoes and as they entered the restaurant the rug soaked up the dirt from their shoes as they walked to the tables. Our new carpet looked like it was five years old the first week.

I had such large expanse of wood walls that I decide to hang mirrored pictures on the walls in the bar to give greater depth to the room. As some of the customers pointed out, it just looks like a "garage sale" had puked on the walls with mirrored beer signs. Just like the inept ed Tattooed servers I had serving tables, the customers immediately noticed how odd the atmosphere in the restaurant appeared. I had added some "pub" atmosphere by hanging antique guns on the walls so people would stop staring at the odd wall mirrors. One of the ladies who came in asked if I collected Pirate memorabilia, because it looks as though the walls might have been haphazardly decorated in a Caribbean motif. I tried to have a "Pub" feel and I ended up being walls filled with garage sale doodads.

Getting to the menu...we had some problems again. I told my first manager (she's not here any longer) "just look at the menus" - we have to give our customers. They were cheap looking xerox copies. Badly presented and the menu had no thought about the style before they were printed. This menu does not have a single item on it that says; "Irish". I asked our former head cook how were we suppose to be an Irish pub without Irish food on the menu? He told me he didn't know anything about Irish foods - I hired the wrong person again.

The cooking of and, getting the food to the table was another problem. Since we didn't have anybody that ever designed a kitchen before and knew about the flow it needs to be efficient for the cooks to process the orders from the dinning room we had more problems with cold food as well. We didn't have a place to hold cooked plates warm. We built the kitchen without warming lamps to keep our finished meals hot. And, there is nowhere in the kitchen to place the hot food under radiant lamps even if we did have them. So you know we had a lot of complaints about cold food. Even if the food was cooked right on occasion, it always came back to the kitchen to be warmed up.

I suppose the cooks were right, the kitchen is hard to work in. Since we didn't put enough refrigeration in the kitchen for cold food storage, they always had to run down stairs and outside to the refrigerators to replenish used food stocks. The cooks even complained that there was enough room to prepare the food. Maybe that is why they all got up and left the restaurant in the middle of serving dinner one night. They must have been tired having to run back a forth to get food to cook. That is probably another reason why the food that did make it to the dining room was cold. I know we had a lot of complaints about over cooked food as well. That must be because the cooks had to hold it warm in the oven too long - to wait for the other food to come from the other refrigerators outside the kitchen. Maybe they just didn't know how to cook- just like our servers never before served customers in a restaurant setting.

Now that we have been closed for a while and changed the entire staff, I hope we don't have the same mistakes again. We have a new chef that cooked for a school in Alabama. We hope she knows how to run a Pub better than the last cook. "We will get on the menu first thing after a new crew is assembled" our new chef says. I hope she will last longer at this job than the other one she had at the bar/restaurant in Mexico Beach that lasted two weeks.

We should be able to stay open a little while longer this time around. I would like to have a running restaurant that can stay open for at least a month this time.