THE LONG LAUNCH…
JEFF GALVIN
WE FOLLOW THE GALVIN BROTHERS AS THEY COUNT DOWN TO THE OPENING OF THEIR NEW CITY RESTAURANT
WHEN talking about opening a restaurant, my brother Chris and I like to use car analogies. We have spent weeks showing everyone our Ferrari-like stove and our DB7 of a wood-fired oven. We have held many team meetings discussing service suggesting that many of our lunchtime Cafe guests may want a speedy 0-60-in seven-seconds-service, but that it must purr like a Subaru engine. How La Chapelle needs to exude the style and class of a Rolls Royce, with the quality and finish of a lovingly polished walnut dash.
Jeff’s wife Sara, on the other hand, likens the opening of a restaurant to the birth of a child – months and months of preparation, reading all the books on how to do it successfully, discussions on choosing the name, worrying whether it will it will be late.
Whichever way you look at it, there’s no doubt that opening a restaurant is very hard work, and has resulted in a mixture of joy, excitement, fear, trepidation, and stress. Though when pregnant you may gain a little weight, we have all lost it, with Spero, our general manager, topping the weight loss list with a staggering 14lbs.
We are now eagerly anticipating the arrival, Sara is nesting, Chris and I are choosing our cigars. And we are all dreading the months of sleepless nights to come.