Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Sheppards at the White Elephant
Wine Festival
The 12th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival is being held on the front lawn of my hotel right now and the island is crawling with winemakers. While I enjoy spending time with them, I quickly discovered that I am not the varsity drinker I always prided myself on being. These guys (gentlemen, you shall remain unnamed of course) were on a 5 day bender that would rival Spring Break in Daytona. In my defense, it could be the 18 hour days in 3 inch heels, and the fact that the last thing I ate that came close to meeting the food pyramids criteria for a balanced meal was a sushi roll on the 13th (only because there was avacado in it).
And while the island will experience a Fernet shortage for a while, and also see a decrease in random men wandering aimlessly down the cobblestone streets with umbrellas, or getting ill ouside of a tent at the Grand Tasting over a slice of Steamboat pizza, their memory will live on thru my blog and late night stories among industry indivduals.
And while the island will experience a Fernet shortage for a while, and also see a decrease in random men wandering aimlessly down the cobblestone streets with umbrellas, or getting ill ouside of a tent at the Grand Tasting over a slice of Steamboat pizza, their memory will live on thru my blog and late night stories among industry indivduals.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Dinner in the Ivory Room.
When: May 16th, 2008Where: The Ivory Room of the White Elephant Hotel
What: Dinner and Wine
Who: John Arns, Chris Berry, Amy Canepa, Peter Daunis, Dennis Gilligan & Aimee, John Hafferty, Kelly Hulme, Sean Larkin, Tuck Meyer, Paul Mullen and Leslie & Pete Sheppard.
What: Dinner and Wine
Who: John Arns, Chris Berry, Amy Canepa, Peter Daunis, Dennis Gilligan & Aimee, John Hafferty, Kelly Hulme, Sean Larkin, Tuck Meyer, Paul Mullen and Leslie & Pete Sheppard.
Wine started making it's way into my office around Thursday afternoon, and by Friday at 4 there was a nice colleton waiting for this dinner. I had unknowingly scheduled myself to somm the floor that night, but left at the end of dinner service to join in the fun and relax for the first time since the beginning of Wine Festival.
Friday, May 9, 2008
10 years and counting.
I have worked in this business for 10 years now (please bear in mind that I started as a dishwasher, so I am a big fan of working your way up) and people never cease to amaze me.
I took a $32,000 per year pay cut to get my first management job. Then later, moved to Nantucket and started waiting tables again, only to get another pay cut when I moved to a different job with better possibilities career wise. I was promoted twice with in 6 months, so my gamble paid off for me, both career wise and financially. But I have watched people make some ridiculous mistakes in the 10 years.
My first gig was in a little place in where I grew up in Georgia. I worked alot, and rarely got paid with checks that cleared the bank on the first try. I was a dishwasher and the bartender would make a bourbon and Coke in a 44 oz cup and give it to me halfway thru my shift. [I later fell in love with him, then back out after I moved 500 miles south to live together.] I was given a battlefield promotion (read: a waitress got too drunk to show up or call and I was given her job). I later bartendered, barista'd, hosted and sort of managed. It was one of the shadiest places you have ever seen. It was open from 6 am- 2 am, and the owner had the worst ear, nose and throat problem [read: cocaine] you could imagine. For the record, this restaurant no longer exists, thanks to those kind folks at the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I moved down to south Florida with the aforementioned bartender, who was an artist of sorts [read: unemployed] and stumbled into the hottest restaurant on the island. Literally, I was trying to find one place for an interview and accidentally walked into a different place and got hired. The hiring manager later confided in me that, while my experience certainly wasn't where it should have been for the position, I was a shoe-in with my Southern accent [Sweeney, I will never forget this, as that Southern accent has gotten me out of more tricky situations than I care to count]. She essentially took an able body and molded a capable, knowledgeable server out of it. I stayed there for just over 3 years. I had medical, dental, 401K...all the bells and whistles. They couldn't beat us with bats and make us quit our jobs. The money was great, the food was terrific, and we were slow in the summers and had ample vacation time. After realizing that I shouldn't be supporting a 35 year old drug addict when I was 22, I packed my stuff, and moved out on my official "own". With in 1 week of moving out of said boyfriends, I met a new beau at a bar and we have been together for 5 years and counting. My apartment was 300 yards from the beach, which I visited frequently with my best friends Catie & Katie (swear to God...I can't make this up). Life, was in turn, good.
Ambition got the best of me, and I longed to get away from the heat and humidity of South Florida. I moved to Charlotte NC to work for a new restaurant group, essentially committing corporate espionage according to the Human Resources division with my previous company. After giving Charlotte 6 months to work out, Tuck and I decided to move to Nantucket, as the season in PB was closing on it's end and Charlotte was proving to be a large city with a highway system that couldn't support it's ever-growing number of residents.
After my management stint in CLT, I decided that I wanted money, and lots of it. I landed a job at Nantucket's only beach front restaurant, which was only open from May 15th to October 1st. This suited me just fine, and gave me a nice long winter to read, study and drink wine [this is know as R&D].
After 2 sweet years staring at the sunsets and north shore of Nantucket, I became restless again and outsourced a new job, as the part time sommelier at the White Elephant hotel on the harbor. After the season ended, my mentor and boss left and moved to some undisclosed location in Western Mass, and left me his job.
I took a $32,000 per year pay cut to get my first management job. Then later, moved to Nantucket and started waiting tables again, only to get another pay cut when I moved to a different job with better possibilities career wise. I was promoted twice with in 6 months, so my gamble paid off for me, both career wise and financially. But I have watched people make some ridiculous mistakes in the 10 years.
My first gig was in a little place in where I grew up in Georgia. I worked alot, and rarely got paid with checks that cleared the bank on the first try. I was a dishwasher and the bartender would make a bourbon and Coke in a 44 oz cup and give it to me halfway thru my shift. [I later fell in love with him, then back out after I moved 500 miles south to live together.] I was given a battlefield promotion (read: a waitress got too drunk to show up or call and I was given her job). I later bartendered, barista'd, hosted and sort of managed. It was one of the shadiest places you have ever seen. It was open from 6 am- 2 am, and the owner had the worst ear, nose and throat problem [read: cocaine] you could imagine. For the record, this restaurant no longer exists, thanks to those kind folks at the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I moved down to south Florida with the aforementioned bartender, who was an artist of sorts [read: unemployed] and stumbled into the hottest restaurant on the island. Literally, I was trying to find one place for an interview and accidentally walked into a different place and got hired. The hiring manager later confided in me that, while my experience certainly wasn't where it should have been for the position, I was a shoe-in with my Southern accent [Sweeney, I will never forget this, as that Southern accent has gotten me out of more tricky situations than I care to count]. She essentially took an able body and molded a capable, knowledgeable server out of it. I stayed there for just over 3 years. I had medical, dental, 401K...all the bells and whistles. They couldn't beat us with bats and make us quit our jobs. The money was great, the food was terrific, and we were slow in the summers and had ample vacation time. After realizing that I shouldn't be supporting a 35 year old drug addict when I was 22, I packed my stuff, and moved out on my official "own". With in 1 week of moving out of said boyfriends, I met a new beau at a bar and we have been together for 5 years and counting. My apartment was 300 yards from the beach, which I visited frequently with my best friends Catie & Katie (swear to God...I can't make this up). Life, was in turn, good.
Ambition got the best of me, and I longed to get away from the heat and humidity of South Florida. I moved to Charlotte NC to work for a new restaurant group, essentially committing corporate espionage according to the Human Resources division with my previous company. After giving Charlotte 6 months to work out, Tuck and I decided to move to Nantucket, as the season in PB was closing on it's end and Charlotte was proving to be a large city with a highway system that couldn't support it's ever-growing number of residents.After my management stint in CLT, I decided that I wanted money, and lots of it. I landed a job at Nantucket's only beach front restaurant, which was only open from May 15th to October 1st. This suited me just fine, and gave me a nice long winter to read, study and drink wine [this is know as R&D].
After 2 sweet years staring at the sunsets and north shore of Nantucket, I became restless again and outsourced a new job, as the part time sommelier at the White Elephant hotel on the harbor. After the season ended, my mentor and boss left and moved to some undisclosed location in Western Mass, and left me his job.
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