We have been awash in media coverage over the last week or so. As a result of a mini social-media coup that I managed to pull off, Edzo's was named to a list of nine great places for "cheap eats" in Chicago that Bon Appetit magazine published in their September issue. Truly, I'm honored to be mentioned in the same company as the others on the list.

And, as often happens with this sort of stuff, it's really steamrolled. The BA list is just grist for the internet food news/blog mill, and the only thing food writin' folks like more than checking out a new list is assessing and critiquing the lists of others. So as a result of BA publishing their list, we've been mentioned in subsequent articles in/at the Tribune, the Sun-Times, Huffington Post, NBC Chicago, and a whole host of others.

Then, as a result of posting some pics from my summer vacation on the Edzo's Facebook page, I got a call from Louisa Chu who was researching an article about chefs' vacations. The piece ended up in last week's Sun-Times food section and it was a really nicely done article (the online version doesn't do the stunning layout of the print edition justice). Plus, one of the pics I sent her of Henry chowing down on a burger made it into the paper. The PR for the restaurant is great, but making my kid's day by putting his picture in the paper is especially sweet!

And, then, hey, as long as we've got you on the line, Ed, could we ask you a few questions about your milkshakes? Um...sure. And, so, bam! This week's Sun-Times food section features an article about the old Multimixer we use to mix the shakes. And despite the fact that I'm quoted running down the quality of ice cream we use AND saying that our shakes are overpriced, the whole thing manages to come off as quite positive.

And, of course, all coverage is good coverage. Just get the name and address right! Thanks, everyone, for the interest!

Every Sunday we "burn off" the grill, meaning we put a sheetpan on the grill face-down and turn it on high. This builds up the heat within the grill itself and burns off all the excess grease and little bits that drop down into the ceramic briquette area all week long. Once it burns off for a while, there's just some white powder left which is very easy to clean out. This keeps the grill running nice and hot and results in less white smoke coming off of it while we're cooking burgers all week.

Anyway, this morning, as I pulled into the parking lot, with my car windows up, I smelled the grill-burning-off smell and immediately knew that Oscar was inside and working, remembered that it's Sunday, and thought that the vent fan must be doing it's job pretty well for me to smell that all the way out here.

That momentary thought process, where I smelled something and drew a number of conclusions about what was going on in my kitchen is a perfect embodiment of what the job of cooking and running a restaurant is all about.

People think cooking is about following recipes well, but it's not. It's about being in touch with your senses and then understanding the signs they're telling you. I am constantly in touch with the sounds, sights, smells, and feels of everything in the restaurant.

I don't notice the ice machine above the fountain machine running, but if it stops running, things seem too quiet and I'll go investigate. I can tell from the sound when all the liquid has evaporated from a pan of sauteing onions or mushrooms and they go from stewing to frying. And I can hear it from across the room. While I'm talking to someone.

Not only have I learned to smell something burning, but I can usually tell *what* in particular is burning, just by the specific smell. Burning toast, or marshmallows, or grill-grease-burnoff have decidedly different burning smells.

This is the stuff that cooking and running restaurants is all about. Being very in touch with your senses and then being able to figure out what they're telling you before it turns into a problem (or shortly after).

It's a fact of life in restaurants. Stuff breaks.

A few days ago, at around 3pm, we all heard a crazy racket coming through the exhaust ducts, from up on the roof, and then the fan started making some very strange knocking noises. I went up and investigated and couldn't see anything obvious like a busted fan belt, so I called my guy, who promised to come early the next morning.

But, 9am came and went, and then ten, and he's not showing up. By this time, the fan wasn't working at all, so I've got all the windows and doors flung open to try and vent the place, otherwise it'll get up in the 90's very quickly in here.

As I was blanching fries that morning, I'm thinking about what I'll do if we have to get through the day without ventilation, and it would suck, but what can I do about it? So I just keep my head down and keep working, and try not to think about the fact that all the heat and smoke isn't going out like it's supposed to.

It got fixed. It always does, and it wasn't a big deal...but the point is that, really, this kind of stuff is just par for the course. Something always fails, breaks, leaks, falls apart...and all you can do is just keep slogging through the work, just keep making sure you don't run out of beef or potatoes or buns.

Then this morning, I go downstairs to receive a delivery of CO2 for the pop machine, and there's tons of water all over the floor down there. Coming from an active leak in the ceiling, right where my water supply for my soda machine is located above.

So, upstairs I go to scope it out, and there's water all over the place in the same spot, but I can't really locate anything that looks like an active leak. So...try to eliminate some possibilities...check floor drains, water supplies, nothing. There's a very slight leak coming from where the fountain soda machine connects to the water supply, but I can't figure out why it would've caused so much water to come down, and why it would've leaked throughout the night, but not be leaking right now.

So, again, what can I do, really? Mop up the messes, put a bucket on the floor under the spot, call Pepsi service to come out and take a look at it, and call the building super to come out and take a look at it. And....? Get back to work.

It's hard because this stuff is upsetting, takes time away from what I'm working on, and tends to rattle me and throw me off my game a bit, but I still need to crank out my beef and potatoes and specials of the day, so that's what I've got to do.

The first year of running a restaurant involves a lot of guessing. You try and keep good notes about why it was busy or slow, so you can plan accordingly for subsequent years.

I've guessed wrong about busy/slow so many times now that my employees joke that if I say we're going to be really slammed, then they know to plan for a slow day.

Our first week back post summer vacation was a busy one. And, as per the guessing-then-noting game described above, I'm not sure whether to chalk that up to folks needing their post-break fix, or if that's how it'll usually be the second week in August.

It's nice to be able to assess our situation as we approach the conclusion of the first year. My small annual rent increase kicked in this month, so that provided a reminder that it's been a full year since I've been in the space that is now Edzo's.

The POS system has been a great help during this past busy week. The lines move much faster now and the kitchen seems to be keeping up just fine, which has resulted in lots of busy days that don't "feel" quite as busy, since we don't quite get the huge crushes of people that we used to.

Due to this, I've also been able to accommodate many more called in to-go orders than I could take before getting the POS. I was surprisingly able to take 4-5 call in orders this past Saturday between noon and one. In the past, I'd often take the phone off the hook during that time span.

Last year at this time I was painting, surfing Craigslist, driving my rented red Ford F150 around looking for used deep fryers, and wondering when the time would come that I'd actually be able to cook some tasty food in the kitchen of my restaurant.

The restaurant was closed August 1st-10th so that the family and I could spend some quality time together, and I could do a lot more sleeping and sitting down than usual, and it was well worth it.

We spent a few days at this crazy waterslide place up in the dells, which was awesome, and I did a bit of burger research as well (Wisconsin is always great for that). All in all, it was a really relaxing, refreshing, re-energizing time. I'm so glad I did it.

I was anticipating taking a lot of flak from my customers about closing up for such a long spell, especially after reading some of the more negative things that people sometimes have to say about our hours on some of the review sites.

But, surprisingly, 99% of the comments I've received from customers have been super-positive. Nearly everyone jokingly said that they can't go that long without their bacon-double-cheese, their Nutella shake or truffle fries, but almost all of them also said stuff like "that's great, you deserve it, it's great that you put a priority on spending time with your family" and all sorts of nice remarks in that vein.

And, even better, we've been totally slammed the first two days back, with lines out the door for at least a couple hours both days. With the money worries that closing down for 10 days while still paying rent, utilities, and my employees brings, that's really great to see.

So thanks, everyone, so much, for supporting me and the restaurant, in so many ways! It's awesome to know that I can take time away and then come back to a busy, bustling restaurant.

Big news! Yesterday my new POS system was installed and today we went live.

It went really well. The first day with a new or updated POS system can often be a complete disaster, because everybody is re-learning how to basically do anything having to do with how we communicate in the restaurant.

But our menu is simple and the tech from the company that did the programming and I worked very closely to try and set up the screens and order tickets in a way that is very similar to what we were already doing, which was working ok, but this will speed things up significantly, I believe.

The system we had in place was effective, but somewhat slow and cumbersome. I would take the order on an order sheet that I made up in MS Excel, using a pen. I'd circle all the desired condiments, write in special requests, then write the person's name at the top and indicate whether the order was "for here" or "to go". THEN, I would ring all that into my cash register, tell the customer the total, collect the money and make change or process the credit card.

THEN I would take the register receipt, write the name plus "for here" or "to go" at the top of that, and pass the two pieces of paper into the kitchen, where one would go to the sandwich side and one would remain on the fries side. If they ordered shakes, I'd write a separate little slip for my shake guy, again writing the name and "for here" or "to go". Whew!

The new system will require much less time and effort. I am taking the orders directly from the customer and entering them into the computer via the touch screen. No writing anything. The order-taking process still takes a bit of time, but that's really the nature of burgers and dogs, since everyone likes them topped their own way.

But now, when I'm done entering the info, and I'm either collecting cash or processing the credit card, the printers in the kitchen start spitting out tickets, so the guys get that info quicker. Plus, they don't have to read my horrible handwriting.

It was somewhat difficult today, and, to be honest, my brain hurts from thinking so much and studying all the various touch screen menus, desperately searching for the right key combination to enter "easy salt" or "no bun", but I can already see that this is going to make things considerably easier and faster in the not-so-distant future.

Part of me is intimidated and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of computing power that this system offers me. Really the only reason I opted to buy a POS system was to make the ordering/ticket process faster and more efficient, but this thing can do everything; labor, time clock, reports of every conceivable combination, payroll, managing deliveries, invoices, food cost, etc.... I'm one of those people who always reads the manual, so I just printed all 27 pages off and am planning on geeking out to that tonight.

So? Growth. Progress. Good stuff. Please be patient with us for a week or so while we move through the learning curve process, folks. It might get a bit hairy at times, but soon enough, I believe, you will see shorter lines at peak lunch hours and the amount of time that it takes from when you enter my front door to when you have food in your hand will be reduced quite a bit.

Finally!

Ever since I started getting our Dietzler Farms beef and offering it as an upgrade option for the burgers, folks have been mistakenly referring to it as "grass-fed".

Of course, when someone tries to order it and says "I'd like to upgrade to the grass-fed beef", I feel compelled to point out the fact that the Dietzler Farms stuff isn't a grass-fed product.

There's a lot of confusion about what's out there and how to best refer to it.

The Dietzler beef, for instance, is local (they're about an hour and a half away), sustainable, humane, and natural (meaning they don't use antibiotics or growth hormones on the animals), but it's not grass-fed, and it's not organic.

In fact, the term "grass fed" is itself a misnomer. We should actually be referring to this type of beef as "grass finished". The difference is important.

All beef is grass-fed for most of its life, meaning that the cows either graze on grass or are given hay or straw as feed. Conventionally-raised cows, though, are "finished" on grain (usually corn and/or soybeans) for the last few months of their lives. This fattens them up quickly, allowing them to be brought to market faster, and results in the type of flavor and fat content that Americans generally associate with beef.

The downside of this grain-finishing, though, is that it makes the meat far less healthy for us to eat. The fat from beef that's grain-finished is saturated. Look at it at room temp and you can see this clearly--it's white, thick, hard, and dense. Eating too much of this type of fat regularly, habitually isn't healthy.

If you've seen Food, Inc. you know the scoop. Grass fed (finished) beef is not finished with grain. The fat in grass-finished beef is considerably softer, more yellow than white, and it's nearly liquid at room temperature. Clear visible evidence of the fact that beef from grass-finished cattle is unsaturated.

Even better, it's jammed full of beneficial Omega 3 and Omega 6 acids. These are the "good fats" that people seek out, often taking fish oil capsules to get them into their systems. They are thought to lower cholesterol and decrease cancer rates. They're the same amino acids that are often associated with wild salmon, except that grass-finished beef has TEN TIMES the amount of them per ounce.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Dietzler Farms beef, even though it's grain finished, is a fantastic product. It's locally raised and only fed with food that's grown right there on the farm, so it's got a low impact on the environment. They raise the cows humanely and do not treat them with antibiotics or utilize growth hormones like rGBH, and the Dietzler beef is also dry aged, so the finished product is just jam-packed with big, beefy, minerally flavor. Grain-finished beef also carries the flavors that Americans have come to expect from beef.

But I wanted to also offer a grass-fed (finished) option, for those who want to eat it for health reasons.

It's not been easy. I tried to set up something with a number of small farms here in Illinois or Indiana, but most of them couldn't commit to getting me what I needed on a consistent basis, and quite a few of them only deal with beef that's been frozen, which rules them out for me.

I tried a number of products, whatever I could get my hands on, but my standards made it difficult--I wanted only beef that had never been frozen, I wanted only whole muscle, not already-ground beef, and I wanted great flavor, which is sometimes not associated with grass-fed.

After exploring the limited options (the stuff I bought at the Whole Foods butcher counter was terrific, but at $7.99/lb., not economically viable) I went with the big player in the grass-finished market; Tallgrass Beef. It took me a while to set up the distribution channel, but we did eventually manage to get it done, and now I believe I've got a steady enough supply to be able to commit to carrying the grass-finished beef as an everyday upgrade option.

Today was the first day we used it. Butchered and ground it early this morning, and then we got to work cooking and tasting. It cooks a bit more slowly, due to the difference in the fat, and the color isn't quite that ruby red you expect in a medium or mid-rare burger, but I've got no complaints; the meat is very flavorful, quite juicy, and not at all a noticeable drop-off from the ultra-premium Dietzler stuff. I tried both a griddled and a char burger and was very pleased with both.

It's not cheap, though. I'm charging $3 extra per four ounces for the upgrade to the grass-finished beef, and that's kind of a stretch, even. I should really be charging closer to four. So that means that if you buy an 8oz. char burger for $5.19, the upgrade will cost you six bucks--more than the price of the burger in the first place.

So it's not for everybody. But for those that want to eat burgers and feel like they're not totally indulging and clogging their arteries, it's probably worth it, especially considering that the quality and flavor of this beef is so good.

Get in here and check it out!

Yes, it's been like forever since I made a blog post. So what? I'm running a restaurant here, as well as trying to also have a life.

Anyway, it's July 3rd and I am unapologetically coasting into a long (2 days) holiday weekend. Seems like a good moment to bring this blog up into the present.

We are nearly nine months into the life of this restaurant and things are going pretty darn well, I must say. I've been slogging out the six-day weeks of 10+ hours a day and have more or less gotten used to that routine, carving out bits of personal and/or downtime as is possible. My employees have proven to be extremely reliable and we've been blessed with nearly no turnover, and despite just having had to shell out nearly a thousand bucks for an air conditioner fix, I've been remarkably free of pricey maintenance expenditures as well.

So? Partly lucky, partly by design, we're churning right along. The burgers continue to wow the customers and I've added some fun twists, trying out beef from different local farmers and offering it as an upgrade option over the standard burger. We've been getting Dietzler Farms' fantastic dry aged beef for months now, and even won an award for it.

The other big thing I've been doing recently is canvassing the Evanston Farmer's Market every Saturday and then high-tailing it back to the restaurant to put together a market burger special and farmer's market shake with whatever produce seems at its peak. It's resulted in some fun and interesting combinations like a burger topped with a deep fried fromage blanc-stuffed squash blossom and a Michigan black raspberry milkshake. Fun stuff!

For those reading who might want to get updates about these kind of specials, you can follow me on Twitter @edlakin, or "like" us on Facebook to receive all the info about specials as well as loads of other blather from yours truly. Those two outlets for my musings are a big part of why this blog has been so quiet as of late.

We won another "best of" thing recently as well, this one from the Chicago Reader, whose critics honored us with their award for "best new burger", so my wife and I will be forced to attend yet another of these swanky cocktail receptions and pick that up in the coming week. Oh, the glamour!

Well, actually this is only the second swanky cocktail and passed hors d'oeuvres thing that we've been invited to, but we'll take it whenever we can get it. We are blessed to have an incredibly active and vibrant food and food writing culture in Chicago, and I thank my lucky stars every single day that folks like the burgers and make the decision to pay attention to us in any way, shape, or form, whether it's in print, on blogs, Twitter, whatever.

Looking back to a year ago, when I was sitting, waiting to see if the deal to purchase and lease this space wouldn't fall apart like our first deal did, I entertained zero notions that things would work out the way they have thus far. None. I hoped for far less, and would've considered myself extremely fortunate to be breaking even and paying myself on the day before the fourth of July, 2010.

So I'll be toasting my good fortune and all the wonderful people in my life that have helped me and continue to help me make this happen every day--our customers, my employees, my family, and my wife, who runs pretty much every other aspect of our family's life while my attention and energy is near-exclusively focused on running this restaurant. Thanks so much, I could not do this without you!

That said, happy fourth!

I think it might be univerally-known that if you title a blog post as "new post", you officially have nothing to say.

Nonetheless, I'm posting. It's been more than a month since my last blog post and my SEO maximization team informs me that blogs need to stay current and keep people interested in order to continue to be relevant, even when they're running restaurants that are crazy-busy almost every day and win awards (!) from local print media who we didn't even solicit or bribe in any way.

So...not much to say or time to write lately. Busy running a restaurant, nailing up fancy plates mounted to "genuine piano wood" plaques to my wall, and trying to enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having this Spring.

I'll try to not go another month between posts.

Is it possible to be so insanely tuned in to your workplace that you notice a new or slightly different sound and figure out that a piece of your equipment isn't working properly?

Sure. Of course. But is it also possible to be so completely clueless that you walk right by something potentially catastrophic and don't even notice? And to be both of these things at the same time?

Yep. That was me today.

First, the patting myself on the back part. I had a problem with my ice machine yesterday, the one that sits on top of the soda machine. It serves the dual purpose of providing ice for the drinks, but also cooling the water as it runs through the lines and mixes with the syrup. So no ice equals warm pop. Bleh.

It was a minor problem, and the ice machine company was out here quick with bags of ice, and then a repair guy soon after, who said the problem was fixed and my ice machine was running A-OK!

But I worked late last night and when I was here by myself with just the sounds of my compressors and cooling sheet metal to keep me company, I noticed that I didn't hear the familiar sporadic crash of the ice cubes falling down into the bin. At all.

So I called the company again and scheduled them to come out this morning. Proactively. Just in case. So I didn't have to deal with a down ice machine in the midst of a busy Saturday.

The same guy came out and gave me a look, but I explained to him that I hadn't heard the cubes dropping, so he reluctantly went up there and opened it up again. He came down with some piece of electronic circuitry and told me that my sensor was bad. "Must've just failed last night, after I was here", he said. "Yeah, or you missed it yesterday", I thought.

Whatever. 20 minutes later, he's got a new one installed and I was hearing the familiar crash of cubes descending down into the bin. All was well and I was patting myself on the back for being so tuned into my restaurant that I sniffed that one out before it became an issue.

Now for the clueless dunderhead story.

The pilot on the oven often goes out overnight, and so when I crank everything up in the morning, the oven won't fire up. Sometimes I'm lazy and let Carlos or Luis lay down on the floor and hold the damn red button down for 2-4 minutes, but they just did it yesterday and had a heck of a time with it, so I figured I'd be nice and do it this morning.

Only, instead of using a twisted up piece of paper towel to light the pilot, like they always do, I grabbed my propane torch and fired it up. I laid prone on the floor, resigned myself to holding down the damn button far longer than I think I'd need to, and shot the flame in there, lighting the pilot.

After I finally let go of the button, the pilot stayed lit, I turned on the oven and it lit, and all was well. Again, I started patting myself on the back for doing it so much more quickly and easily than they were able to do it yesterday. I put away the torch and got to work.

Then, later, there was this smell. Something like methane or sewage gas or something. I kept smelling it every time I went over near the shake station, and I could not for the life of me figure out what it was. Every time I passed by there, it was driving me crazy. Eventually I just figured that the floor drains were giving off some smell or something and stopped worrying about it.

At about 11:00 when Tufo, my batidero (milkshake guy) came in, he said he smelled gas and started hunting around the same area. I dismissed his claim, explaining (somewhat patronizingly) that it was just the floor drains giving off some kind of sewer smell and not to worry about it.

He kept sniffing and hunting, and finally he pulls out the propane torch and proclaims "esta!".

And he was right. That was, in fact, it. I had left the valve open on the propane torch and after I put it away, it was just quietly, slowly, releasing all the gas, which was what I had been smelling all day. Duh!

Thankfully, the ice machine vindication happened after the propane torch move, so it made me feel a little better.

Signed,

Hyper-tuned-in-but-also-head-in-the-clouds-Lakin.

Big difference between this Tuesday and last week. We sold eight shakes last Tuesday (Norberto and I always look to see how many we do on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, since those are the days we don't have a dedicated shake guy and have to split the duties), but today we did 49!

Crazy. Give Chicagoans a 40+ degree day and all of a sudden everyone thinks spring has sprung. More than a few guys with shorts and flip flops today as well.

The fact that this is kind of a sidebar-type of post indicates that, overall, things are going pretty well. I've remedied most, if not all, of the breakage and equipment issues that I documented in my last post, and since then, we've been humming right along fairly nicely.

We've been busy, but haven't yet had another insane weekend like the one that followed the Tribune article, and once you get through a period like that, even fairly busy days feel calmer. It's the same with equipment, and employees, both of which I've had issues with lately. For me, the looming sense that something might go wrong is always worse than it feels when it actually *does* go wrong, and then you run around and fix it or work around it.

I was dreading dealing with the french fry cutter, but when I finally wrenched the failed plastic anchors out and relocated it, the whole job only took me about an hour, and now it feels much more solid.

Same with employees. Up until this week, no one but Rodolfo had ever worked my disher/busser position. He needed to take a little time off, so this week we've had three different guys there. As usual, I get all nervous about what effect that might have on how things run, but, ultimately, everything goes fine, and at times, perhaps, even a bit better than they might've gone with the normal guy in place.

Which brings me back to cooks' quirks. One thing that's always amused me is how different people have their own different little ways of doing things. This is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to attain consistency in restaurants; because cooks--the good ones at least--all believe that they alone know the one true best way to do just about every single aspect of their job.

Whether it's cleaning various substances, washing/processing produce, doing prep, cooking for service, or quickly breaking down a station, just about every cook worth his salt is always striving to innovate in order to increase efficiency, speed, and quality.

There's a lot of ingenuity going on in restaurants. Smart guys like Javier (who I worked with back at the old Nick & Tony's on Wacker) figure out cool ways of suspending a jug of canola oil with a plastic-wrap tether and then poking a hole in the bottom so it slowly streams oil into a bucket of vinaigrette fixin's and a running stick blender (which, more than likely, had its switch jimmied to allow for hands-free operation).

Norberto, who runs my fry station, is an innovator. He's a nearly everyday employer of the plastic-wrap belt, brought in a power drill to bore slightly larger holes in the salt shaker, and he's constantly moving stuff around, re-jiggering, thinking about how to make his job and the restaurant more efficient and economize the movements needed to produce the dishes on his station.

Sometimes it's obvious stuff. We were using three skinny bain maries in a countertop steam table unit we have, and we kept running out of the Merkt's cheese for the cheese fries and would have to heat up more during service. Finally Norberto suggested that we use third pans instead of the bains. Duh! Why didn't *I* think of that?

Lots of it is experience, too. I remember a guy I worked for who, when trying out a new employee, would ask them to empty a gallon jug of mayonnaise into a large stainless bowl, and then watch to see how they did it.

Guys with less or no experience (at least in the sort of prep work that this chef was interested in from his guys) would open it and start pulling it out of there with a spoon, rubber scraper, or whatever.

The more seasoned prep guys would open the top, flip it upside down over the bowl, then give the bottom of the jug a few good stabs with a knife. The air that went in would break the suction, and the mayo would more or less slide right out of the jug, all in one piece.

That's just one random example, but it shows the value of doing the mundane tasks over and over again, and learning how to do them faster, more efficiently, or better.

Stuff is breaking.

In the last week or so, I've had issues of one kind or another with my meat grinder, my french fry cutter, the ice cream freezer, the stereo, and a bunch of other little things.

It's more annoying than anything else. I had to run around a ton on my day off to chase down a replacement part for the grinder, bought two, and now am thinking I should probably just go ahead and buy a whole 'nother grinder to have on hand as a replacement.

The french fry cutter is slowly coming unanchored from the wall it's mounted to, something I knew would happen eventually, so I shored it up a bit and then went online and bought a countertop model to have on hand as a backup.

A couple weeks ago, the amplifier I use to run the music for the restaurant suddenly stopped making any sound for its entire right side (two of the four speakers), so I had to switch it out with an old amp I had at home.

Sunday, the thermal pressure pot I use to keep the milk for the milkshakes cold and easily accessible shattered with a loud pop when I poured a half-gallon of cold milk into it, sending milk cascading majestically down the table onto my shoes.

And then, today, right before we opened, I checked to see if I needed to load more ice cream into the dipping cabinet and found it warm inside, with a few inches of watery melt at the bottom waiting to be cleaned out, due to a GFCI outlet that's gone wonky.

Hoo. Effing. Ray.

My immediate reaction, with every semi-serious event like this, is to first, in my mind, panic. I run around a little bit, freak out for a moment, and then start figuring out how I can best deal with the situation. My cooks get a kick out of seeing me flustered, I think, since I generally don't get too shook up by anything. Once they're done laughing at my overreaction, they're quick to jump in and help remedy the situation.

That's what happened today. I pushed the reset button, heard the freezer turn on, and then tossed what was in there and grabbed a new tub of ice cream from the walk-in freezer while Oscar bailed the water. We threw some towels in there, cleaned it out, and in just a few minutes, I had a nice, newly-defrosted dipping chest. No biggie.

I think part of the reason I get so panicky when I first realize something's not working is that this whole restaurant thing still feels somewhat tenuous. I still don't trust the equipment, the building, really--the whole set-up and still walk in every day expecting to see fire damage or a flood or something.

It's a totally irrational fear, I realize, since there have been restaurants operating out of this spot for years now, and they've managed to soldier through. But I can't help but extrapolate small, easily repaired, breakage to the point that it feels somehow indicative of a larger catastrophe that may or may not be imminent.

All things considered, this is probably a helpful impulse, since it drives me to obsessively check to make sure all heat sources are turned off and, until recently, that the crappy GFCI reset button on the outlet that the ice cream freezer is plugged into didn't trip. Lesson learned. Can't let up.

Anyway, I'm hoping that writing this post will stop the string of breakages.

Media of any kind helps, so my mindset from the get-go was to make time to talk to anyone who showed any interest in writing about Edzo's.

I was hoping to get some coverage, and expected to get mentioned in maybe the Reader or Time Out, but it seems to have steamrolled and I've been lucky enough to get a ton of favorable reviews and features. You can check the Edzo's website's media page for a pretty long list, if you're interested.

No one piece gave us a huge bump, although the weekend following Steve Dolinsky's Hungry Hound piece on the channel 7 news was insane. Mostly, it's been a slow steady build where all the media coverage has kind of had a longer-term cumulative effect.

This week, though, was a little different. We were on the channel 7 show 190 North on Sunday night, and then in Thursday's Tribune. Tangible uptick in the number of people walking in the door this week.

It's interesting, with all the buzz that surrounds social media, to think about. I'm active in social media as a way to promote the restaurant (duh!), and put in probably 5-6 hours a week total doing Twitter posts, updating Facebook status, and blogging, and have been since the summer, before the restaurant was open.

It's been effective, I think. Not sure how much of the media coverage we'd have gotten if I hadn't done this stuff. But with all the talk about how important social media is, I'm quite surprised at how much more discernible and immediate an increase comes from an appearance in one of the more conventional forms of media, like TV or newspaper. The old, established media are still way bigger and more powerful.

It's easy to forget how many people watch TV and/or read the daily newspaper every day. For me, at least, because I almost never look at either.

Anyway, I thought it was high time that I wrote something about all the media coverage, which has been mostly very positive, and really...as long as they get the name and address correct.....

Another thing that's been very weird is when someone does an anonymous review and eats here a few times, once I read the review I can usually remember the reviewer based on what they describe ordering or whatever interaction I had with them, and it causes this whole "ah, so he's THAT guy!" moment. And then usually a second or two after, I'm thankful that I didn't come off as rude to them or we didn't screw up their order.

So, thanks, to all the fine media institutions who have talked about Edzo's, and also, anyone who watches or reads them. Keep it coming, every little bit helps!

Back when I was fresh out of culinary school, and was running the kitchen at a successful little cafe in Wrigleyville, my first wife called me at work, all upset because my life "as a chef" was so much more glamorous--yes, that was the word she used--than hers.

At the moment she called I was cleaning the convection oven and was actually wearing thick rubber gloves while holding the phone to talk to her, so I had to laugh at that one.

There have been some moments that have followed, of course, that have felt glamorous, but that certainly wasn't one of them.

I met with reps from Dietzler Farms and Niman Ranch this week, with both bringing me samples. I'm going to do a side-by-side tasting of the Niman, Dietzler, and our normal beef, which is standard issue IBP USDA choice stuff.

What I'd like to do is have a rotating menu of featured local, natural, organic, humane, grass-fed, whatever, beef producers and offer this meat as an upgrade option for the burgers.

So that felt kind of glamorous. They brought their glossy brochures and nicely explained all the benefits of their products (which I'll comment on at length at some point in the future), and I felt kind of cool. For a little while.

And then this afternoon, I met with a group of students from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business Management, who have decided to use me for their class project, and so they're offering to do a whole marketing/demographic plan for me for for just the price of a few hours of my time. I'd be a fool to pass that up!

After my hifalutin marketing meeting with my team of very professional grad students, I'm thinking that, yeah, maybe my glamorous moment has finally arrived. But then I got started on my working-late list tonight and crawled up into the ceiling to clean compressors and change furnace filters, and then snaked out the p-trap with a wire hanger in hopes I can get the hand sink back to draining properly.

And I did, so now it does! And I actually got it back together without creating any leaks!

I prefer the small victories to the glamor, anyway, I think.

Me: "You want that with everything--ketchup, mustard, pickles, onions?"

10-15 customers a day: "You guys got *grilled* onions?"


And, yes,of course, as any self-respecting burger and dog place should, I do have grilled onions.

They're usually referred to as "grilled", but they're technically sauteed. Most places do theirs on the flattop, which perhaps explains the moniker. (I've never understood why people would call cooking on a flattop "grilling", but that's a different post).

The thing about doing grilled onions, though, is that they should be allowed to cook relatively slowly, so that they can fully soften and then caramelize. I've been places and ordered grilled onions only to see them start cooking the raw onion after I've ordered. Not good. One time I even saw a guy try and cook onions in one of those conveyor toasters the sub places use. Blech. Those aren't grilled onions!

The slow cook allows you to coax all the sweetness out of the onions as they slowly stew in their own juices on the griddle and eliminates all the hot, crunchy rawness that onions can have. They're great.

We use our grilled onions in the patty melts, of course, on the portobello mushroom sandwich, on whatever upon request, and on the classic Maxwell Polish, which is scored and charred on the grill, then slathered with yellow mustard and grilled onions. It's a true Chicago original.

"Maxwell" refers to Maxwell Street, where the old market used to be, and two places down there are still churning them out as they have been for years; Jim's Original and Maxwell Street Express Grill, which are right across the street from each other.

Both do a great Polish as well as the somewhat-less-famous pork chop sandwich. My dad loves to talk glowingly about how good the Polishes used to be at one or the other of these places, and he swears up and down that one day, when he asked the guy working the griddle what made the grilled onions so good, the guy showed him; he pulled out the trough under the griddle where all the scrapings and excess oil ended up, and carefully poured it over the pile of onions that was sizzling on the back of the grill.

...and they're hungry, apparently.

Between the NU students being on break and closing up for a week, it's been a while since we've seen some of our regulars around here. Many returned today, with a vengeance.

In a truly bizarre turn of events, the first six burgers we sold today were triples or bigger. Normally, we sell maybe one triple a day. Today, all told, six triples, a quad, and the pictured ridiculous stack of six patties.

The orderer and consumer of the sixer was a guy named Taylor, who's done this before. He's an ROTC guy and works out a lot and can seriously eat. Last time I saw him, prior to Christmas break, he got a quad plus an order of loaded fries, ate everything, and then came back up and ordered a bratwurst. For dessert, I guess.

The crazy thing about Taylor is that he actually eats everything. Today he destroyed his six-stack quickly, and also an order of garlic fries. His friend was timing him as well. Ah....youth!

Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not encouraging this kind of crazy gluttony. But I'm happy to sell people what they want. I did also clue a few of these guys in to another hot dog and hamburger place not very far from here, that's kind of got the market cornered on these sort of belly-busting displays, so we'll see what happens if Taylor decides to walk a few extra blocks and trys to tackle the "triple undisputed".

Be gentle with him, Gus.