big doin's

Well, I'm largely absent from blogging these days, but the urge hasn't completely left me.  Mostly I'm too busy running the restaurant to take the time to sit down and blog, but we've been going through some shifts in our plate tectonics over here lately, so maybe after all the shifting, blogging is something that I'll have more time for.  I hope so.

But not for a while.

For the next six or nine months, I've got my work cut out for me.

In early August, we will be a part of Lollapalooza's Chowtown, where we'll be a part of feeding the some-300,000 concert-goers at the massive annual event.  I'm psyched, but it's a daunting event to plan for.  I've been told by those in the know to expect to sell 3000-4000 burgers a day (plus fries to go with 'em).  I had to get my calculator out, but once I crunched all the numbers, I decided that multiplied out to around two tons of Slagel Farms beef, more than 15,000 pounds of russet potatoes, 50 lbs. of white truffle salt, 250 lbs. of Broadbent country bacon, and lord only knows how many aprons, hand towels, spatulas, and other essential details that I'll be hoping not to forget about. 

Suffice to say I've been making a lot of lists and phone calls.  Bread will be delivered daily to the site by Highland, my normal supplier of buns.  Linens will be delivered and picked up daily.  Armored truck for change and drops is being worked on.  Hotel room booked across the street.  Refrigerated truck + driver w/class C license nearly in place.  Special event insurance policy underwritten.  Etc, etc, etc....  I'll be thrilled when day 1 is over, I've got a read for how it'll all go, and I can relax and just sell burgers and fries.  Gonna be fun, but a ton of work.

Thankfully, Lollapalooza happens to fall within the timeframe of our annual vacation.  We close the shop every August for 7-10 days and everyone takes a summer break.  So, once I was asked to be part of Lolla, I just added an extra few days onto the beginning of our vacation.  The restaurant will be closed from August 1st-15th.

Then, once we've left it all in Grant Park and then gone up to Wisconsin for our annual battery re-charge, I will hurdle head-on into working towards opening our second location of Edzo's, at 2218 N. Lincoln Ave. in Lincoln Park. 

News of this was broken earlier than I'd planned, so many of you may have heard about it already.  I was planning to make the announcement much closer to Lollapalooza, in order to try and capitalize on some of the hype that event will generate, but some nosy food blogger sniffed out the info on some real-estate transaction public listing after I signed the lease, so the cat's out of the bag.

Anyway, I'm busy hiring people, training them, and trying to step away and allow them to grow into autonomous employees that can help things to run without my direct involvement 100% of the time.  To be honest, that's much more of a challenge for me than it is for them.  I've been very lucky to have found some very capable people with great experience and they've been catching on quickly and taking control of stuff that I've been the sole person responsible for since the restaurant opened nearly three years ago.  It's a challenge to relinquish control.  I'm not finding it easy.   Yesterday I drove a load of stuff down to the Lincoln Park location just to get out of their hair during service.  Today, I'm sitting composing a blog post at peak lunch rush time.  Baby steps.

Wish me luck....gonna be a crazy 6-month-to-maybe-a-year scramble as everything kind of falls into place (hopefully), but after it all shakes out, we'll have two Edzo's and I might just have a little more time available to write blog posts.