While shooting food and atmosphere in the restaurant for the new website, Greg Nesbit, photographer extraordinaire, took some videos as well, which are fun (for us!) to watch.
Last night we had a vegan diner who informed us in advance that she was coming. What a pleasure it was to put out a satisfying meal for her, when I know that she didn’t expect one in a “French” restaurant. Not only did she take the carrot ginger soup that Franck make to supplement the other soup choice, which had fish in it, but she also took our delicious heirloom beet salad as well. For her main course she had our Farro Risotto with local Wild Mushrooms, which we often finish with parmesan and mascarpone, but it’s equally fabulous just finished with good extra-virgin olive oil and a ton of veggies. She was literally jumping up and down in her chair over this dish. For dessert I made Sourdough Chocolate cake with a poached red wine pear and blackberry-cabernet gelato. This cake is so moist and fudgy, it’s impossible to believe it’s vegan. She loved it and we loved serving her. The difficult customers are the ones who don’t know what they want. When they know, it’s really not hard at all.
It was so satisfying last night to have a customer ask me about our corkage policy, and if he could bring in his own wine, and to have such a smart and logical response when he was told that in fact, it’s illegal in Massachusetts to bring wine into a full on-premise liquor license such as ours, so we’re not allowed to charge corkage, because in fact you can’t bring your wine in. The usual response to this has been customers getting offended, telling us that we were lying, that they can bring their wine to other places in MA, etc. and then refusing to buy wine from us and just being generally displeased with the place and our adherance to the law. Believe me, I would love to allow people to bring in their own wine. I hate being put into the middle of a dispute like this. We love wine and we make a huge effort to maintain an exciting and fun list, but many people acquire special wines and I understand that they’d like to enjoy them with some special food such as what we serve. I can’t, however, take the risk on our liquor license…the day someone drinks their own bottle here and gets in an accident on the way home, our license is history.
So I was so pleased that, after remarking jokingly that the law was silly and out-of-date, (which I mostly agree with), this customer picked up the list and chose a couple of the really really good, not at all expensive wines that we have on our list which he probably doesn’t have at home and could really enjoy with our cooking. I was so pleased I went over to tell him how much I liked his choices, and he went on to compliment our list extensively. He just “got” what we’re about and for a little over $50 had two really nice wines on the table. What a pleasure to see, rather than just someone being grumpy, not having wine with dinner, and vowing never to return…that’s just a shame, but hey, that’s the restaurant business…
I have to say, I’m grateful for the really small amount of complaints that we get here at our restaurant. But I’m mostly grateful for the people who handle their complaints by telling us directly, rather than going online and just writing a random bad review about some problem that they had here, which will be online forever, and which we can no longer to anything about fixing. It’s so frustrating when people don’t tell you something directly, but just tell lots of people -don’t go there!!— and it’s so satisfying when we do discuss a problem with a guest, and find a way to fix it! In fact, we find more customer loyalty generated by this, rather than the opposite. People appreciate being heard, and we appreciate being given another chance.
I don’t think that everyone knows that Berkshire pork is not actually from the Berkshires. It’s a heritage breed, English in origin, which is now raised by some smaller pork producers in the US. So, when we serve Berkshire Pork, we are serving a more delicious, humanely-raised, and organic product, but not a local one. We use Niman Ranch, from California…
It’s our 6th summer, and it’s amazing how things can constantly be adapted and improved every year. Our terrace is a great outdoor dining space, covered with a big green awning and large screen “windows”…now it is equipped with special sun shades and it should be cooler and more comfortable during the early evening hours. Yeah technology!!
We’ve always wanted to have a Chez Nous postcard and this year a local artist and old friend, Diane Firtell, showed us her new 3D montage style artwork. She has created a piece featuring the front of our little restaurant and printed it onto postcards…ta dah! Thank you Diane!!
Tonight is the perfect example of the ridiculousness of trying to book tables in the “off season” here! Though the restaurant opens at 5 pm, noone wants to dine, essentially, until 7:30 and 8 pm…So all of our lovely staff will be ready and waiting at 5 pm, stand around until 7 when a few folks will deign to come in early, and then start running like crazy! You’re between a rock and a hard place to try to negotiate folks to come earlier this time of year. In the busy season we try to assert ourselves a bit more, because if someone doesn’t agree to come at a particular time, someone else will call to take the table. This time of year it’s not obvious…we don’t want to make people feel unwelcome or risk them deciding to go somewhere else at the time they want to dine. What can you do? Take them all and hope that their service isn’t too terrible….so frustrating!!
We’ve had a guest coming here who’s kind of like our guardian angel since we’ve opened. I guess every small business must have a person like this who seems to be particularly looking out for them. I swear, I’ve had the feeling on some Thursday nights in January when the restaurant was completely empty, that he just grabbed his wife and said “Let’s go down to Chez Nous and make sure that they have some customers tonight!” and shown up for dinner like that. He and his wife have dined here nearly alone on more than one occasion.
Last night, however, they decided to bring a gang: the whole group of Whiffenpoofs from his Yale college class, who were having a special reunion. It was a great experience for us to see these incredible gentleman — still the best of friends for over 50 years — breaking out into song throughout the course of their meal. The entire restaurant was charmed. This institution of a capella singing (foreign to our foreign employees and to Franck — what better way to discover it?) is just so charming and captivating. We all had an
It’s always hectic to change the menu: run out of the old items, which we are completely tired of making, re-read the new menu a thousand times and still see mistakes after it’s printed, redo the website and the computer ordering system…we love how it feels to see the new season’s ingredients coming in: all the squashes, the Swiss Chard, the wild mushrooms. Yum. This weekend is always an exciting one in Lee: Founders Weekend with the Taste of Lee on Friday nights. Hundreds of chicken drumsticks are going to be transformed into Coq au Vin and consumed by people walking up and down Main Street along with treats from all of the other local eating establishments. A great spirit lingers in the air and you see the whole town out having a blast. Don’t miss it!
We’re back from 4 days off for recuperation and “staff appreciation”! Hopefully they’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. We’ve got a week and a bit to finish off the fall menu and two parties this weekend in our private dining room, so not too much time to rest.
