The River Room...........Part V

The only task ahead of me more daunting than dealing with outdated, out of code kitchen equipment that I couldn’t afford to replace and the Colorado Department of Health and Safety, was the task of dealing with the human beings that would utilize that equipment – the cooks. I had no idea of what that would ultimately entail, as I had not one greasy minute of prior experience working in a restaurant; heretofore, I’d only eaten in them. All of my high-school and college job experience was spent working in a Thom McAn Shoe Store in the Metcalf South Mall, Overland Park, KS. Perhaps I would have been wiser to buy an old shoe store rather than a hotel, bar and restaurant.

Never in the plan did I have any intentions of being the cook, and it wasn’t because I didn’t think I could do it, rather, I wasn’t sure I could deal with the criticism of the paying public. One thing for certain that any person who seriously cooks will take too much to heart is when those that you cook for don’t like, and tell you that they don’t like, what you’ve busted your ass to make for them. Truth being, I found out the first furiously busy night we were open, while watching those cooks operate, that there would have been NO WAY I could have cooked anything beyond sloppy PB&J’s under commercial conditions in a busy restaurant, and my fear of criticism had nothing to do with it. I would have exploded so quickly under the demands mandated by the pace and the pressure to perform, there’s no telling the cacophonous blend of invectives and flying cookware that would have ensued.

The first night our restaurant was open was pure, unintended happenstance. We’d purchased the hotel on December 27th, 2009, and intended to open both the hotel and the restaurant for the first time on December 30th – a one-night dry run before New Years Eve. Abe had quite a few rooms booked for New Years, and we intended to jump in feet first and make our big Grand Opening splash to bring in the New Year. (Abe had actually asked if he could sell us the place on the 27th, yet still run it on New Years Eve and take the revenue from the rooms he’d booked and the meals he would serve. As you’ve now surmised from previous discussions, Abe had no shame.)

On the 28th of December, we drove to Denver to buy food and kitchen supplies, as the aforementioned Mr. Abe pretty much left the cupboard bare with regards to pots, pans and the other utensils necessary to operate a kitchen. The ‘we’ who went to Denver that day included Julie, our two 'chefs' and I. (I think the difference between the title of cook vs. chef has to do with ones’ level of training, education and experience. I don’t believe either of our hash slingers had attained enough of any of the aforementioned attributes to be designated as chefs, but referring to them in that manner gave the restaurant an air of professionalism, in stark contrast to our total lack of same.) Two chefs, you ask? That seems a pretty lavish staffing arrangement for a broken down start-up hotel restaurant in an out of the way locale. The original plan involved only my nephew Thomas, who had been a front line cook at McCormick & Schmicks Restaurant in Kansas City, moving west with us and grabbing hold of The River Room restaurant – we felt it a great opportunity for him, and a blessing for us to have an experienced cook who we knew and trusted. A small article in the local Grand County paper proclaimed our re-opening with the line “…featuring the cuisine of Chef Thomas Paradise.” Chef Number 2, Gabe, my second cousin from Hannibal, MO was a late arrival to the party, having signed on about two weeks before we bought the hotel as much for the adventure as for the paycheck. Gabe is just a bit of a free spirit, and the notion of throwing all to the wind for the opportunity to cook in a haunted hotel in the middle of The Rockies suited him to a “THC”.

Our trip to Denver netted us the makings of our first menu – Seared Asian Pork (Gabe’s recipe), Prime Rib, an Italian take on Chicken Cordon Bleu (my recipe which Gabe dubbed “Chicken Dick”) and Crusted Tilapia with Fried Capers, a dish that Thomas had mastered from Mc&S. It was a total crap shoot regarding how much of what to buy – a crap shoot that I would forever continue, and continue to lose at, ad nauseam throughout my brief stint as a restaurateur. Back we came, loaded down with food and supplies, but lightened by the act of leaving around $1200 at Sam’s, Costco and Applejacks Liquor Emporium. Several days later when I tallied up the $4000 worth of food and room revenue from that $1200 investment at the store, I gleefully thought “Wow! It’s going to be easy making a living doing this!”

So back to that first night.

December 29th dawned like most every other winter day in Hot Sulphur – colder than most mortals can imagine and looking as if it seriously wanted to snow. Julie and Rachel headed to Dillon, CO – about 50 miles southwest of Hot Sulphur on State Highway 9 – to buy yet more supplies for the hotel. (I was to quickly learn that this ‘going to the store for supplies’ thing was pretty much what running The Riverside was all about.) About noon the grey skies turned to a blistering white, as the snow pounded down in astonishing fashion – my first encounter with a Rocky Mountain blizzard. On and on it raged, and I was starting to get seriously worried about Julie and Rachel. They had 4-wheel drive, but the lack of visibility would have made 40-wheel drive irrelevant; not to mention the roads upon which they had to traverse were winding, two-lane, up and down affairs that also featured that little bit of excitement with the occasional severe drop-off into a bottomless chasm, should you decide to take a curve a little wide. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon when the phone started to ring – they’d closed down I-70 at the Eisenhower Tunnel, and at the rate it was snowing, the odds of reopening it any time that evening were slim; one after another, requests for rooms were coming from the soon-to-be snow-bound skiers, unable to make it back to Denver. In less than 30 minutes, all of the 16 guest rooms were filled; it dawned on me that they’d need to eat, and as for The River Room Restaurant at The Riverside Hotel, one day earlier than scheduled, it was now Go Time!

To be continued..........