The River Room...........Part VII

The first three months of operation went fairly smoothly, mostly because I wasn’t there to analize over the details or agonize over the defeats. Julie and I were still working in Kansas City, and my only involvement with The Riverside was through nightly updates from Rachel or the American Express card statements, monthly evidence of the daily ‘going to the store for supplies’ thing. I’m thinking things were especially good for our two chefs – limited work as we were only open for dinner Thursday thru Sunday, which led to copious amounts of downtime for snowboarding, Nintendo playing, guitar plucking (Gabe is a player of professional quality) and lots of late night partying which led to lots of late morning waking up. There didn’t seem to be much time left for hotel fixing and cleaning, which was one of the things that I’d hoped our chefs would do to round out the forty hours per week of pay they were receiving vs. the 20 hours of work they were doing in the kitchen. I didn’t stress too much over it, as I viewed this whole period as a dry run before Julie and I arrived at the beginning of the summer season; again, Julie and I were still getting paychecks which allowed for the funds to fuel this fantasy.

The only discordant note in this scenario involved the personal interaction between the three young participants, which was understandable, considering you’ve thrown three family members into a badly insulated mausoleum located in an isolated mountain town. Picture a low budget version of The Real World – too bad, as this whole ordeal damn sure would have made for some fine reality television. One of the issues involved Rachel ratting out the chefs for playing music loudly enough in the kitchen that it would drown out the lilting strains of the classical music that we featured in the restaurant – more than just a minor pet peeve for me.

As good as is Thomas’s taste in food, his taste in music is bad (singularly unique) – wretched, heinously, God-awful bad. For example, anyone here ever heard of The Mars Volta? Of course you haven’t, because if you had ever listened to this band for more than a few minutes you would’ve already grabbed the nearest 12-gauge and blown your head off; it’s that bad. And then there’s Buckethead; two obvious reasons why he wears a bucket - for drowning out the noise that he’s making so he won’t suffer as the rest of us who have to listen (truth be known, he has really good headphones in that bucket and he’s listening to Brahms), and second, to retain his anonymity, ensuring that people of good sense won’t recognize him and kill him dead on the streets for the damage he’s done to our musical culture. And these were but just a few of the musical gems that were thrust upon the ears of our genteel restaurant customers. I’d say it to myself again…this to shall pass.

Gabe and I didn’t promise each other much in terms of commitments; he wasn’t sure how long he wanted to stay, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d need him once I got to the hotel full time. It worked out well as I was glad to have him there for however long, as he served as referee between the two first cousins, he helped Thomas get the kitchen off to a running start and he gave the place an air of uniqueness – like it needed any more of that – for Gabe truly is a characters definition of ‘a character’.

In what I quickly learned was Gabe-like style, about two months into the arrangement he informed me that an opportunity for a sculpture project (he was a sculptor, amongst his many other talents) was opening up in Washington DC, and he was planning on leaving the hotel in mid-March. After that, he might pursue some travels with his band, or do some cooking for a Mississippi Blue Cruise, or whatever; he was bound by no calendar, reliant upon no clock and responsible only to himself.

The middle of March coincided with our spring break visit to the hotel; we’d be there all week to work our asses off – painting, cleaning, decorating, hauling trash, installing new beds and tossing out the old, and on and on and on. Friends from Kansas City were coming with us to help in the effort, and in a dizzying display of the illogical, they remain friends to this day, possibly out of pity. A few weeks before our trip, Gabe called to ask if he could have a farewell concert at The Riverside, as two of his band mates were coming to pick him up, and he’d promised some of the locals that he would play for them before he left Colorado.

For a fact, our Property, Casualty & Liability insurance strictly prohibited us from having live music, due to either the increased risk of people drinking to excess and getting rowdy when exposed to live music, or to the one in a million chance that Buckethead or The Mars Volta would show up, play live music (?) and the ensuing potentially lethal effects that exposure to their live music would incur upon a tort-hungry public. But I relented, thinking ‘what harm could come from a little concert for some close friends’? Heck, I’d always wanted to hear him play anyway, as Gabe had advertised himself as a bluesier version of The Black Keys – a group that occupied more than a little space on my iPod.

“Sure Gabe, go ahead, that’ll be fun!”

I didn’t give it another thought until I stopped for gas at a station in Winter Park, some 35 miles from The Riverside, on our way into Hot Sulphur for Spring Break. Plastered in the window of the gas station/convenience store were several posters, advertising, no, screaming,

“THE RIVERSIDE HOTEL BLUES FEST”

Featuring

The Gabe Meyer Band

Sunday, March 19th 8:00 PM

$10.00 Cover Charge
All beers 2-for-1 !!!
$5 Jaeger Shots

The Historic Riverside Hotel
Hot Sulphur Springs, CO

“Holy Schitt!”, I thought; not only did our insurance policy prohibit live music, but it also prohibited any type of drink specials, especially the men’s bathroom cleaner’s worst nightmare, the dreaded 2-for-1 beer special. The situation became more dire the nearer we came to Hot Sulphur; for on every store window in every town, Fraser, then Tabernash, and finally Granby, the posters were everywhere, a loud and clear beacon pointing the way to every Grand County drunk in search of an ‘Open on Sunday’ place to pound down beers at half price.

As I’ve mentioned before, excessive consumption of alcohol is a Grand Countians' National Pastime – it was something that came as naturally to them as getting out of bed in the morning, albeit always late and terribly hung-over; they damn sure didn’t need an excuse, or an invitation, and here were both, everywhere you looked. Possibly even the churches in Grand County mentioned it in their weekly announcements on that Sunday at the end of their service – “and in case you haven’t seen the 500 posters scattered about Grand County, there’re ½ price beers and live blues at The Riverside tonight…Now go in peace, Amen.”

While I had to give Gabe an A+ in the art of self promotion, I quickly had to figure out a way to delicately rain on his parade without his losing face with me and those thirsty locals.

To be continued……

The River Room........Part VI

I swear to God, these were the first words out of our first customers mouth; “My Mother is gluten-intolerant. I don’t know what’s on the menu tonight but I hope you’ll be able to accommodate her.”

Thinking gluten was maybe a type of fish, or perhaps a derivative of tofu, I promptly replied “Nope, we’re not serving gluten tonight. We’ve got Prime Rib, Tilapia, an Asian pork dish and a chicken dish!”

“And do none of those contain gluten??” he asked me in a somewhat challenging form, appearing mildly irritated.

This stopped me for a second, before I finally asked him, “So, …just what is gluten?”

He looked at me like I had a turd balanced across the bridge of my nose. And so it would go for me in the restaurant business in Colorado.

----------------------------

During the two hours prior to this seminal exchange, I had survived my first encounter with The Riverside ghost in the shower and guest bathroom, Julie and Rachel had arrived safely back at the hotel from their Colorado Winter Wondercruise, I’d checked in all of our guests (36 people in 13 full size beds and two twin beds) and turned down requests from countless more snowbound travelers. Those that weren’t lucky enough to have snagged up a local hotel room spent the night on cots or blankets in the Kremmeling High School gymnasium.

30 minutes after my crash course in “Dammit, I’m Gluten Intolerant, I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going to Take it Anymore!” I’m in the kitchen and the restaurant is packed. The only place I can be of any use is washing dishes. I’d long since been banished from the salad prep table.

“Hot pan!” yelled Thomas, as he tossed a small sauté pan on the table (not stainless steel) that stood nearest to the three-compartment sink; the pan now fighting for space with the rest of the dirty plates, cutlery, water glasses, sauce pots and pans that I was struggling to wash, rinse, dry and put back into service. The first compartment of the three compartment sink had hot soapy water in which the dirty dishes were washed, the middle sink contained warm water where the dishes were dipped for the purpose of getting rid of any soap residue, and the final compartment contained cold water with bleach; a final attempt at sanitation before setting them on a rack to air dry. That first sink had to be changed out quite a bit, as the residue of dirty plates and sauté pans floated on the hot, soapy surface like so much indigestible flotsam and jetsam.

The bigger factor in my falling behind with the dishes was my morphing from restaurant owner/dishwasher into a passionate observer of the stadium event that is high pressure, commercial food preparation. Never having been in a restaurant kitchen during the heat of battle, I’d never witnessed anything like the requisite speed, deftness of hand and all-but acrobatic symmetry that these two Chefs exhibited. Thomas had 6 pans going at once – all the time, without so much as a hiccup. Sautéing vegetables in one large pan, while the other five had either the pork, fish or chicken sizzling away in a pat or two of melted butter and a dash or three of olive oil. Thomas also had this thing going on where he would twirl in the air and click the metal tongs “clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack” together every time after turning the food in the pan or plating the entrée – he was really good at it, and at that early point in our adventure, it hadn’t yet gotten to be annoying. (I’m betting that there is now a common Spanish phrase in the commercial kitchens of Chicago that goes something like “clack those one more time and I’ll shove them up your culo!”)

Gabe was non-stop banging out soup, salads and doing the majority of the plating. He had also taken on the leadership role, as Thomas seemed to be at his best reacting to directions as opposed to giving them. This was amazing for me to watch as it unfolded; all of this was going on with a quiet confidence that would have made you think they’d been doing this together every day for the last 20 years. Possibly they were just stoned.

As the evening concluded – we shut the kitchen down at 8:00 as we were absolutely out of every scrap of food – I stood in awe of what Thomas and Gabe had pulled off. Not only were 68 people (including one gluten intolerant septuagenarian) fed in an organized, timely manner, but they were fed food of exceptional taste and quality. There were lauds and bravos aplenty from all who had dined with us. I’m certain that if there were any food or service glitches they were minor, as most who dined with us realized they could be eating microwave Mac & Cheese in the Kremmeling High School Gym, and compared with that The Riverside had to seem like Le Cirque.

The only hitch to the evening came at the end, when one of our guests – a Russian couple with two small children, she spoke broken English and the others not a word – came to the restaurant at 8:00 with a brown paper lunch sack. I sat them and told them we had very limited offerings – I think all that was left was some pork and some rice. The woman then pulled from the sack two plastic bags, one containing a yet to-be-determined raw meat, the other some chopped raw vegetables – some sort of gourd thing; she asked if we could cook this for her family. I was a little dumbstruck, but what the hell, “why not” I told her. When I brought the bags back to the kitchen and told Thomas and Gabe what was going on, they protested as loudly as if I’d had asked them to cook while straight.

“Tell them No Way! That is totally against the health code” said Gabe, while standing amidst a room full of equipment that’s mere existence within 100 yards of a kitchen violated most every known rule in the Colorado health code. Some of the equipment would make them rethink the rules as to what is and isn’t allowable in junk yards.

A little deflated, I went back to the Serbian Nationals and told them our State law didn’t allow for this sort of thing and they’d have to buy food from us if they intended to eat in this restaurant. I had to explain this slowly, and loudly, so the woman could understand me, and as she explained the situation to her husband in their native tongue, he unleashed at me what I’m certain must have been naughty words in Serbia and were not intended to wish me well. But eat they did, and they paid in cash.

I was abuzz at the success of our first night, both from a culinary and financial position. All were equally excited as we cleaned the kitchen, washed and dried the dishes, reset the dining room and generally decompressed from the rush of the rush. We were to repeat this performance the next two nights, including another 180 mile round trip to Denver the next day to buy more stuff. Thomas and Gabe would continue to wow our guests every weekend for the next three months, bringing high end, inventive cuisine to Grand County that was heretofore generally unavailable. I can’t recall any of Abe’s old customers who visited those first three months saying anything like “I sure miss Jamie’s fried pork chops and Spanish rice” or “Grey Goose! No, I prefer the Popov vodka that Abe used to serve.”

By golly, unlike Abe, we may have gone belly up, but we did it with style!

To be continued……

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..........

Riverside Braised Short Ribs

During one of my numerous trips to Las Vegas, all of course due to very important, high-level business-related trade shows – World of Concrete, International Roofing Expo, Home Building Expo, International Gutter & Downspout Extravaganza, National Conference on Cotter Pin Safety, etc. – I’d had just about one too many bone-in rib eyes in a row, yet, found myself in a fabulous steakhouse; Jean-George Jagermeister’s PRIME, located in the beautiful Bellagio Casino. I told the snooty waiter that I just couldn’t handle another beautifully marbled, succulent, medium rare bone-in Kobe rib eye, having had them the previous five nights at other high-end Vegas meat emporiums. Obviously annoyed with my lack of degustatory gusto, he icily suggested that I might enjoy something beefy, yet quite a bit less expensive, his nose getting skinny as he lifted his chin skyward – braised short ribs. This encounter happened a few years back, say 10 years ago, when beef short ribs weren’t on most menus; in fact, they would have been considered a throw-away cut of meat, something you’d never imagine finding on the menu of a pricy restaurant, much like skirt steak, flank steak and brisket, which now, thanks to celebrity chefs like Jean-George Veganbanger, are no longer throwaways, but ‘hot’ cuts of meat. (Or were last week at the time of this writing; perhaps this week, they too are now passé.)

Anyway, I bit, as the description of the fatty beef that would fall off the bone like a Valentine’s Day chemise and melt in your mouth like a hollandaise-flavored cough drop was simply too much to resist; couple that with a White Truffle Gruyere potato gratin and a hearty Barolo, and we could just begin to forget about the travails of suffering through a night without a cut of béarnaise-drenched Japanese beef.

Needless to say, the meal was sublime – the short ribs presented in a small copper pot, with the cooking vegetables and braising liquid as accompaniment. The flavor was so round, so rich; I had to ingratiate myself upon the snooty waiter and beg as to what gave this beef it’s smoky, salty, sweet flavor. I had to have that damn recipe!

The waiter was forthcoming enough with the goods just to the point of teasing me; yes, yes I know, brown the ribs, braise them with carrots, celery and onions in some stock and red wine, and….”I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the special ingredients are that give them their sweet, salty finish”; seemingly gleeful that he had this little power thing going with me.

So I had to wing it and guess at what else might be included in the recipe to give them their unique, never before experienced flavor. I’m pretty sure I eventually hit the mark, as this recipe, at least for me, recreates the splendor of the original dish at PRIME. When we first featured these short ribs on a new fall menu, winding down our first year in operation, they were a huge hit – we couldn’t make enough of them as almost every diner ordered them those first few weekends in October. We actually had guests dine with us on Friday, order the short ribs, and return the next evening for a second go; should have charged more for them.

This dish takes some time to make, as it cooks low and slow; so you probably don’t want to plan on throwing it together some Tuesday evening after work. Also, you can use the method and ingredients in this recipe on chuck roast with equally great results.

Serves 4
3-4 pounds beef short ribs – bone intact
Salt & Pepper
1-2 cups flour
½ cup vegetable oil
1 - Large yellow onion, chopped
3 – Carrots, peeled and chopped
3 – Celery stalks, chopped
1 – Cup rich beef stock which you’ve made yourself (Do they even sell rich beef stock?)
1 – Cup red wine (Shiraz works nicely)
2/3 - cup Soy Sauce (No low sodium stuff, you putz!)
2/3 - cup dark molasses (Steen’s, if you’re lucky enough to live where they sell it)
2 – Bay leaves
12 – Sprigs fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 260F

In a Dutch oven, heat the oil to near smoking, and brown the short ribs that you’ve salted, peppered and dredged in the flour. Set them aside. In the same oil, sauté the vegetables until they just begin to take on some char. Remove and set aside. Put the ribs back in the Dutch oven, arranged so there is a little space between them; space which you will fill with the sautéed vegetables. Now pour your liquids in, slip in the bay leaves and evenly distribute the thyme over the top of dish. The liquid will come close to drowning the ribs, with maybe ½” – ¾” of the meat peeking over the brim of the liquid.

Put the lid on the pot, slide it in the oven and leave it be for 4 hours. No need to open it and jack with it to see if it’s done. It’ll probably be done in 3 ½ hours, and at that low temperature, it’ll still be okay if you get sloshed on the rest of the Shiraz and forget to take it out until it’s cooked for five hours. Keeping the damn lid on keeps all the damn moisture in the pot; and moisture is what makes that meat tender, silky and falling off the bone delicious – so keep the damn lid on!

Serve over a bed of creamy polenta, into which you’ve slipped some butter and a good Parmigiano Reggiano, and ladle just a little of the braising liquid over the meat and polenta.

Mmmmmmm…welcome to Flavor Country!

The River Room........Part IV

Mr. Green was the Chief Inspector of Food Safety for the Colorado Department of Health & Environment in the counties of Grand and Routt; if you bought food and ate it in these counties, Mr. Green was the major dude for making sure that it was fit to be consumed. Area-wise, Grand and Routt are two of the largest counties in Colorado; population-wise, they are two of the smallest. Mr. Green’s job entailed going into every commercial kitchen – restaurants, hotels, bars, grocery stores, schools, nursing homes and hospitals – and making sure that all facilities met the Colorado State Code for Food Handling, Preparation and Storage, an 86 page document that Mr. Green strongly suggested I make myself intimately familiar with if I intended to operate a restaurant in his jurisdiction. He also had responsibility for dairy farms, of which there were more than a few in Routt county, grocery stores, convenience stores, food warehouse and distribution centers – anywhere that food was grown, made, stored, handled, prepared, served, sold and eaten... Mr. Green was your Salmonella Warrior. He took his job damn seriously.

Simply put, Mr. Green had a pretty daunting job – while not hugely populated, his physical area of responsibility was massive - 4230 square miles; bad for him, but good for most of the restaurant owners, as his surprise visits were few and far between. Upon entering any small mountain burg, such as Granby, Kremmeling, or Parshall, the site of his green Mazda station wagon would get the phone trees buzzing from diner to diner. If you owned a restaurant, the mere mention of his name, let alone the actual sighting of his visage as he appeared at your doorstep, would cause your mouth to go dry, your throat to constrict and your gut to roil and rumble like the morning after the Annual Grand County Beer, Poppers & Chili Fest.

So back to our initial January 3rd phone meeting; after peppering me with the brapp-a-papp assault of necessities for legal operation of The Riverside restaurant, his tone calmed, and in fact, my quest for his sympathy seemed to have gone fulfilled.

Mr. Green relented and told me that we could operate the restaurant – today, tomorrow, whenever we chose. He would get the paperwork started for renewal of the restaurant license; all I needed to do was send a check for $150 and we’d get everything legal.

But here was the story.

Mr. Green told me that he visited Abe in September of 2007. It was the “first time in years” he’d been able to find the place open and Abe on the premises. He didn’t hide the fact that his feelings for Abe were less than fond, as I’m sure Abe was a constant foil to Mr. Green and the rules and regulations that he was sworn to enforce.

“I went through that kitchen with a fine tooth comb”, he began, “as I hadn’t been in there in a long time, and busted him on 20 things - major things. I knew there was no way he had the money to get that kitchen up to code, so I just held him to things that he and his help could fix and clean.”

“What were some of the major things?” I asked.

“I’ve already hit on a few of them with you. The biggest one is that fume hood. It’s not stainless steel and it has an old dry-powder extinguisher system that’s not only out of code, it doesn’t even work. I’ll be real surprised if you make it through your insurance inspection.”

Great to know that as well, I thought.

“What is it going to cost me to replace the fume hood?”

“Oh, I’d say installed.... you're probably looking at $50,000 - $60,000.”

I think I said something like “Holy Shit!”

Mr. Green continued “Then there is the walk-in. Sounds like your mechanical inspector caught that one; must’ve been the duct-taped box fan that got it on his radar. And the list goes on. You need to get rid of the refrigerators and freezers and replace them with commercial models. You need to get rid of every wood prep surface and replace it with stainless steel. You need a commercial dishwasher. You need to re-plumb the pipes, get some drains in the floor and put in a new grease trap. You need new walls that can be cleaned – no drywall like you’ve got now. You need to lose the old asbestos tile floor and replace it with ceramic tile. Shall I go on?”

“If you had to guess, what do you think it’s going to cost to get everything done to where it’ll pass code?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“Conservatively, if you buy the stuff right and do a lot of the labors yourself” then a pause…..’ ”I’d say you’re looking in the neighborhood of $125,000 to $150,000.”

“Good God, there’s no way I have that kind of money.”

“I know, and I knew Abe didn’t have that kind of money. That’s why I let him off the hook on all the major things. But I told him ‘Abe, I’m not gonna make you fix all of this, but before you sell this place to someone else, you’ve got to let me know and have them get in touch with me, because they’re gonna have to fix all of this before I give ‘em a license’. And do you know what he said to me when I told him that? He said ‘Mr. Green, I have no intentions of selling The Riverside. I haven’t given the first thought to retiring.’ That’s what he told me in September. When did you approach him about buying the place?”

“It was March of 2007. But do you know when we signed the papers where there was no going back without losing our $40,000 worth of earnest money?” I asked Mr. Green. “That would have been August 30th of 2007, the month before your visit. The month before he stood there and told you he had no intention of selling the place. That lying bastard!”

(Again, caveat emptor. Abe might have been a lying bastard, but I for damn sure was a stupid one.)

So let it be known, that good old Mr. Green, the man that struck mortal fear into the meanest and toughest of Grand County restaurateurs, had a heart and a soul after all.

He could have shut Abe down years ago, but chose to leave it be. He could have shut me down immediately, but instead chose to take pity on me and leave me be. He said there were a few things I had to address immediately, the principle one being the walk-in – that as much for the energy savings it would net me (the old compressor ran 24-7 and still didn’t properly cool the walk-in) as well as the obvious health aspects of not being tempted to cook and serve the spoiled food that dwelt in the non-functional cooler. He also was adamant about the commercial dishwasher, but gave me the number of a company that rented and maintained them for $80 bucks a month. He then asked that I make an effort, year-by-year and bit-by-bit, as my funds allowed, to start replacing the old, out-of-code equipment with new stuff. He said “as long as I see continual improvement on an annual basis, you and me’ll be OK.”

Perhaps it’s like I’ve said before, God seems to have a soft spot for idiots like me and it’s apparent that Mr. Green does as well; as God, Mr. Green and hopefully now you know, you’d have to be an absolute idiot to get into the restaurant business.

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

The River Room...........Part III

Fast forward to January 3rd, 2008.

As the new owners and proprietors of The Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant, we’d just enjoyed/suffered through our first week of operation. During the last week we’d experienced pulling a 9’x12’ U-Haul across an icy I-70, a major Colorado blizzard that filled our hotel and restaurant on our third night of ownership, two encounters with the otherworldly inhabitants of The Riverside and an outdoor vomiting incident that still has some of the local fauna shaking their heads in disbelief. This doesn’t even begin to cover the emotional roller coaster that we were riding, without seat belts, over the life-altering signatures that we’d just affixed to paper.

I casually noticed on the evening of December 31st 2007 that our restaurant license expired on the evening of December 31st, 2007. “Damn that Abe!”, I thought, as he’d told me the license was good until next September; in amongst all of the little ‘caveat emptors’ that I’d discovered the last few days regarding Abe and, let’s kindly refer to it as, his lack of forthrightness, this one didn’t even raise an eyebrow – just a “Damn!”

Back in Kansas City, I searched the web and made a few phone calls to find out where I needed to go and who I needed to talk to regarding renewal of the license. I finally was able to get a name and number, and I called, got his voice mail, and left my message saying something like “Mr. Green, this is Richard Paradise, new owner of The Riverside Hotel in Hot Sulphur Springs, and I’m calling to see what I need to do to get the restaurant license renewed. The man we bought the hotel from told me it was good until September of 2008, but it looks like it actually expired at the end of the year. Please call me at your earliest convenience to discuss. Thanks!”

Within the hour, Mr. Green called The Riverside – I believe my nephew Thomas, who was our cook/chef, took the call – and said something like “You will immediately and indefinitely cease operations of the restaurant, and I need you to have the new owner call me ASAP!!” Thomas casually mentioned that Mr. Green seemed just a little ‘pissed’.

So I called Mr. Green, and here’s what was discussed, to my best recollection.

“Mr. Green, I’m Richard Paradise, the new owner of The Riverside in Hot Sulphur Springs” I said proudly.

Mr. Green did not respond warmly to my proud proclamation. “Mr. Paradise, you are in violation of the law by operating your restaurant without a license. You had a list of the things that needed to be done to that kitchen before we would consider granting a new license, and you were told to contact me for an inspection when all of the items were addressed. The quickest I can get up your way to inspect is the week of the 15th, so until then, you had better not open that restaurant!”

Thomas was right; Mr. Green was pissed.

OK - so I had to take a deep breath and stop and refocus on what I had just heard. I was a little dizzy, and the surrounding world seemed to be floating away from me.

“Uh, Mr. Green,” I began “I have to plead ignorance here and say that I don’t know what items you’re talking about. I was told by Abe that his restaurant license was transferable – I know the liquor license wasn’t, but he told me the restaurant license was. I’m kind of at a loss for words right now. We just bought this hotel and I’ve got my life savings tied up in this thing, and now you’re telling me I can’t operate the restaurant? Good God, what I’m I going to do? What do I need to do?”

Mr. Green, now calmer and his demeanor noticeably changing for the better, “Are you telling me Abe didn’t go over with you what needed to be done to get that kitchen up to code?”

“No sir”, I replied. “The man that did the mechanical showed me a few small things that he said would need to be addressed, and I planned on doing those after we purchased the place. Nothing really seemed to be that big of a deal, except for I learned that the walk-in was going to cost me some money, and I’ve got a guy coming to look at that this week.”

“Well let me mention just a few things for starters. Did you get a new fume hood?”

“Uh, no. Do we need a new fume hood?”

“Damn right you do! That one’s made of galvanized metal and it has to be stainless steel. It doesn’t even have a functioning fire suppression system. How about a commercial dishwasher; did you get one of those, or do you still have the old three compartment sink in there?”

“Uh, yea, still got the sink. No dishwasher.”

“How about all of the wooden prep tables, do you still have those, or did you get stainless steel tables?”

“No stainless; still got the wood.” I said, softly. My ‘proud new owner of The Riverside’ voice had disappeared; I was now all but whispering my responses.

“Well Mr. Paradise, I’m thinking that maybe Mr. Rodriguez didn’t give you the full story about his kitchen.”

“No, Mr. Green, apparently he didn’t. I have to tell you, that I’m a little bit in a state of shock right now. Had I any idea about all of this a few months back, I can tell you that you and I would’ve never made this acquaintance. I damn sure know I wouldn’t own The Riverside right now, at least not near for what I paid.”

I have to admit, that while I was shocked – truthfully, still too shocked to be rightfully seething with anger or able to grasp the reality of what I was facing – I was also working hard to play the pity card with Mr. Green, and it seemed to be working as his tone had gone from accusatory to conciliatory. I was also cognizant enough to know that I needed every friend I could get in Grand County, and Mr. Green as a friend had to quickly become a reality, or my ass was doomed; (er, at least doomed a little quicker than when it ultimately ended up being doomed.)

To Be Continued…………..

The River Room........Part II

The actual physical commercial kitchen that we inherited (purchased) from Abe was a perfect microcosm of the larger mess, in the shape of a hotel, that we purchased (inherited) from Abe. Not having any actual restaurant experience beyond dropping bucket-loads of money in them, I wasn’t savvy enough to see the pratfalls to success that were, unfortunately, the foundation of our venture; nor was the bank, and most importantly, neither was the gentleman that did the property inspection for me and the bank. He was touted as an expert in 1) old buildings and 2) commercial kitchens; when viewed in retrospect, he knew as much about commercial kitchens as I did – that kinship of ignorance equated to a tasty recipe for disaster.

In August of 2007, I flew out to Denver, and then drove to Hot Sulphur to be present at the mechanical inspection. At this point, we were still contractually able to walk away from the deal - no harm, no foul. If things were obviously askew, i.e. if there were blazing, flying, roaring red flags – red flags that someone would be looking for before throwing their life and money at a lark – we could’ve still simply said at that point ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Anyway, I meet Mr. Inspector on a sunny Saturday, and he takes me on a tour of the physical being that is The Riverside Hotel. I’ll skip the discussion of the roof, the foundation, the crawl spaces, etc., and jump right to his assessment of the commercial kitchen – his advertised area of expertise.

“All in all” he began, “the kitchen and the equipment are in decent shape, considering their age. Let me show you a few things that you’ll need to address for the Health Department. See this gap on this (food prep) table? Food particles can collect in that and it’ll be a trap for bacteria. There are four or five of those in here that need to be covered up. Here’s another one. See?”

Didn’t seem like too big a deal; get a little silicone, a spatula and ‘presto’, no more little bacteria farms. He continued:

“One thing you’ll have to fix pretty quickly is this fluorescent light fixture. First off, the bulbs can’t be exposed like they are – they could break and send glass bits shooting all over the kitchen; definitely bad for business if people have glass in their food.”

(I stood in awe while listening to this expert assessment.)

“Plus, the grease on those bulbs has caught all those little bugs – again, you don’t want those gnats falling off those exposed bulbs and ending up on dinner plates. I’d get a new compliant fixture first chance you get.”

(I hastily took notes – no glass in the food or bugs on the plates. This info was killer to a novice such as me.)

Next he went to the equipment. “The stove works fine, again, considering its age; all of the burners work and both of the ovens. It’s missing a knob here, but you should be able to find a replacement pretty easily.”

“Fume hood works fine” he said, as he flicked the switch and the blower motor creaked to a rolling crescendo.

“Here’s the ice machine”, as he opened the door and showed me copious amounts of crystal-clear ice cubes. “No worries.”

Then, “three stainless steel dish sinks; everything drains and flows nicely.”

Good, I thought. Draining and flowing is good.

“Now I have to show you a few areas of concern that I have with the walk-in (cooler).”

I’d been in The Riverside kitchen maybe a dozen times to that point, but I never knew that that there was a walk-in cooler in the back room.

“Cool”, I thought. Then I saw the cooler.

Outside of the cooler, perched upon an 18” square platform that was precariously affixed to the wall was a black machiney-looking thing, with a little motor, a small tank and coils that looked a little like a mini-distillery; in total, it was a mechanical contraption that Tom Edison would have regarded as primitive.

Pointing at this little humming conundrum, Mr. Inspector said “this is the compressor. It’s on its last leg and will have to be replaced. I’m actually amazed that it runs and cools at all.”

He then opened the cooler door and said “you won’t believe this!”

To those of you who don’t know anything about refrigeration – I was you at that point – on the opposite end of a compressor there would be a condenser, with cooling coils and a blower to disperse the cold air about the space. In reality, suspended from the ceiling of the walk-in, there was a condenser, resting on a rotted piece of plywood which was affixed to the ceiling by pieces of cheap, electrical flex conduit. The cooling coils – picture a small car radiator with frost all over it – were fronted by a $10 box fan that was attached to the whole Goldbergian contraption with 100 yards of the finest duct tape. A continuous drip of water from the condenser found purchase in a massive pot situated beneath it on the floor; there was science project fungi floating in that pot. I shit you not.

“Oh my!” said I. “Is this up to code?”

“Not hardly!” said our commercial kitchen expert. “You’re looking at a few grand to get this whole thing up to snuff. Plus, you’ve got a few more of those bacteria catchers in the gaps between the floor tiles and the walls that you’ll need to caulk. I’m guessing you’re looking at $3000 - $5000 to get this up to code.”

“Wow!” I thought. ‘I didn’t even know that there was a walk-in cooler, let alone a walk-in cooler whose main functional attributes would have been a hysterical stand-up routine at a refrigeration specialist’s annual award banquet.’

So there I was, standing in this commercial kitchen, with a commercial kitchen expert, on a beautiful August day in the mountains of Colorado. I was looking at, ....what... not much bad shit... really? Some silicone caulk, a new $30 fluorescent light fixture and maybe $3000 - $5000 to get the walk-in up to shape.

"That’s it???"

"Geez, I’d have thought it to be much worse. Lucky me!"

To be continued…….