The very first job I ever had was as a dishwasher at a busy restaurant in Damariscotta, Maine. I worked with a couple of good friends and we loved our jobs and we did it well. We ran to retrieve whatever the cooks needed from the walk-in refers or the long rows of wooden shelving where the dry and canned goods were. Often jumping down a set of 15 steps while bracing ourselves on the left with a wall and the hand rail on the right . Sliding down in one motion. It was much quicker to get to the bottom that way. We ran it back to get it to the chefs as fast as we could. At the end of the shift we washed down our dish station and squeegeed it dry. Making it look brand new. I climbed that company ladder to become the restaurants head chef. After a year or more in that position, I decided to leave to pursue a career in guitar making.
I apprenticed as a guitar maker at Woodsound Studio, then in Camden, Maine, . Something I knew nothing about. I worked evenings in local restaurants as my full time apprenticeship was unpaid. In fact it cost me $2000 just for the privilege . I remember my first week, all week, standing at a sharpening station making my new chisels ready for work. Not that I had that many chisels, but I needed to master the art of sharpening my tools before using them to cut. I ruined a couple of expensive blades before finally getting it right. The guitars made in that shop are the best in the world and everything about what we did reflected excellence right up to the finished product. There could be no other way. After 8 years of lutherie both in Maine and Chicago and after making some of the finest guitars I have ever played, including one for myself, I decided to make a change.
My wife Susan had started a screen-printing company called Sea Street Graphics. When we got married in 1993 I joined her company and together we proceeded to make the finest T shirts available using only environmentally friendly ink. A concept that was radical back then and very few other printers were employing such tactics. We grew that company from sharing 2/3 of a neighbors garage on Sea Street in Camden , to a built to suit 4000 sq ft building where the company is to this day. Along the way we printed hundreds of thousands of shirts that were sold to retailers such as L.L. Bean, numerous catalogs, and mom and pop retail stores from here to Hawaii. We printed manually for several years until purchasing an automatic printing press in 1999. Our shirt designs were different in that we printed fine art from various artists like Lyn Snow. Our pursuit for excellence in the shop was necessary to pull off the very finest shirt design ever for the worlds greatest artist, Alan Magee. We printed two of his images. One of beach stones and one of a paint box. Both photo-realistic paintings. It took two days with the artist in the shop, after reworking some of the film and making precise screens, we printed a small run of 288 shirts each design. The shirts are works of art themselves. Actual fine art screen-printing on cotton fabric ( T shirts ). In the shop. Screen washing and film making. Exposing and taping screens.Setting up the press in the right order with the right squeegee. Mixing the inks from a clear base. All require excellence. If one part of the process is flawed, the rest of the job will ultimately fail in front of it. After 17 years as a screen printer, after achieving excellence in that field, I decided to make yet another change and re-invent myself .
I had been thinking of opening a restaurant serving breakfast and lunch, for several years. Slowly putting a written plan together with projections and analysis of the restaurant scene. It took 3 years of part time work but I was ready to make the plunge despite many valid objections from several directions. In order to execute my plan, I needed to replace myself at Sea Street Graphics as the head printer. We hired a very smart and capable man with no prior experience in screen-printing to be my replacement. After an eight month training period. He was as ready as ever. I left in November and 2008 and Home Kitchen Cafe opened it’s doors on February 24, 2009.
In the past year since opening we have seen many people come and go. All who have quit or those who have been fired are gone because they were not performing to the best of their abilities. I expect excellence from myself and everyone employed at the restaurant from the dishwashers, the servers and the cooks. The accountants, the bankers, the food suppliers. The handy-man, the snow plowers, the trash haulers. Every link in the chain that is excellent will make it easier to produce great food in an atmosphere that is warm and inviting.
By all accounts, we had a great 1st year in business. Especially given the economic climate at the time ( the worse recession since the great depression ). I believe it is because of our relentless pursuit of excellence. We greet everyone coming in and we say good-by to customers leaving. In between we give them great service and serve excellent food that looks great. Prepared with great care, purpose, respect and, yes, love. We also try to have a good time while we’re at it. We listen to great music by design, often from our personal play lists. I will make an 8 hour play list from the thousands of tunes in my library, 1 song at a time . Making a mix for breakfast and gradually adding tunes that fit in with the rest of the day. Solely for the enjoyment of our customers who needn’t be annoyed with bad music that usually accompanies eating out. In our pursuit for excellence, we have achieved success. We will not sit on that success and simply go through the motions of a food business. We will tweak every aspect of the business that needs it. Home Kitchen Cafe is setting the bar high not for other restaurants but for our own growth. We are always asking ourselves ” how could we do it better “.
