A question I have heard a lot lately, is whether we would play music at Gunk Haus. The short answer is maybe.
First of all, we would have to put in a sound system, which is more work, and it costs money. Putting in the sound system, however, is the easy part.
I assume you don't know this, but if we were to play music at Gunk Haus, we would have to pay royalties to the music big wigs. You read right, the music industry wants its share when we play (copyrighted) music.
For a restaurant our size the annual royalties amount to about $1000 to $2000 per year, which to us is a lot of money (if it isn't to you, please adopt me).
The National Restaurant Association has a nice summary document about music licensing for restaurants (PDF document).
So for the time being we won't play music at Gunk Haus, and you just have to talk to each other for entertainment, but that's a good thing, isn't it?!
Dirk
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Empty Plates ...
The easiest way to judge if people enjoy a restaurant's food is to look at their plates when they are being cleared off the table.
So far we rarely have plates return to the kitchen with food on them, which is a good sign. It means that people enjoy the food, and that the portion sizes aren't too big to handle.
The credit for all this, of course, goes to E!, who creates and prepares all these yummy dishes.
Dirk
So far we rarely have plates return to the kitchen with food on them, which is a good sign. It means that people enjoy the food, and that the portion sizes aren't too big to handle.
The credit for all this, of course, goes to E!, who creates and prepares all these yummy dishes.
Dirk
Thursday, June 3, 2010
About Bar Stools ...
Gunk Haus doesn't have bar stools, and it never will. Gunk Haus is a restaurant, which happens to have a bar room.
When we applied for our liquor license some two years ago, we sized the bar to accommodate about seven bar stools, and that was the plan until we started looking for bar stools we like.
Bar stools, like most chairs, are expensive, which is why we then put off the idea of having bar stools, at least for the time being.
But soon we started recognizing that not having stools at the bar isn't such a bad thing. We want Gunk Haus to be family friendly, and in conversation with family we learned that families (ours anyway) are turned off by having to walk through a bar into the dining room.
This gave us pause to consider how we could debarify the bar room, and the first thing to go, not that we had them yet anyway, were the bar stools. Our bar should feel more like a living room, and to some extent it is our living room.
Aside from this, in German restaurants you rarely find bar stools, or people sitting at a bar, or think of a pub in England, where people stand at the bar (not that I know, because I've never been, but you always see it in the movies, so it must be true ... ;-).
Lastly, not having bar stools increases traffic flow in the bar tremendously.
Dirk
When we applied for our liquor license some two years ago, we sized the bar to accommodate about seven bar stools, and that was the plan until we started looking for bar stools we like.
Bar stools, like most chairs, are expensive, which is why we then put off the idea of having bar stools, at least for the time being.
But soon we started recognizing that not having stools at the bar isn't such a bad thing. We want Gunk Haus to be family friendly, and in conversation with family we learned that families (ours anyway) are turned off by having to walk through a bar into the dining room.
This gave us pause to consider how we could debarify the bar room, and the first thing to go, not that we had them yet anyway, were the bar stools. Our bar should feel more like a living room, and to some extent it is our living room.
Aside from this, in German restaurants you rarely find bar stools, or people sitting at a bar, or think of a pub in England, where people stand at the bar (not that I know, because I've never been, but you always see it in the movies, so it must be true ... ;-).
Lastly, not having bar stools increases traffic flow in the bar tremendously.
Dirk
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Gunk Haus Is Now On Facebook ...
Finally enough people like Gunk Haus on Facebook to enable me to obtain a vanity URL. To follow Gunk Haus on Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/gunkhaus. The Facebook page will provide more information on menu, beer, and wine selections, while this blog will continue to be my personal account of opening a restaurant, i.e. my place to rant and rage ... ;-)
Dirk
Dirk
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What A Weekend ...
What an exciting and tiring weekend. I don't even know where to begin, but this picture says it all: We are open for business!!!
Strike 11am on Saturday I flipped the sign to Open and ... nothing happened, until about an hour later when our first customers walked through the door: Shirley and Butch Anson of Clintondale. Both have been staunch supporters of Gunk Haus.
Saturday was filled with events. We had dinner reservations for about 40 people, and I sort of got yelled at by E! for not staggering them more carefully. By 7pm the Haus was bustling, there was chatter and laughter, and it felt good to see Gunk Haus alive.
Of course there were glitches: The fryer broke, and so we had to take the french fries off the menu. And then there was the A/C which stopped working in the beer hall.
Around 4pm I noticed that it was awfully warm in the beer hall. The air handler didn't budge. I tried to fix it temporarily, but without success. So I called the A/C guys, after all, I had a restaurant to run. By 6pm we were back and running, but the beer hall was still too warm, and it would take the A/C the rest of the evening to cool it down again, but no one seemed to mind.
My personal superstar of the evening was my beloved wife. E! ran the kitchen like a general, and churned out yummy food like there is no tomorrow. We haven't found a line cook yet, and therefore the burden of the kitchen rests on her shoulders.
Yesterday she came running out of the kitchen glowing with pride to show off her first kitchen tattoo: She had taken a rack of pretzels from the oven, and meant to put it on an upper shelf for cooling, when it slipped off her hand and started falling. Determined not to lose the pretzels she caught the hot rack with her upper arm, resulting in a one by three inch burn. Cooks are tough!
It was an exciting weekend, and there is so much more to talk about, but I will leave it at this for now.
I want to thank our service and kitchen teams for making this opening weekend a success (we have a great team), and of course you, my dear readers, and supporters.
Dirk
Strike 11am on Saturday I flipped the sign to Open and ... nothing happened, until about an hour later when our first customers walked through the door: Shirley and Butch Anson of Clintondale. Both have been staunch supporters of Gunk Haus.
Saturday was filled with events. We had dinner reservations for about 40 people, and I sort of got yelled at by E! for not staggering them more carefully. By 7pm the Haus was bustling, there was chatter and laughter, and it felt good to see Gunk Haus alive.
Of course there were glitches: The fryer broke, and so we had to take the french fries off the menu. And then there was the A/C which stopped working in the beer hall.
Around 4pm I noticed that it was awfully warm in the beer hall. The air handler didn't budge. I tried to fix it temporarily, but without success. So I called the A/C guys, after all, I had a restaurant to run. By 6pm we were back and running, but the beer hall was still too warm, and it would take the A/C the rest of the evening to cool it down again, but no one seemed to mind.
My personal superstar of the evening was my beloved wife. E! ran the kitchen like a general, and churned out yummy food like there is no tomorrow. We haven't found a line cook yet, and therefore the burden of the kitchen rests on her shoulders.
Yesterday she came running out of the kitchen glowing with pride to show off her first kitchen tattoo: She had taken a rack of pretzels from the oven, and meant to put it on an upper shelf for cooling, when it slipped off her hand and started falling. Determined not to lose the pretzels she caught the hot rack with her upper arm, resulting in a one by three inch burn. Cooks are tough!
It was an exciting weekend, and there is so much more to talk about, but I will leave it at this for now.
I want to thank our service and kitchen teams for making this opening weekend a success (we have a great team), and of course you, my dear readers, and supporters.
Dirk
Monday, May 31, 2010
We Are Open!!! ...
Dear Readers,
we are open for two days now, and let me tell you, it's exhilarating. The days are long and the nights are short, which is why I haven't blogged for the last two days. It is 1am, and I am really tired, but I hope I will be able to report to you tomorrow how things went this weekend.
Stay tuned ...
Dirk
we are open for two days now, and let me tell you, it's exhilarating. The days are long and the nights are short, which is why I haven't blogged for the last two days. It is 1am, and I am really tired, but I hope I will be able to report to you tomorrow how things went this weekend.
Stay tuned ...
Dirk
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Staff Meeting ...
We had all of our staff in today, to go over everything, and try all the food and beer. I think we have great staff. Granted, we'll see tomorrow, but I feel confident they'll work well together.
The beer hall, waiting for customers.
The Gunk Haus logo as parking sign.
It's 1am and I am really tired. E! is still in the kitchen. We haven't found a line cook yet, so she has to step up her game tremendously to fill this void; as they say: The show must go on.
Dirk
The beer hall, waiting for customers.
The Gunk Haus logo as parking sign.
It's 1am and I am really tired. E! is still in the kitchen. We haven't found a line cook yet, so she has to step up her game tremendously to fill this void; as they say: The show must go on.
Dirk
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