This is how it is now.

We had a great first day at the restaurant and beat their Sunday sales average for the past month by about 30%. Sure, a lot of that is people coming in out of curiosity--and the special (ham, scalloped potatoes, steamed broccoli, chocolate cake), but we're hoping once they get used to what we're doing the volume will stay high.

Oy. Keith and I each put in a 20-hour day yesterday. Though it feels like 4 days ago. (I feel lucky that I got about 7 hours of sleep last night; Keith's going on 3 or less.) After closing we changed out the old flat-top grill with the new range. Of course we ran into obstacles, what did we expect. This is how it is now.

The feedback has been mostly, like 99%, positive. Although there are some people with their panties in a wad over the demise of the salad bar. "That's one of the main reasons we always came out here." Though I wanted to to say (esprit d'escalier), "What we're going to be serving will make you forget what a salad bar is" (not to mention the sanitation concerns, tons of labor for the waitresses, and huge amounts of waste), I just smiled. Salad bar, schmalad bar. Come on, people, we're talking about fresh food made from scratch, not Sizzler.

Online support has been really surprising. I have been making Facebook updates about the new venture, but today I created a page just for Jilinda's where we I will post the weekly specials and any other info that comes up. People can also leave reviews there. I'm putting a widget on the sidebar, but the page is also here.