Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Restaurant Day, Behind the Scenes


Sunday August 17th was Restaurant Day, with over 2000 pop-up restaurants opened in 30 countries. The city of Lausanne promoted the event by giving one-day licenses to anyone with a feasible restaurant proposal. I started preparing months in advance. First I had to choose what kind of cuisine to offer. My family suggested Tex-Mex, so that part was easy. Next, I had to submit a proposal; including the name of my pop-up restaurant, opening hours, number of patrons, reservation procedure, menu and prices. Of course, that involved lots of calculating: how many can we seat if the weather is nice, how many if it rains and we have to move inside; how much food to buy; how much to charge (my experience planning menus and ordering food for camp came in handy with all that).
After my proposal was accepted, I was sent pages and pages of reading concerning fire codes, hygiene standards, and all sorts of laws related to the restaurant industry.

Then I started making lists; a grocery list, a supply list, a list of decoration items, and a task list for my helpers and me. Finally, I made a timeline. I got all my shopping done by Friday.


By Saturday I was itching to get on with the actual cooking. Baking first!



Saturday afternoon I chopped veggies and browned the meat.


Everything else would have to wait till the day of.

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