Monday I took care of a few paperwork items in the morning for AR, and picked up stain samples from Sarah, at The Savoy, for our tables.

I found two 42 inch Panasonic flat screens at Sammy’s Camera in SB for $499! And a 50 inch. Great price. They will look great broadcasting Cobi’s LA Galaxy games in the bar!

Scott was conducting his last chef interview, and Jaime and Mike worked on a 75 item action list that I’m sorry to say I’m to blame for.

The plan was for Scott and I to drive to Simi Valley and see our table guy, Joby, to pick up a table sample after our final chef cooking interview.

We would then drive to Hollywood and I would meet Cobi at Urth Cafe on Melrose at 5pm.

We’d regroup with Scott an hour later at the new private club The Soho House, which Scott is a member of, to talk HJL business.

The new Soho House, West Hollywood

http://www.sohohousewh.com/

We decided in the interest of time to divide and carve up our morning/afternoon agenda. I would pick up the table tops, and Scott would conduct the final interview. (Scott didn’t seem excited to go to Simi, I’m not really sure why)

I, on the other hand like anywhere that I haven’t been, if not just to see it once.

I met Joby at his restaurant, Sheck and Shay’s Rockin’ Burger in Simi. http://www.yelp.com/biz/sheck-and-shays-rockin-diner-simi-valley

We talked about the business for a good hour, and if you are in Simi and get a chance, check out this 50′s style diner with sodas from your childhood, served in cold bottles and the original coke, also served in the old-style Coke bottles, and great burgers! Try the kick-ass whiskey sauce. Joby was so excited by his business, it was infectious. He ran the floor and knew everyone by name, I was impressed by his ownership skills.

Butcher Block.

Option Two

By this time it was 5. We cancelled our meetings in Hollywood, and I checked into a hotel in Santa Monica. Next time Soho House.

Tuesday was spent writing our Arch Rock training manuals at the hotel. Tomorrow morning I head to the Valley to H2Pinc Studios to shoot our headshots for the Arch Rock website. Jaime and Mike are coming from SB, and Scott and Cobi from LA. Then all back to SB!

We also launched Arch Rock Mobile, which I am very excited about. Tomorrow I’ll explain how to use this exclusive mobile app to get VERY good deals not available to non-subscribers, and how you can get an exciting party invite to our first night, serving free food and cocktails.

Thanks for reading, goodnight!

The primer is going on the walls at the store. It smells like new paint and promise…This weekend Scott is moonlighting as a painter at his new house, but I don’t think he is as excited about that. If you asked him, he’d probably tell you painting his house smells a lot like work.

We ordered our fabric for the booths today, and we chose a table: Butcher block, driftwood. Finally we can fill in the holes left in the tables by Melting Pot’s cookers: Melting Pot has purchased the tables from us, and they will travel back east for another store.

Our place is beginning to resemble the belly of an old boat. With new paint.

At eleven it was off to the kitchen for more chef interviews. Today we had two chef candidates. Both great guys, in fact everyone we have seen had a lot of talent and even more spirit; it will be hard to choose just one, next week.

Today, the first candidate was excited and full of energy, happily cooking us up a shrimp bisque to begin, with large chunks of 16/20 shrimp and a roasted tomato cream broth.

Shrimp Bisque

Next he served a seared ahi tuna that was lemon-pepper crusted served over a bed of chopped salad with a lemon vinaigrette.

Lemon Crusted Ahi Salad

He served oysters in a white wine sauvignon sauce

Oysters

And grilled swordfish served over a pepper polenta, grilled asparagus and roasted red pepper salsa.

The next candidate sported a cool snake tattoo and a calm demeanor. He started us with a Blue Crab, salmon and chorizo dip, with roasted jalapenos and manchego cheese. He knew his audience, he bought cold Corona’s and fresh lime wedges to wash it down.

I have to apologize for the next few dishes: I cannot read my writing or the ingredients. I’ll let the pictures tell the story. I can tell you that they were absolutely amazing, flavors and preparation skills.

Thanks to our two candidates for cooking for us on Friday.
One more interview on Monday and we will make a decision…Stay tuned, and I hope that you all had a great weekend.

*Chefs: I apologize if I got any of your ingredients wrong, I have recently developed doctors penmanship. It’s a disorder.

I wish I could say today didn’t involve great food. But it does.  I have a small amount of guilt for making you hungry…Or maybe that isn’t a bad thing?

So Scott is interviewing for the kitchen, and today involves the second round of applicants and a cooking interview. We’re trying seared Diver scallops, tempura Alaskan King Crab, and Osso Bucco with polenta and figs. We had homemade ravioli stuffed with duck confit.  Amazing!

Rhonda brought us fresh cantaloupe, fresh peaches, and a box full of fresh produce.

Watching Scott do his thing with the chefs is pretty exciting. The man knows his stuff!

It wasn’t all eating today. We chose our fabrics for the booths and chairs, we chose our tables (butcher block driftwood) and we chose our bar top, (a grey-slate marble)

Bar Top

We also chose our uniforms, and ordered them from Adam at CoMotion. Mike finished his bar order guides and inventory sheets. We narrowed our linen choices to two vendors, and we ordered our gift cards and our POS (point of sale) System.

March on.

Tonight we are trying to finalize our menus on Adobe InDesign.

Jennifer and Mike putting the finishing touches on the drink menu.

This process seems like it will never end sometimes. As food costs change, so menu prices change slightly.

As we can no longer get Amish chicken, (it’s from Pennsylvania, and harder to get right now,) we need to look for a new chicken purveyor, so Scott brings in Jadori Chicken.

Jadori is a Japanese term that means “chicken of the earth.” Scott began buying from Dennis Mao six years ago, direct. From Jidori’s website, it was a term “we first began using around 15 years ago to market to the many talented Japanese chefs heading the kitchens of some of the best restaurants in Los Angeles. These chefs began the “Asian-fusion” cooking movement that demanded the freshest quality ingredients much like their sushi traditions. From there Jidori Chicken^TM quietly spread to include all chefs from a variety of backgrounds and training. As each executive chef or sous chef left to open a new restaurant, the chicken followed. These restaurants still include Puck’s Spago, Splichal’s Patina and Nobu’s Matsuhisa among many others.” – http://jidorichicken.com/

The best part of this long process is that it means that we get to try new samples from some of the best purveyors. Jidori, and Newport Meat tonight.

We try and make the process fun; it really is hard to call it work sometimes. Chef Scott cooking up a menu of grass-fed natural hamburger, a Kansas City Prime steak versus Kansas City Black Angus, brushed with whole grain mustard, and Jidori is up against the free-range chicken.

Scott used hard-wood natural charcoal.

Served with heirloom tomato salad, radishes, onions

And baby broccolini...

Well, back to work.  We’re doing this for you, I promise!  You will have your chance to sample it all soon…

And enjoyed with some great wines from Babcock!

Jeremiah, Arch Rock

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Recently our still photographer Alex Visilescu spent a few days with the team. I think that you will enjoy these photos from Alex; they sum up our last few weeks better than I could ever do with a thousand words…

Windy. The Condor Express

Jennifer represents!

Working

Jaime & Nick

Eating Mussels. (For those of you that know me, YES, eating mussels.)

Santa Barbara Fish Market "catch"

Fish Cutting Knives at Santa Barbara Fish Market

A barrel at Telegraph Brew

The Santa Barbara Docks

The Team went to the islands...The whales were feeding in the channel. Thanks Captain Benko and The Crew of The Condor ExpressThe Cabin of the Condor Express

Santa Cruz Island

Ah, Santa Barbara!

Santa Cruz

They don't call it the Condor Express for nothing...

Mike making drinks for the Happy Hour Housewives

Brian the owner of Telegraph Brew

Taking a break and visiting our friend Adam at The SB Shellfish Co.

Scott at the Santa Barbara's Farmer's Market

Please enjoy.

Another crazy week. I need a new intro, don’t I? I think I have worn this one out.

It’s all big news this week, but I guess the biggest news, as it relates to Arch Rock, is that our permits were approved by the ABR on Monday. This is great news, as now we can put our contractor on a opening construction schedule. And get open. Since serving friends and family is what we love, this is good news for us.

Thank you, City of Santa Barbara. We are proud to be a part.

…As of Monday we are seven weeks out.

The countdown begins…

This Week

This week Jaime met with fashion genius Brianna Stewart, (she is designing our uniform), and Adam from CoMotion, who is assisting us with the samples.

Brianna is presenting a mini “Arch Rock Fish” fashion show for the partners on Wednesday evening, June 23, 7 PM. If you have ever been curious about the process, love fashion, (as it relates to the food service industry,) or just want to hang out and watch, please feel free to drop by and help us choose our uniform.

This week I have been busy organizing our calendar for the videolog shoot. Sounds easy, right? Try having a world famous soccer star as a partner during World Cup.

This scheduling and script process started a few months ago, but on Sunday I met Justin and Sean, our director and director of photography. They wanted to see the locations that we are shooting at, and take some test shots.

We originally were going to shoot on Monday the 21st through Friday the 25th, but we were presented with the opportunity to spend some time with an old friend, Jean-Michel Cousteau aboard the Condor tomorrow. Our DP for next week is on a commercial, so Justin scrambled and found us a DP for Friday.

Back story: Jean-Michel Cousteau was a regular at a restaurant I worked at years ago, and a great guy. Over the years I have followed him as he has carried on his father’s extraordinary legacy.

My first memories of his father, Jacques Cousteau, were as a young boy, watching his exploration around the world aboard the Calypso. I must have been only six or seven, and I remember that when his show was on, it was a special occasion for me.

Not only did I love the adventure, I usually was allowed to stay up late.

I became fascinated with the boat, the water, and the sea.

Years later, I lost track of what Mr. Cousteau was doing, but my love for the ocean and the underwater world continued.

I was certified as a diver, and learned to master the regulator that Cousteau invented.

I spent as much time as I could in a lake, river or the ocean.

When I learned of his JCs death, I was deeply saddened, it really was as if I had lost a friend.

When I met his son, Jean-Michel at the restaurant in my early 30’s, I felt re-connected to my childhood hero. Jean-Michel was so warm and friendly, I didn’t feel like I was intruding when I asked him about his dive resort in Fiji or about his work with the Ocean Futures Project.

A few years have passed since I have seen Mr. Cousteau.

As luck has it, I was put in back in touch with Jean-Michel through my friend Maria Long.

He has been in the Gulf assisting in the clean-up.

We asked him if he would honor us with a day trip to the Arch Rock on Anacapa Island, our namesake, and answer our questions about what we could, as restaurateurs, do to help the sustainable seafood effort. He graciously accepted.

Please look for that interview in it’s entirety tomorrow.

Thursday, June 17 2010

The AR crew is headed to the VeraSprite Production Studios this afternoon to shoot the “sprites” for our cell phone announcements. Basically, a sprite is an image capture that downloads very quickly. Each person has to say the phrase “The quick brown fox jumped over the log,” or something like that. This phrase causes the mouth to move in the right way to appear as if almost any word is being pronounced.

(Then, we record any message, and play it over the sprite for years to come. Think of the babies in the e trade commercials.) That’s what the mouth looks like.

After we finished up there we headed over to Brophy’s for a quick snack, and walked to the Condor. We were invited to the KEYT Channel 3 summer kick-off cruise. What a great night for it, the weather was perfect. The Lakers Championship game was on, so the turn-out probably wasn’t at full capacity, but that was fine with me.

On the way to Condor

Jaime

We had a great time, and the Laker’s won!

11 PM

Came home to the company apartment. Full house tonight with Mike & Scott all here. We prepped for our talk tomorrow, and now, off to bed! Excited to talk to Mr. Cousteau at 8 am!

- Goodnight

Today is an exciting day.

In the beginning of May, Scott began looking for the perfect Chef to work alongside him in the Arch Rock kitchen.

Scott’s interviewing and hiring process goes like this:

He posts an ad describing the job. He asks for only candidates with a minimum of 5 years experience to apply.

Scott sorts the resumes, and narrows them down to about 20 really good candidates.

Scott then asks the partners to take a look, and from there we have a list of 10 good candidates or so.

Scott sets interview appointments, and gives himself an hour and a half per candidate. The list of candidates is narrowed. In our case, it was narrowed down to two really great Chefs.

The Chef candidates are brought back a second time, to meet the partners, on this occasion, me.  I spent a few hours with each candidate with a list of prepared questions. I’m operations. So I am looking for personality, an understanding of the operations, food costing, inventory control, and P&L management. I also try to get a good sense of their personality, how they manage staff, and how they approach leading a team.

The third time that the candidates are brought back, they meet the General Manager. The General Manager and the Chef need to act symbiotically, they are a team, and ultimately, it is my personal feeling, the GM needs to decide on the final candidate. That person needs to get along with the GM. In our case, the candidates will meet with Jaime and she will make that decision.

Finally, the candidates are brought into the kitchen, for the final stage: We have to determine if they can cook!

That day is today.

Morning

6 AM

Up early today with the chickens…Or in Santa Barbara, the seagulls. I have been working on the Arch Rock around the clock the last two months, and I have fallen slightly behind on our website build for evolve. I also needed to touch base with Mike Butler, our Director of Operations for HJL and shoot out a few emails.

9 AM

Time for Table Talk, AM 1290. I drove to Jordano’s test kitchen, said hello to Scott and the candidate, and Scott & I called in to the show.

The Candidates

The candidates for Chef were given a basket of chanterelle mushrooms, cinnamon caps, and murrells. For seafood they were given Baquetta, 10-20 scallops, and a whole branzino. They were given a few heirloom tomatoes, garlic, basil, white onion, whole ginger, fresh raspberries, fresh tarragon, avocado, asparagus, red and yellow bell peppers.

They each cooked three dishes. See the photos.

Candidate 1

Candidate 1

Candidate 2

Candidate 2

Afternoon

12 PM

While we were waiting for the second candidate to show up at noon, David from KEYT-ABC Channel 3 dropped by with our commercial plan for the Arch Rock. We are shooting a videolog of the behind-the-scenes process as we open the restaurant. We will be filming  “man on the street” question and answers commercials to air on KEYT. Stay tuned?

The power is out at the Arch Rock. Apparently the power is out from Anacapa past State Street. So, without access to wireless, I decided to take the opportunity to update the Arch Rock Blog.

Morning

8 AM

James Wilson and his team arrived early with armfuls of ladders. They were here to look for an alternative route for our hood system for the kitchen. They pushed back the ceiling tiles and crawled in. They must have been up there a good two hours. Success! They found their path, exciting news!

9 AM

I picked up a cup of coffee and the local paper, The Daily Sound. We had a nice write-up in the paper from John Dickson, The Restaurant Guy.  www.santabarbara.com

Justin, from Neon Robotic production studios called me, very excited. He had hired our cinematographer for the videolog shoot, Sean Conaty. Check out his work here: www.sean.conaty.net I had to agree with Justin, Sean’s work is amazing. Production begins June 21-25th.

The next exciting call came from Maria Long. Maria called me to say that Jean Michael Cousteau would join Captain Benko and our team on the boat trip to the Arch Rock on Anacapa Island.  This was exciting news. Mr. Cousteau has been in the Gulf assisting in the cleaning of the oil spill.

Afternoon

2:30 PM

We had our weekly conference call meeting with our public relations team, Fleishman-Hillard to discuss our messaging. What a fun process. Whatever business you are in, I encourage you to gather your group weekly and discuss your company’s messaging, and your brand. You can learn alot from talking through your business.

3 PM

I had a quick meeting with Mark at three. I cruised down the street,(Mark’s offices are three blocks away down Anacapa.) We caught up a bit, and discussed his newest project, tentatively called The Savoy. The Savoy is the old Q’s location, on State Street. He has some very exciting plans for the space.

Back to Arch Rock.

Cobi and Mike are finishing up the wine list on iChat. Cobi is in Salt Lake City for his game against Real Salt Lake. The wine list looks great.

It takes some of the best restaurateurs six months to a year to open a new restaurant. Working around the clock with a good team we have become very good over the years at opening a new concept in 90 days.

This blog will document daily highlights of our pre-opening procedures for the Arch Rock.

June 2, 2010

Jaime and I meet every morning at 10 am to review our action list for the day. We use an online project management program for HJL Group called basecamp.  On here we keep all of our files, group messages, menu updates, and a pretty lengthy to-do list. When members of the team subscribe to these projects, they can get updates each day as to their status.

Yesterday we had a conference call with our Public Relations firm, Fleishman-Hillard. www.fleishmanhillard.com FH is launching a press release for Arch Rock Fish next week. We are also building a social media content calendar for them.

A few weeks ago the partners, Mike Anderson, Scott Leibfried, and Cobi Jones, along with General Manager Jaime Pack and Event’s Coordinator Jennifer Higgins, took a trip to the SB Farmer’s Market in search of ideas for the menus. Today we were featured online, on Santa Barbara News Press. Scott Steepleton documented our Farmer’s Market discoveries here: www.newspress.com

Today we also put names to our cocktail drink list for Arch Rock. Here are two drink samplings of the list:

The Camino Cielo, which has chilled Absolut, ground ginger, sesame oil, and fresh lime juice.

The Red Rock, which uses Maker’s Mark, cranberry, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and crushed blackberries.

The Afternoon

The local techs from Phone Ex set up our phone lines today. For those that are interested, our new phone number is 805.845.2800.

We feel very strongly about being a good neighbor, as a business and environmentally. As we organized our front desk today, we carefully considered our options for a green taxi service. Surprisingly, in Santa Barbara it was difficult to find a company that had diesel or electric cars. We did find Lucky Cab Company, which uses hybrid vehicles. We decided that Lucky Cab Company will be our cab company of choice.

We also called Chef Scott, who was pulling up carpet and busy remodeling his newly purchased home, to discuss a quick, inexpensive lunch menu for the neighborhood business workers. He is currently considering a quick lunch menu of 5-7 items for under $7.

H2Pinc is busy working on our website, adding content, photos and pages. www.h2pinc.com John sent over a few new templates to look over, and the team is considering them.

In other operation news, Scott received his smallwares quote, and Mike finished his barware quote and order guides.

Tomorrow Cobi arrives and Mike and Cobi will begin tasting wines for the wine list, round two. I think I may have to sit this one out!

Another busy day at the AR!

May 31 2010 Memorial Day

Like most guys, I love to BBQ. There’s just something about it that really appeals to me. I won’t try to list those obvious reasons here, many better writers than I have captured the reasons for the love affair with the outdoor grill.

I have barbecued three times in the past three days this Memorial Weekend. Someone please stop me before I barbeque again!

Skirt Steak, salt, pepper, olive oil, fresh cilantro, red onions...

On Saturday I was listing my menu for that night. My beer of choice for this particular BBQ was Blue Moon.

A friend of mine, Mike Butler, commented, “It’s Memorial Day in America- go get some Budweisers!”

Blue Moon is brewed in America, but I see his point.

This led me to thoughts of what Memorial Weekend really is. I’m sure that it has different levels of significance to different people, depending on who you ask. But for all of us, it was enacted to honor the Union soldiers of the Civil War. It was formerly known as Decoration Day. The day it lands on, May 31, was near the reunification after the Civil War.

This led to a discussion with my parents about their family members that have fought in past wars. My mother’s father, Cliff fought in World War II. So did my dad’s father, Robert. And my dad’s great, great grandfather fought in the Civil War. My family still owns the Buffalo Gun that he was rumored to use.

I thought about the friends that I have known who have fought in the wars of my time period, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Richard, Justin, Brandon, just to name a few. All terrific guys, and even better friends. A few have died, but most are still alive, thankfully.

I thought of their time spent in these countries, away from their families, the beach and the barbecues. And I am thankful to them, and also to know them.

Thoughts of friends and family who were soldiers for America. All of which made me realize again how much I enjoy the barbecues, my friends, and my family.

Please enjoy your Memorial Day, and don’t forget the people who have gone before. And as Mike so poetically stated: “It’s Memorial Day in America, go get a Budweiser.”