Well, we finally re-opened the restaurant last night, quietly and with as little fanfare as possible. We need a couple days to ease back into things before we are able to effectively handle crowds. We will therefore keep the scale of operations pretty small over the next week, with only the lower dining room and the coffee lounge open at the moment.
Starting on Monday, January 28th, we will have the Rickard's Room (upper dining room) available for bookings. Groups of fifteen or more will be able to reserve that room at any time, at no cost (reservations must be made at least 24 hours in advance). As an extra bonus, the groups will receive Happy Hour pricing on the alcohol that they order with their meals, regardless of whether or not it is Happy Hour in the rest of the restaurant. This means cocktails and mixed drinks for $2.21 each, instead of the regular price of $3.99, and large 20-ounce glasses of Rickard's Red or Rickard's White for $3.49 instead of $4.99. The room is also semi-private, and there will be curtains set up shortly which can isolate the room somewhat from the rest of the dining room. The Rickard's Room will not be available for general walk-in seating, except every Friday night, our busiest night, when the entire restaurant gets Happy Hour prices all night long.
Starting on Tuesday, January 29th, we will be offering food for sale in Ducky's, the Pub located next door. For February through April, our test period, we will keep our kitchen open until midnight every night of the week except Sundays, specifically to serve patrons at Ducky's (our dining room will still close at 9pm nightly). Our full menu will not be available - instead we will be putting together a special menu of items that would be popular among Ducky's customers.
Over the next two weeks, we certainly still have a lot of small jobs to take care of before we feel like we are "fully open." For instance, at the moment, I need to get the stereo wired up, new menus printed, ceiling tiles finished in the dining room, and most of the display artwork has not been collected yet. These are the four most obvious deficiencies for people sitting in the dining room, and these are obviously four of the biggest priorities on my list of remaining tasks (which unfortunately still has about a hundred items on it).
By the end of this weekend, we'll have our regular website back online, with all necessary updates and menu revisions. We'll also be having an official grand opening in a couple weeks, once things are running smoothly and we know that we can adequately handle capacity crowds.
