When the Dust Settles – Timing Read Online Mary Calmes

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It was the same for many of the people who worked for me. My head chef, Javier Garza, was—they said—let go from his last position for stealing. He said it was for being Mexican. The reality was that his creative menu changes—brisket in pecan and mesquite marinade, turkey legs for the kids added to the steak plates, and more varieties of hamburgers—had made us crazy successful in a very short time.

Two years, to be precise, because Mitch Powell, the builder and owner of the King’s Crossing Resort and Spa, owed Rand Holloway a few favors. He paid off one of them by giving me a throwaway location for my new restaurant, the Bronc, next to the golf clubhouse. We weren’t in the main area where all the other restaurants were, and because of that, people had despaired of our chances for success. The thing was, though, it was my dream, and I had been thinking and planning it for years. So when it came time to execute, I did.

We’d covered the parking lot in the same rubber they used for play areas for kids at schools, put poles up so no one could drive in, filled the entire space with picnic tables, and built a counter ledge all the way around it. There was no alcohol outside. If you were eating and drinking, that happened inside. Outside was for people who had kids and didn’t want to worry if they were noisy. They didn’t have to freak out if one kid screamed and the other started to cry. That was such a relief for a lot of folks. Plus, with the play area right there, parents could finish their meals, see their kids, and know the area was enclosed. You couldn’t come into the play area from the parking lot. You had to walk all the way around to the front of the restaurant and then enter only from the patio. We also had two people out there keeping an eye on the kids, and the positive comments, just on that part of our service, were through the roof.

What had surprised me was the level of prejudice people must have endured in other establishments for guests to stop me and thank me or a member of my staff. Always it was two women or two men who made it a point to say they were treated the same as everyone else and how wonderful that was. It was sad that our service was an anomaly for them.

Every now and then, guys who had been drinking at the bar, when their families joined them, wanted to keep drinking but go outside. Since that didn’t work, we had a standard answer, which was that our liquor license did not extend to the patio.

With wives and grandparents scowling at them, usually the bluster was over quickly. Most people were great about the patio, and honestly, if you were there to drink, we had a huge bar with a circle of chairs around it that most patrons took advantage of. There were craft beers on tap that we got from local breweries, every whiskey under the sun, and really, two people on a date, staring into each other’s eyes, didn’t want to be interrupted by the various decibel levels of kids being kids. The inside had a split level, there were windows to look out of on the south side and see the golf course and people on horse trails, and on the north side, there was a pool, so you could people-watch. At night, it was a lovely sea of lights.

Other than a few people—and the no-alcohol-on-the-patio recurring theme—the comments on Yelp, OpenTable, Zomato, TripAdvisor, and on our Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, were all gushing. The service was fantastic, everyone said across the board. Whoever owned the Bronc really knew how to take care of people. All the comments were really nice to hear. When Huxton Grey—James Beard Award–winning chef, restaurateur, and traveling foodie—showed up to tape an episode of his Emmy-winning show Side of the Road, I’d nearly passed out. And even though I wasn’t the one in the kitchen cooking for him, I could not have been more proud when I shook his hand at the end of the segment and he thanked me for having him there. It was my place, after all. The Bronc Burger, made with ponzu sauce and buffalo meat, was apparently one of the best things Huxton ever had. I was thrilled, so was my staff, and the influx of new patrons staggered us all. As a result of all the good feedback, press, word of mouth, and independent travel and food blogs, the business took off and the money came rolling in.

It was, in my opinion, the coupling of amazing food and great service. When we first opened, all we served was a steak plate—cubed pieces of meat marinated in garlic and red-wine sauce—and hamburgers. That was the extent of our selection, except for the sides. There were tater tots, sweet-potato fries, coleslaw, mac ’n’ cheese, and chili. We didn’t have a kids’ menu. You could order a half, though, and what kid didn’t like mac ’n’ cheese? Soon after, we added this amazing veggie burger. It sounded gross when we added it to the menu, but holy crap, did we sell a ton of them. I had my own chef for the vegetarian specialties on the menu, Han Jun. His mom was East Indian, his dad from Okinawa, and he was the one who’d added the ponzu sauce to the steak too, which made the garlic taste even better. Because the veggie burgers were so popular, instead of opening up a second grill in the back for more burgers, we added a second kitchen and made it the vegetarian area. The grill was new; it had never had any meat cooked on it, ever. We even had a sign over it that read: If you’re packing meat, get the hell outta here.

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