Joe just got home, tired but upbeat and excited for the Monday night opening. Tacolicious is ready to go. I was there today and it looks beautiful.
It’s funny, the calm before the storm. Taking on the domestic side of all this this week, when I’m not at 7×7, I’ve been mostly helping remotely: keeping up with the piles of laundry, watching the kids, shopping for groceries so we don’t starve. The irony of the restaurant business is that it feeds everyone but the people most closing involved with it. Let’s just say a restaurant doesn’t pack the kids’ lunch.
And in trying to keep order around the house, I’ve noticed how much of our lives have become about Tacolicious. It’s pervaded our every move. Even the kids are in on it. On our front door right now is a hot pink Post-It note that Moss made today that says “Moss Cafe: Tacolicious” in the handwriting of a four year old. And on the desk, I found a construction paper taco filled with tissue paper taco “fillings” that Moss made in his preschool class as a precursor to the Tacolicious field trip his class took last month. Beneath that, I found a stencil that I made, trying to to figure out the logo (I had visions of a graffiti-like stencil, because I’m street like that). Beneath that is a piece of paper where Joe sketched out what he wanted the menu to look like.
Outside our back door is a tile of pressed copper from Laiola’s ceiling which Joe experimented with, trying to see how we could patina it a dark brown. The baking soda experiment leaked over onto the kitchen table which now has a permanent scar on it. (And in the end, we left the ceiling gleaming copper.) I just changed the sheets in the guest room where Joe’s dad—a retired ship captain that is also very skilled carpenter—stayed for five nights when he came in to do the restaurant’s wood work. And I finally threw away the piles of Benjamin Moore paint samples that I’ve neurotically continued to purchase, all in one-degree variations on teal—teals like “Shenendoah” that were ultimately painted on the walls of Tacolicious, and then painted over for a teal of Joe’s preference (“Cedar Mountain”). Yes, it caused a little familial drama, but I’ll grudgingly admit looks a lot better. (I’ve always thought paint store employees would behoove themselves to take classes in couple’s therapy.)
It’s 10:27 now. Just that much closer to the opening tomorrow night, and the closest I’ve ever been personally to a restaurant opening, despite having been a food writer for over 10 years. It’s an amazing feat, this restaurant opening stuff. Certainly not for the weak hearted.
Joe’s dozing on the couch, having disgustedly turned from “The Worst Cook in America” on the Food Network to a game of professional poker. All the better to zone out for a moment and dream about anything but what’s ahead of him, if just for a sleepy moment.
We hope to see you tomorrow.