Somewhere between the excitement of the Broadway Stage and a December football scrimmage,

one finds an extraordinary phenomenon called the Restaurant. Restaurants come in assorted sizes, prices, and themes, yet all have a common creed to serve people every minute of every hour of the day. Restaurants are composites:

🎉They are places to fill up, flake out, celebrate, remember, or even forget.

To your competitor, your restaurant is always filled, and you steal his help. You have the greatest chef, the cleanest kitchen, and real-personality bartenders. To your guest, you are a swinger, Party Boy, living the life of Riley. And you think to yourself, as so many do, that someday “When I retire, I am going to open up a little place of my own.” Restaurants live with phrases: “We are two dishwashers short.” “The chef picked up his knives.” and “Do you call this Stroganoff?”

🥩Your steady guest of ten years just told you that his steak was cold and tough 😡

and that you shall never see him again. It’s the only business that is only as good as your last meal. A restaurant is a smile on your face when you are two waiters short. It’s a new grey suit with cherry stains on the sleeve. It’s shaking hands with the mayor while wielding the plunger. It’s smiling, after two hours of sleep, at a stranger; while your kids ask, “When is Daddy coming home.” Restaurants are Saturday nights, with low food costs, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and Brunch on a rainy summer Sunday.

🛠Restaurants suffer from freezing rain, weather warnings, and most holidays and plagues.

They hurt at the sight of a competitor’s full parking lot, rising prices, and the new place being built across the street. A Restaurant demands an attempt to be Cecil B. DeMille and Rogers & Hart, while the script is controlled by your friendly banker. It requires the fitness of an art collector along with the fortitude and skills of a plumber, carpenter, and electrician.

And yet……a restaurant is the World Series, Super Bowl, and Oscar night all rolled into one when you hear those heartwarming words, “It’s the best meal we have ever had, and we’ll be back.”👍