Do you ever ponder your strengths and weaknesses? I do it all the time. I have this giant illustration of a scale in my brain that I try to keep balanced at all times. Or a pendulum that I try to maintain the right beat. As I get older I have to adjust things a tad. My vocation has worn a few different masks over the years but I haven’t deterred too much from my original foundation of the service industry. I’m good at logistics. I can go into any poor functioning kitchen and reset it. Just the last month all I’ve been doing is tweaking my kitchen to fit every niche and notch we need to grease the wheels. We’ve moved coolers around, tables, equipment. Every day the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “this is how we are going to do it today to make it more fluid” and it works. I pride myself in this function. Im a problem solver.

Imagine if you will being dealt a card after you graduate high school that gives you a preview of what’s to become of your professional career and you draw the fucking service industry. If I knew at that time what that would pertain I would’ve sighed heavily.

Listen

I love being creative

I enjoy making new things

I’m over the top and it’s reflected on my menu choices and business decision’s.

But

It is takes its toll on you over the years. I compare it to someone who started a band 20 years ago and is still trying to score a number hit song. I’ve hit top forty a few times and my old girl Southern stayed at number 2 for two consecutive charts but when she left the top 40 and she never recovered.

Ya think Jagger would still be doing his dancing and front man energy to this day if the Stones never hit it big? What would he be doing right now? Probably not weight lifting.

Like Billy Joel singing the Entertainer “you get put in the back of a discount rack like another can of beans”

Walk down past your colleagues during graduation, up to the podium grabs card, opens it up … “ FUCK!” *grabs bottle of vodka

Listen

I’m just creatively ranting. It hasn’t been terrible in this madness of work. I’ve created quite a bit of things turning “shit into ice cream” as my old boss used to say. My body has been unkind to me the last few months. I put her into retirement mode and then tried to run a marathon. I’m paying the price for it. It’s difficult to conjur the old Chad who could rage for 60 hours on a kitchen line and still wake up the next morning and run 15 miles around a mountain. My shins hurt just thinking about it.

That was some heavy metal fuel I no longer wish to keep in my gas tank.

The older I get the harder it is to hype myself. Or the more I no longer wish to have to do so. Man I miss the old days where the only hype was expressed on a specialty board. Or maybe a flyer? I don’t know. Most of my focus at the time was keeping the gears greased and wheels turning in a consistent direction and routine. The steakhouse we never did specials or features until business started slowing down and then we got behind the rest of the crowd and well the building is now a representative of Prisma. The last few years I spent driving or walking to all the local offices and apartments with gift card baskets and flyers with bright pictures of margarita pitchers with dark red prickly pear nectar.

Urging and pushing you to support our business. That’s wear I cut my teeth on gorilla marketing. Y’all got it easy now.

Sometimes I post things that I enjoy for work. Certain features and boards. I have a cache of pics in my gallery of giant charcuterie spreads outside on bannisters. I’d push together 8 hours worth of meat and cheese assembly on boards, in boxes, giant fruit trays with pineapples cut into origami, papayas in congruent slices. Cheese slivered into cascading corners of 5 foot boards. I’d line em up on a 4 in handrail and try to get the perfect video or pic. All the while knowing one sudden gust of wind would ruin $1500 worth of work.

Gotta do it for gram! Gotta sell tickets.

Great natural lighting? ✔️

Background music? ✔️

Hashtags? Did we get the all the right fucking hashtags? ✔️

Great! Post that mother fucker!

16 likes

Reel of cat licking the neighbors dog’s balls 499,498,000 likes

I posted that for fun but that’s what it’s like. It takes a lot of effort to run a small business and try to hype it and stay relevant. Sometimes it’s the opposite. I’ll post something like say banana pudding. Listen I know some of yall go coo coo for Cocoa Puffs over that pudding and that’s awesome. I’ve made about 5000 gallons. I said I’d never make it again but my little pride and joy closed so I’m paying a little tribute. Some folk were losing their mind. “OMG WE ARE COMING FOR IT”

They’re stll in my display cooler. I sold 4

Scooby snacks sold well. I also shoved them up your internet butts until they sold out. Its harder than it seems to sell things now. I made some more yesterday but had a customer get downright rude Tuesday because I didn’t have them readily available. I close for two days each week. Logistically it means emptying your inventory all week and starting fresh on Tuesday. That means fresh recipes on Tuesday. I don’t sell old food. If I 86 anything it’s because I won’t serve week old food. Chadcuterie grab and goes? I toss in 48 hours. Harris teeter will keep that shit in a cooler all week and charge you more for it.

Internet has made us love em and then leave them. You want to get your product into someone’s head for 5 or 10 seconds. There are 20,000 others doing the same exact thing. I’ve already got some folk doing something similar to my concept that have come in and quietly visited my space and I’ve only been open three weeks.

I’m on my fourth week and still trying to gauge inventory. One day I sold 17 salads. The last two days I sold 4. Build your own charcuterie I sold 8 in one day last week I didn’t hit 8 all week. I won’t sell portioned cold cuts until my volume gets better.

My two constants are hoagies and boxes. I’m analyzing every single part of my menu to see how it gets tweaked.

But I’m not changing shit for a bit. I can’t do the knee jerk changes like I used to. I’m trying to be patient. Also it’s just me and Barry for now. I welcome anyone to come in and see the amount of prep we do in one week. I’m running four business out here. Chadcuterie, deli, market place and catering kitchen.

Back to the hype. The older I get the less I have. I’d love just to go into work and focus on creating food and not the other hassles. It gets old selling yourself. After all these years I still feel like the band who’s poster can be found hanging over a public urinal.

My lease is 3 years. By the time I get my foothold for what I’m doing it’ll be close to that time of lease eval. A lot of people want to eat there and that’s great but yall I only have like 10 seats. And I had to change some things to make that happen. Built a counter with some money that would go great towards the lease. At least my new cooler works.

If anyone wants a deli cooler I’ll literally give you the one on my stoop out front.

I get tired and frustrated and I write it out. I’m not washed out or giving up. To remind everyone this is my transparent online journal. I write to get it out.

I also push my writing because it’s always good to have a backup plan just in case. I’m not spending 60 hours a week on my feet in my 60’s I simply refuse. I already feel tethered right now. I’ve posted 96 blog entries in 16 months. I have another 20 floating around in purgatory unfinished and a few that aren’t for anyone’s eyes but mine. You dont get all of me on here.

I follow a path of manifestation. I have a couple of scenarios in my mind.

I love the concept of Graze mostly because it’s not specific. It gives me a lot of freedom and you will see a lot of different things come in and out if it works. I’m not going all out overnight. I can’t exhaust my creativity again like I did 4 years ago. It can happen. I’m still struggling but it’s slowly coming back. I could see Graze on the corner of a small moutain town side street or even a small beach town. Man I love you Greenville but you aren’t what you used to be. That’s not an insult by any means I just think Greenville has outgrown me not the opposite.

The other option I manage to make a living off of some creative writing and I’m living in a tiny house in any of those said scenarios. I’m getting older. My environment invites tranquility. I don’t enjoy busy roads anymore. Traffic, hundreds of people choking sidewalks. I want a back or front porch where I can smell the river or ocean. I camp up in Chimney Rock and I’ll get up in early morning and walk the quiet streets in the village with all the wrap around porches and melt into the fabric. I want to rest my feet up on one of those porches.

I’m pursuing tranquility. After all these years of volatility my body is transitioning into another cocoon. It’s a good thing yall. I’m here for it.

Positive side is I’m opening up more to the public but it’s hard for me to hide my expressions when things aren’t going my way. I’d make a terrible politician.

Is this a deli update? Not really just my brain running with the zoomies. Here’s a pic of my new counter though