Shift Notes 001

A week in the life of an *overwhelmed* pizza parlor owner

I’ve been hearing the voices again. A disappointed whisper while I’m rolling silverware. The urgent nagging as I make Caesar dressing. Flat facts being shouted during wine inventory: “You gotta finish that Substack post.”

But running a restaurant means I have stuff to do. A lot of it. And operational tasks take priority over an essay tying together my Sagittarian fear of commitment and a recipe for Affogato Soft Serve Sundaes (a real draft).

So, the bad news is that I’m limiting my longer-form posts to once a month. Because I need time to process the mildly unhinged personal truths being unpacked in real time via a Google Doc? MAYBE. But more importantly, because of the aforementioned to-dos.

The good news: a new weekly series about St. George Pizza’s “small stuff”—the absurd, irritating, and maybe even heartwarming bits that don’t always make it into the “big picture” pieces.

Shift Notes will be a more realistic peek behind our checkered red curtains. Some days will be tedious, some will be frantic. But that’s the life of a pizza parlor owner, baby!

Without further ado, here’s this past week:

Monday

My office day. And by that I mean lying fully horizontal in bed with coffee irresponsibly balanced on my chest, inches away from my laptop, where I’m placing orders with our suppliers. This is also when I update the menu on our website—hugely important for my husband George’s mother, who is quick to remind me (via a pressing text to him) if changes aren’t seen by mid-morning. She lives in West Virginia and has yet to dine at our restaurant, but I appreciate the remote project management nonetheless.

Tuesday

Trip to “town” to visit my favorite store in the world: Rockland Food Service. This place is like if you turned a corner in the backrooms and stumbled into a restaurant supply closet. Despite an abundance of bulk packaged goods lining the shelves, a sense of nothingness overwhelms the expanse. There are no signs. No atmospheric music. No other customers.

Anyway, I just love it there! My comfort liminal space.

This week’s haul: 2 racks of Mexican Cokes, a case of 10” pizza boxes, and the last remaining bottle of Angostura bitters.

🤗 🤗 🤗 🤗

Wednesday

Unbeknownst to most of our customers, George has been working a day job for the nine-month duration of our pizzeria. The reason is simple: money. Restaurant profitability takes time, especially if you’re bootstrapping the entire operation without investors like we are. So, our chef moonlights as a software engineer to keep the metaphorical dough flowing.

The plan has always been to trade off periods of freelance/financial responsibility, with my return to the world of advertising up next. That was until George’s afternoon check-in with his boss, in which he was offered a full-time job. That he accepted.

While we both agree this is the right move (secure company, kind coworkers, steady pace), it does permanently shift the management of the restaurant. The pizza parlor that was George’s dream is now my reality.

*This WILL be expanded upon in a longer post with a recipe for a vodka sauce pie or some shit as I sort through my feelings*

Thursday

The debut of “Slice Night”—a series of rotating weekly events accompanied by a limited menu of, you guessed it, pizza slices!

Last winter, friends hosted sporadic bingo and trivia sessions at St. George, which were always a riotous good time. The problem was that not all diners realized they would be experiencing a side of competitive (and sometimes vulgar) gaming alongside their pies.

So, we decided to isolate the enthusiastic events to a single night: Thursdays. And added movie screenings along with vinyl DJ sets to better round out the programming.

The inaugural showing was The Shining, both as a nod to spooky season but also to convey an “adults only, party time” vibe. And it worked for the most part, save the one teenage boy attending with his parents, who looked equal parts mortified and terrified throughout the duration of the film.

As the credits rolled, the family moved to leave, but not before the son looked back defiantly at the closing crew and stated: “That wasn’t scary at all.”

Goddamn kids.

objectively a scary movie!

Friday

A busy blur of an evening punctuated by service sounds:

• the slightly off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung by the entire restaurant to a delighted three-year-old

• the hungry, hurried warning beeps from the nearly empty soft serve machine

• the popping of lambrusco bottles, the cracking of lager cans, the flipping of root beer caps

• the echo of the ticket printers, with the front counter spitting out orders a split second before the bar

• the cacophonic song that George didn’t consider when absentmindedly pressing play on “Sting radio” at the start of the night (see/hear below)

• the shrieks of laughter during our shift drink debrief

Saturday

At the end of service, George makes each employee a to-go pie if they so desire. The requests are never surprising, with pepperoni—the perpetual prom queen—topping everyone’s list. That was until we got some new neighbors.

This past summer, a young couple moved into a sweet, historic house just up the road from St. George Pizza. After initial home renovations inevitably snowballed, they reached out to inquire about picking up shifts for extra cash.

A few months in, and while I could easily compliment their work ethic or problem-solving skills, I’m most impressed by their topping innovations.

Each week, the two of them develop their take-home pizzas in new, exciting, and sometimes shocking ways. This past week, I watched as they started with a pesto base, then added pepperoni, mushrooms, two types of cheese, and finished it off with a healthy heaping of the pre-dressed kale Caesar salad. Truth be told, their creation made me feel ashamed for merely making myself a plain ol’ cheese.

I’ll get ‘em next week.

‘Til then…