Routines & Relaxation

Things started to move along at a slow pace up at the shop.  It did help Kate & I develop a weekly routine, though.  There was a lot more stuff to be done (cleaning, etc) in the shop, but we learned ways to be more efficient.  

Every week, after the fifty-fourth hour on Sunday, we'd close the front door & do a deep clean of the place.  Kate would do the dishes, sweep & mop & I'd wrap up all of the toppings & clean out the cold table.  

Then I'd drain the spent oil from the deep fryer & do a boil out to make it shine.  Having never done any work with a deep fryer previously, I simply read the owner's manual, looked up a few tips online & wrote down a step by step plan to knock it out.

By 9 pm, we left the place spotless, with just enough energy to have a few drinks at home & catch most of Bob's Burgers.  It reminded me of when we first started out, doing the OB market & we hurried home to catch new episodes of Modern Family on Wednesdays.  

Marisol, a neighbor vendor of ours clear back at Golden Hill once said, "Go home, put your feet up & watch some TV."  We had been following her advice for a long time.  

It also took us 5-6 years to open up our store.  Another bit of wisdom she shared with us back then, that was also right on the money.

So when the work days (& weeks) felt never ending, I always tried to reflect on how far Kate & I had come to be where we were.  It was pretty amazing the distance we'd traveled in just over six years- from unloading coolers & a grill out of the back of my '92 GMC Sonoma pickup to sweeping, mopping & cleaning out a deep fryer at our own store on the main drag in Ocean Beach.

But, come Mondays, we tried not to think about any of that.  We usually biked down to the water, sat in our beach chairs & tried to relax.