Dear Feastlings,
Nineteen years ago today, Feast hung out its shingle for the first time. Our space was tiny, about a quarter of the size it is now, and the staff has grown too, about sixfold since then. I’m not much for birthdays myself- I usually work on my own birthday, and I’m embarrassed to say that nearly everyone else’s comes and goes without notice or acknowledgement from me. Other people seems to like to make a fuss over them, though, and historically, our solution at Feast has been to acknowledge birthdays with some gratitude. We used to offer dessert to anyone who ordered a meal and was able to name three members of the staff on our birthday, as a way to thank those of you who had obviously supported us in a big way- you don’t learn the names of people at a restaurant that you’re just stopping in at. We did that for years, but it fell by the wayside after a couple of years of people doing that thing where, suddenly, they felt the urge to ask us our names for one week out of the year, or point at one of us across the room and say, “now, what’s her name again?” The day that a woman came in and grabbed three business cards off the host stand and handed them over saying, “here’s my three names- I want my free dessert,” we pulled the plug for the ensuing years, feeling that the gesture no longer meant what it originally had.
Today, after having all of our spring catering events cut from under us and flying by the seat of our collective pants as our business continues a precipitous slide into an uncertain future, and as things continue change on a daily basis for lo these past seven weeks, we’re in no position to be handing out the freebies that we used to. But in the tradition of expressing gratitude on our birthday, we’re donating another set of meals to hospital workers in town. If we reach our goal of 230 donated meals for El Rio Health next Wednesday, we’ll donate another 70 ourselves, and the following week, we’ll do it all over again for the staff at the VA Hospital. Anything helps- it doesn’t need to be a meal. It can be a cookie. It can be a five-spot. Anything you choose to donate will be greatly appreciated, both by front line hospital workers and by the crew here at Feast. Here’s a link to the details about the El Rio run.
So there. That’s way more attention than I’d normally give a birthday. Now a couple of quick reminders and I’ll set about my various responsibilities, primarily getting production going on four different things:
-the May menu, which begins the first Tuesday in May (you’ll see the menu posted by Tuesday);
-the Cinco de Mayo specials, which, as luck would have it, we’ll be offering on Tuesday as well. Here’s the link.
-this Saturday’s wine tasting. Here’s that link.
-this Sunday’s delivery run to the South and Southeast.
We’ll of course have wines handy for Callaghan and Dos Cabezas’ #digitalwineresearch, and our menu available for delivery or pickup today through Sunday as well, which, until it changes on Tuesday, will look like this.
You can call us at 326-9363 to order, or donate, or visit, or ask if our refrigerator is running. For those of you who don’t know what that means, ask someone who remembers life before Caller ID. It’ll give you something to do.
Love,
Doug, and everyone here at Feast.