Dear Feastlings,
Within a day of our writing to say we’d require masks in the restaurant while people are mobile, the CDC declared that vaccinated folk are safe to be maskless in an indoor situation. While it’s great news, it makes our job a little more difficult, as we don’t intend to change our rule just yet- we’re waiting for Pima County to chime in, and as importantly, we’re waiting for our guests to chime in. So before there’s any bluster, allow me to do what I’ve been doing for months now, and explain:
To the person who’ll undoubtedly say that I have no business enforcing mask-wearing: shut up. I’m running a business that depends on people feeling comfortable enough to come in, sit down and dine, maskless, for a couple of hours. I have to make sure that my catering to your personal freedom of not wearing a mask doesn’t drive away other guests, and until that day comes, you’re welcome to take out, but you’re not welcome to make my other guests uncomfortable. I’m not enforcing masking to infringe on your freedom; I’m doing it to make what few guests I have feel comfortable enough to come in and spend their hard-earned money here. And if it’s personal freedom you value, then you’ll respect my personal freedom to run my business in a way that allows me enough customers not to have to close my doors.
So despite the fact that someone will invariably decide that masks should be off, my gloves are off. If someone lacks the respect to help others feel comfortable, I don’t need them to tie up one of the limited selection of tables I have available.
Still, the CDC’s declaration is good news, whether we choose to act on it immediately or not, and it’s nice to feel like we’ve all taken another step toward putting the pandemic behind us. With that in mind, I should note that our pandemic pricing strategies will be changing. We’ve all felt we needed a drink this year at some point, whether we’re drinkers or not, and I hope you who are in recovery have been able to maintain your sober status, but in an effort to take the edge off for those who do tipple on occasion, we changed our discounts from ten percent on a case to ten percent on half a case, and fifteen percent on a case. That will stop, but not before you’ve had one last chance to avail yourselves of it. Now through May 23rd, you’ll still be able to get 15% off any twelve bottles, mix and match. After that, we’ll keep the summer deal in place that we had before all this nonsense began: 10% off any six bottles or more. Come Labor Day, we’ll be back to 10% off on cases only, again, mix and match, but twelve bottles rather than six. So there are still deals to be had, but given the relatively deep financial hole we’re in by this point, we’ll be offering the same deal you get at the big box stores, rather than a better deal, as we’ve been doing for the past 14 months.
We’ll also offer our other old summer deal: from Memorial Day through Labor Day, if you have a bottle at table and decide to buy another bottle of the same wine to take home, we’ll waive the corkage on the bottle you enjoyed here and save you twelve bucks.
The list is here for your perusal, and reflects the dine-in price on the wines, i.e., including that twelve-dollar corkage that we include when you drink it here rather than taking it home, which, in my humble opinion, beats the tar out of most restaurant pricing:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/043021-wine-list.pdf
Want to know what the wines taste like? You can taste four of them each week by joining us for our Saturday Zoom tastings (yes, they’ll continue to be Zoom tastings for the time being.) Here’s what tomorrow’s tasting looks like:
And here, as long as we’re at it, is today’s menu:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
We’ve got a couple more days of getting our sea legs back and next week you’ll be able to make reservations at Feast, and I’ll mention a few little tidbits alongside that, some of which I’ve already mentioned:
• we still have a couple of weeks of taking reservations by phone, until we’ve switched to our new reservation software (we’re working on it, or rather they’re working on it.) The number to call is 326-9363.
• we’ll only be taking reservations on a limited basis until we have enough staff to handle it, so for the time being, our first seating each day is at 4:00 pm, and our last is at 8:00 pm. We do look forward to expanding those hours, but we need to see how many seats we actually fill and how many staff it takes to give them good service.
• if you mention the word “Feastling” when you call, we’ll know that you’re family, and we’ll make every effort to give you priority over random strangers, many of whom are undoubtedly lovely people, but we’re going to treat you special.
Have a lovely, lovely day, and know that we can’t wait to see you.
Doug, and all your other friends at Feast