Oh Holy.... Shit.

I have never looked forward to a holiday ending like I did this one. Christmas Eve was fine. As far as service went. It took awhile, I got to work at 1:00 and we all left a bit after 11:00.. Because the power had gone out. All over town. Some animal wrecked a power line. I got home by candlelight, got a phone call from my buddy that they were going to open a bottle of wine out at his restaurant sit by the fireplace and wait for the power to come back on. The books had to be done and he was concerned about the ten thousand dollars worth of food that he had ordered for the week.

I get out there a bit after midnight sit down with the Manager, his fiance and my buddy Chef B. The wine was a '95 Silver Oak (can't complain there). The guys decided to grill steaks over the fireplace and Kris and I were huddled up in big chairs. I think it was one of the nicest evenings I've spent in a very long time. We wait.. and wait. And finally go home about 3:30. Still no power. I stumble home in the dark. Crawl into bed, without heat. And think that I'll wake up to power. Uhh.. no. I finally leave to go check in with my kitchen and Manager at about 10:30 the next day. I walk into a shit storm. There were hundreds of guests both hotels were booked. No kitchens could operate.

The Banquet kitchens had grills out the back doors and were making hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken burgers with cold salad and chips to feed to everybody. No hot water, no cell phones. All of the main managers were communicating through walky-talkies. Almost all of the doors are opened with mar lock keys, no power doors don't open. Not to mention that there was a bit over a thousand people with reservations all over the resort that had to be fed this evening. Kitchens need time to prep food. The laundry wasn't running.

I had about two hundred people on the books. Luckily we had enough foresight to start stock piling folded napkins a few days ago. So, that wasn't a problem. But, we have to have laundry turn around our dark blue table cloths. No power no laundry service, and no access to the liquor cabinets to get our wine order.

The power came on about three hours before our first reservations. We changed all of the linen to white. And didn't polish half of what we should have. Some how it worked out. People were full of stories about their day. I had a grandmother say that it was the first time she had been able to spend a full day talking to her teenage grand kids without some distraction. For the most part people were fairly easy going and kept their spirits up. And so did I. I don't know how the other kitchens did. But, somehow mine managed to do all of their prep in half of the time.

I'm tired, can't believe the last twenty-four hours happened let alone on the biggest day of the year... But, strangely enough it was kind of exhilarating. finding solutions to every problem that came up, putting the smile on my face and cracking jokes about the memories that this holiday is going to hold.

On a side note. My fellow servers don't care for their pen names on my blog. And wanted to choose their own. So, Mickey is now going to be Goose (no idea why). And Trish is going to be Ginger (she has red hair). Old Dog doesn't get a choice and New Guy is going to be Bud, as in Bud light.. as in he's way too attached to bad beer. Manager technically deserves a name so I'm gonna go with.... Javier. And Carlos the busser stays Carlos.