Big Sur Bakery Cookbook - Michelle Wojtowicz [73]
Or, if not actually going broke, incurring what we around here like to call “winter debt.” It’s a time—stretching roughly from Thanksgiving until Memorial Day—when business slows and every employee starts to look like a dollar sign walking out the door. The nadir hits between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when business is so stagnant that we actually close for a few weeks. In reality, we don’t have a choice: staying open would cost us money. But we like to think that we’re just treating ourselves and our staff to a much-needed break after the busy season, and pretend that we are successful restaurateurs who actually can afford things like “vacation.”
When it comes to shutting down, we’re not alone. Traditionally, many businesses in Big Sur have closed for months in winter (our version of hibernation), reopening only when spring brings back the tourists. Luckily, we only have to shut down for a few weeks, not months, and we use the break to take stock of how bad our winter debt is going to be. It’s a time when Mike remembers what a seasoned Big Sur restaurateur told him when the Bakery first opened: “You need to charge a lot more than you’re comfortable with, or I guarantee you’ll be out of money come winter.” Every year when business slows to a trickle, Mike is haunted by those words.
Our winter debt depends on a couple of things: how busy the summer was, whether we’ve had to buy new equipment—this year we got a new refrigerator—and, of course, our relationship with our purveyors’ accounting departments. (Let’s put it this way: we’re not above using pastries as bribes.) Marilyn handles the bookkeeping, but we call Mike in to deal with the purveyors and any negotiating that needs to happen. He has an uncanny ability to convince people that it’s in their best interest to help us.
Winter is also a great time to second-guess what we’re doing here. Why did we open a restaurant so far away from people, linked to the outside world by a single, easily closable road? The most frustrating times are when potential customers hear about bad weather or a road closure that’s nowhere near us, but which they assume must affect Big Sur—rumors about problems with Highway 1 can slow down business for weeks. Those are the nights when we’ll reduce our staff to just five or six people and still be left standing around, keeping each other entertained when the customers just don’t show.
But then again, we’ve survived eight off-seasons so far—and damn, do we eat well in the winter. It’s hard not to freak out when business is slow, but we’ve learned to reframe the winter as a chance to put together new menus, spend time together, and get things organized for the coming season. We do our best not to get too worried about business, and luckily for our stress levels, every year there seems to be more.
Photographs by Sara Remington
Photographs by Sara Remington
PROFILE: MARILYN/BEAN COUNTER
Photographs by Sara Remington
Places you have lived:
Southern California, Wyoming, but mostly Texas, which is very different from the Big Sur experience. I never thought I’d miss El Paso, but the Big South can sometimes drive a person to strange things.
Previous jobs:
I worked in a retirement community for a while—which was probably a good prep for working in customer service. I held the typical odds-and-ends jobs, and was in the Air Force. I was an Airman First Class and Basic Arabic Linguist.
Languages:
Arabic, and one can’t exist on the border without some Spanish.
Personal heroes:
My dad, for instilling a sense of duty. And my Grams, for instilling a desire for grace and tact in all things.
Life goals:
To serve my country and give back to society. Raise my children to be decent, introspective human beings. Make my small sphere of existence a better place.
Why did Mike decide to hire you?
After shocking Mike with a typewritten résumé and substantiating my