Dear Feastlings,
When I was sixteen years old, I worked at a pizzeria, upstairs in what’s now called Main Gate Square. This was long before the likes of Starbucks, Panera or Jimmy John’s came to homogenize the landscape, and once graduation was overwith, Tucson’s population would dry up and blow down empty streets like a tumbleweed. Summer was desolate. At Lorenzo’s, apart from a week when the Future Farmers of America would fill up the campus, walking around in dark blue corduroy jackets in the sweltering heat, there was precious little pizza to be made. We spent most of the summer drumming our fingers on the counter and playing practical jokes.
As a sixteen-year-old, I’d made $2.00 an hour plus tips and delivery charges, which meant I’d made maybe fifteen or twenty dollars on a summer evening, and it would be an evening unpolluted by work, sitting on the picnic bench in front of the restaurant with the music turned up loud enough for us to hear outside, but soft enough to hear the phone if it rang.
I’d be mortified if an employee of mine today behaved the way we behaved those summer nights, but an absentee owner who hands the reins to a twenty-year-old cashier, a sixteen-year-old delivery driver and a 24-going-on-15 pizza cook has made a severe error in judgement, and reaped what he or she has sown.
Now the summer in Tucson is different- more people are here year round, but we still run away every chance we get, so while it’s busier than it was when I was delivering pizza in the early ’80’s, it’s less predictable. Last week there were nights where we served fewer than 40 people, which for one week is a welcome change from busy season, but after two weeks, it starts me laying awake at night trying to figure out whether I’ve set aside enough money during season to get us through the summer. Then there’ll suddenly be a busy night- Saturday I ended up expediting orders in the kitchen for a couple of hours because after two quiet weeks, we’d already lost our rhythm and weren’t ready for a crowd. Still, I’ll take that busy Saturday and I’ll be grateful for it. I’ll even sleep well afterward.
So summer in Tucson is no longer desolation; it’s more fits and starts. But that means it’s time to start filling in the blank spots to the best of our ability. One way to do that is to keep changing up the menu and bringing back the dishes we know will create some impetus for a visit, and today we begin offering one of those on the new June menu: stuffed squash blossoms. There are a handful of other dishes as well that you haven’t seen before, and you can discover them here:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
We’ll also keep at the wine tastings, one of which you’re invited to attend this Saturday at 2:00 pm, and you can see what that’s all about here:
and there’ll be more. We’ll open the doors for brunch on Sunday the 15th to celebrate Father’s Day, though we had such limited attendance in the evening the past couple of Father’s Days that we’ve opted to let the dads fire up the traditional Father’s Day grill and cook their own dinner. We’ll be posting the menu of Father’s Day specials later this week, and shortly behind it, the menu for Las Hogueras de San Juan, the Spanish celebration of the summer solstice on which we’ll be making Spanish specials and waiving corkage on Spanish wines from open to close on Tuesday, June 24th.
In the meantime, we’d love for you to come in and keep us on our toes so we’re ready for that next curiously busy day that we weren’t expecting.
Thanks, everyone.
Love,
Doug