Big Announcement!

For the past few years, Matt and I have brainstormed several ideas for what we want to do in this area. We both have typical jobs, but from time to time we've batted around the idea of going into business for ourselves. This has included everything from opening a coffee shop, to buying and running a specialty beer store, to doing something online.

Well, after lots of yellow legal pads, some meetings with the local Small Business Development Center, hair-pulling, and scoping some locations, we have a plan. Some of this was borne out of the idea that niche businesses seem to do well in the downtown areas of cities. My market research isn't perfect, but I have a hunch this could work.

So here it goes.

Sometime in the next year or so, we hope to open a restaurant that will engage the diner in something that goes beyond the simple eating experience.

This restaurant will be called: Can Julia Cook?(tm).
It's a kind of nutso thing, for sure, but I do have some basic cooking skills. We figured people like a good car wreck, so what we'd do was set up the kitchen in a format that was open to the diner. They would pick what meal they wanted me to try and watch the fun begin while I tried to figure out what blanching means. The menu would change every week to keep it fun.

Now, you're wondering how we're going to set up tables so that everyone would have a good view. That's where the location comes in. It's a huge risk, but we're going to buy the old Winter Garden theatre in downtown Jamestown. This is a historic old structure that has been in the news recently. With the stage already in place, we have worked a way to put the kitchen up there along with those crazy overhead mirrors you see on cooking programs. I will be mic-ed the whole time, so I'll have to watch my language.

The financing is almost all in place. We met with a bank last week to firm up some stuff. I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop as things progress!