Grilled Cheese Kitchen [antikvár]

€IIIJLILiP CHJie €IIILILiP CHI Nate and I first started to research, plan, and develop The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen in the winter of 2009. It was the height of the Great Recession, and the idea of two industry amateurs opening up an artisanai, gourmet grilled cheese restaurant was simply outrageous—to our friends, to our family, even to us. Thirty-five banks didn't believe in us. Industry professionals didn't believe in us. We even doubted ourselves. But grilled cheese—cheese toastie, toasted cheese, Welsh rarebit, croque monsieur . . . whatever you call it—is something you have to believe in. Something wonderful happens when you melt cheese between two pieces of buttered bread. The sight and the smell universally evoke smiles; it's magical. Everyone can relate to it, everyone can feel it, everyone can love it. Really, somehow, grilled cheese is a culinary miracle that has the power to elicit everything from nostalgic moments from childhood and the laid-back years of early adulthood to the savory satisfaction of being an adult who can eat grilled cheese anytime you want to. We believed, and continue to believe, in grilled cheese. It inspired us to create and grow a successful restaurant concept that served more than a million people in our community in less than four years. But most important, it brought Nate and me together. We met in an elevator in an office building in downtown San Francisco in 2007. I had been working at software companies for over a decade. Nate had been billing hours as an analyst for a strategy consulting firm for almost as long. We were not professional cooks. We were not restaurant managers. We were driven professionals. Yet we still had as much fun as possible. I spent my weekends participating in grilled cheese competitions— I have seven trophies from national contests, displayed proudly in our first restaurant—and riding my bicycle across California. Nate competed in chili cook-offs and played accordion professionally in a polka-party band Má^lCál. around town. We had an appetite for fun and adrenaline. This served us well as we built our relationship and, in the near future, our business. As fate would have it, we (us and a lot of the country!) were laid off from our office Jobs in December of 2008, after failed mortgage-backed securities took down the global economy. Afterward, we spent a good amount of time thinking about our next steps: scheming and brainstorming fun businesses that we could own and operate, together. One Saturday afternoon during that time, I brought home my fifth grilled cheese trophy from a regional competition. After a few drinks and a small celebration, Nate took out a pen and paper and we started planning what would become The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. We soon found we had complementary skills. I had natural cooking and kitchen instincts, good knowledge of food and cheese, and a unique scientific approach to testing and creating delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. Nate loved developing the restaurant concept and our brand, thinking through the entire customer experience, and handling all aspects of administrative business management, from finance to marketing and HR to technology. We divided and conquered. For a couple with no income, we spent heaps of our scarce cash on fine groceries and specialty foods so we could develop and test our recipes. We studied hundreds of cookbooks, took endless small-business planning classes, and exhausted every professional networking opportunity that might help us. We dined out when we had the chance, sneaking notepads under the tables to document what we liked/didn't like/were going to copy for our restaurant. We ate grilled cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and sometimes for dessert. We tested our baked treats, soups, salads, coffees, and beers with friends and at dinner parties. Everyone's opinion mattered to us; every qBILLED cheese kitchen