One of my pet peeves when eating out is flimsy flatware. You the know the kind I mean, forks that you can bend, spoons that look already bent. I have always wondered why restaurants that put so much effort into everything else often overlook this detail. Now I know.

The flatware available at restaurant supply is either inexpensive and decidedly low budget looking, or horribly expensive, but sturdy. The problem with spending money on the “good” stuff is that it is an additional expense that a small operation just can’t afford. $4 for a fork?

After racking my brain for a solution to this problem the answer occurred to me while eating dinner at home. The line of flatware I use at home was not terribly expensive, and certainly much sturdier than what I had looked at for restaurant supply. After doing a little investigative work with the company, Gourmet Settings, I found a line that they sell in open-stock and even better in a matte finish (no fingerprints). The setting is called Carry On and won a red dot design award and an American Culinary award. The weight in the hand is perfect, and we didn’t have to kill our budget to get something a little nicer.

Click here to check it out.

You may or may not know that the 2005 vintage in Bordeaux has been hailed as possibly the best in 50 years, and as such the prices and exuberance over these wines are at an all time high.

In 2005 Kyle and I were fledgling wine retailers with barely enough know-how to speculate on Bordeaux. What we did know was that in order to be a credible player in the market we needed to have a decent selection of 2005 Bordeaux in inventory. So when I sat down with the futures catalogs I devised a strategy for purchasing; only smaller, lesser known estates with more reasonable pricing, and really good Parker ratings. Robert Parker gets a lot of criticism for preferring wines that are less classically French, but on the subject of Bordeaux I think his palate is dead on.
I picked out my wines, ponied up my 15% up front and basically hoped for the best. Two years later when the Bordeaux started rolling in I took a look at my order sheet and almost fell off my chair in shock. If the paper was correct I signed us up for 6 cases of Chateau Troplong Mondot with a retail price of $250 a bottle. What was I thinking?
I kicked myself for several weeks for committing kybecca to such a large investment without really knowing how we were going to sell this wine. After my panic subsided I decided this was the right time to market the website and hopefully collectors would notice our offering (after all the initial rating from Parker was 96-100 points). I took a deep breath and wrote the check for all six cases.
In April of 2008 Parker did his final tasting of this wine and gave it 99 points. Further kybecca has the entire allocation for this wine for the state of Virginia, which I only found out recently. Before I give any credit to myself let me just say that this is pure luck and every once and awhile it feels good to have something go your way.
The upshot is that our little wine shop has (as of this posting) about 40 bottles of the 2005 Chateau Troplong Mondot. (click to read the new rating)

New price: $399

We are all completely in love with our new awning. We may be a little biased so come by and check it out for yourselves.
As a business owner it was a really exhilarating moment for me. A bit of a mixture of excitement and terror. As in “now I really have to do this!”.
All kidding aside, we are really looking forward to opening and are hard at work on all the details to make that happen.
Cheers!