Life Has Changes

After a my laptop and best computer died in June I was stuck with my desktop- an old Pentium 90 that had been rebuilt 4 times. It was ssssllooooooowww! And frustrating. And made doing anything nearly impossible. For less than 24 hours, I now have a state of the art laptop that is a joy to use. So a new look on the blog and a (hopefully) a new commitment to keep to post. Life often gets in the way of blogging, but at least now it won't be a chore to do so.

Last night we had a wine tasting dinner- A Taste of Italy. it was well attended for this time of year and was our best Friday night dinner in the last month. The fires in the state- especially the one more than 45 miles away from us, but that the national media kept saying was near Silver City- has kept tourists away from our town. 50% of our business comes from tourism so we, like every other restaurant in town, have been off for our summer figures. Its been picking back up but hasn't gotten back to normal levels. The problems of living in a small town- population 11,000- includes the fact that the locals leave during the hotter months, though we are cooler and greener than Tucson, El Paso, Phoenix and other southwestern cities in our area that we draw a large percentage of our out-of-town guests from. So if tourism is down because of perceived smoke in the air and the locals are on vacation business slows.

Then there is the Presidential Election. Every 4 years in the summer retail/restaurant business slows down and doesn't recover again until a few weeks after the election- around Thanksgiving. Studies show that people slow spending due to the "uncertainty's" as to who will be the next president. This cycle has, unfortunately, never failed to materialize. In a small town one feels it stronger.

We will survive this as we survived 9/11 being our fourth day open, the lack of spending as we entered each of the wars, the loss folks felt after the Enron/World Comm debacle and every other circumstance of economic downturn thrown in our path. But it will be nice when the recession/depression ends and people start spending again after the election.

On a more fun note, we are adding Rauchbier to our menu- a traditional Bavarian style that almost was lost. the hops are smoked over beech wood, which gives the lager an almost smoked meat taste that goes well with sausage and barbecue- both of which will be on our August/September menu.

Be well and dine well.