The Week Between
If you know.... You know.
There’s a week every year that doesn’t behave like the rest of the calendar.
It sits between Christmas and New Year’s Day, untethered from routine, operating on adrenaline, muscle memory, and something close to collective insanity. The days blur. The nights stretch. You stop knowing what date it is, only how many covers are left and whether the freezer is holding temp and if there will be heat in the kitchen tomorrow.
For restaurants, this week isn’t a wind-down. It’s a full sprint.
While most of the world exhales, kitchens inhale—hard. Office parties turn into family dinners. “One last meal of the year” becomes a thing people say out loud. Reservations stack. Bottles gets popped faster than it can be chilled. The pass is on fire.
You run services on vibes and instincts. Prep lists get rewritten mid-shift. Someone always calls out sick. Someone else always steps up. You make it work because that’s what this job demands: adaptability under pressure, grace in chaos, hospitality when your feet hurt and your voice is shot.
It’s loud. It’s messy. It’s exhausting.
And it’s kind of beautiful.
The Privilege of Being Chosen
In the middle of that madness—between wiping down stations and firing the next course—you catch moments that stop you.
A couple celebrating a hard-won year.
Parents introducing their kids to a place that matters to them.
Regulars who don’t need menus.
A server nailing a table that came in hot.
A cook executing something perfectly on hour ten of their shift.
These moments are easy to miss if you’re only focused on survival.
But they’re the reason we’re here.
People choose to spend their most meaningful nights with us. Their holidays. Their milestones. Their last dinner of the year. That choice is not accidental, and it’s not guaranteed. It’s earned—night after night, plate after plate, interaction after interaction.
That’s worth being thankful for.
Gratitude, the Real Kind
Gratitude in restaurants isn’t abstract. It’s specific.
It’s for the cooks who show up early and stay late without being asked.
For the servers who carry more than plates.
For the dishwashers who quietly save the night.
For managers who hold the line when things wobble.
For partners and families who accept that this season takes us away from home.
It’s for guests who honor their reservations.
For farmers and vendors who hustle just as hard behind the scenes.
For colleagues who remind you that you’re not alone in this.
And, if we’re being honest, it’s for the fact that we get to do this at all—still standing, still creating, still feeding people in a world that’s made it increasingly hard to do so.
That perspective only comes after living through weeks like this one.
What the New Year Brings
January doesn’t arrive with fireworks in kitchens. It arrives quietly.
A slower pace.
A chance to clean, reset, rethink.
Conversations that were postponed because there wasn’t time.
Ideas that were scribbled on scraps of paper and stuffed into pockets.
The new year isn’t about reinvention for us—it’s about refinement.
Doing the work better.
Taking care of people more intentionally.
Protecting what matters while still pushing forward creatively.
Building businesses that are sustainable, humane, and still a little bit dangerous in the best way.
There’s optimism in that. Not the loud, hashtag kind—but the earned kind.
Stepping Forward
If you made it through this week—if you cooked, served, hosted, cleaned, managed, supported—take a breath.
You did something hard for other people. You made space for joy during a season that asks a lot of everyone.
That matters.
Here’s to the teams, the guests, the chaos, the quiet moments, and the work ahead.
Happy New Year.
Let’s keep going.