Always Sit At The Bar

Last night Sara and I had dinner at Lewis and Main in Monroe, WA.  It is the nicest restaurant in Monroe, Washington and if you live there or are driving through I highly recommend it.

For reasons that make no sense looking back, I didn't set up a reservation.  Every table was packed and so the hostess offered us a spot at the bar.  We went in hoping for a quiet table, but we left with a whole new perspective on dining out.

Mise En Place is 5S

If you didn't know, over the last couple of weeks I have been going down a Mise En Place rabbit hole.  Mise En Place is how culinary artists work their magic to produce food and drinks at a consistent high level of quality, again and again at high speeds.  

For most of my life, if I was visiting a restaurant to eat I would get a table, if I was going to a bar to have a drink I would go to a bar.  It may sound stupid but I have never combined the two.  Last night I learned that sitting at the bar is where all of the action is and for a practitioner of the Ops Management craft, it's visual candy.

Watching Lewis and Main from this vantage at maximum capacity was like getting backstage tickets to a concert. For no extra charge, we got to see how the work is done and the art is made.  As an operations geek, this takes things to a whole new level for me.  Mise En Place is to chefs as 5S is to manufacturing people.  It's the discipline of keeping the gremlins and chaos at bay... something I deeply appreciate.  

I have never considered myself a foodie, but I think I just took the plunge.