Mountain Charley's — One day closer!

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Mountain Charley’s — One day closer!

A couple of years ago, Joe Farwell acquired ownership of Mountain Charley’s Saloon, which his father. Jim, had owned and built in 1972.  Mountain Charley’s (now known as simply “Charleys”) changed owership over the years and went through some pretty rough times.  When Joe brought the business back into the family, all of us old Mountain Charely’s regulars felt a great deal of hope that Joe could return the old “Belle of Los Gatos” back to its former glory.  

Just a few days before the reopening, I stuck my head into the Saloon to check on the progress of Joe’s extensive renovations.  I got no further than the swinging Saloon doors as the last-minute, fervent occupations didn’t need me getting in their way. 

Here are my observations on that day:
by edhawk on March 20, 2012

Having just left Mountain Charley’s, I have to report that I never actually stepped into the Saloon. I just looked in from the foyer. I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. The Saloon must have had 20 or 30 craftsmen working all at once on everything in a sort of controlled panic, at least it looked that way from my vantage. Everyone was intent on their particular task and nearly everyone was mute and calm. Dust was flying up from this guy’s drill or that guy’s reciprocating saw. On the floor, booths were being installed and overhead on very tall ladders, electricians were installing light fixtures while in the middle, sound specialists were testing coaxial cable for the amplifiers. Detail work on the floor itself was being finished off by several other different crews.

Behind the bar, there were several guys checking the water connections in the sinks under the bar. Still behind the bar, facing the opposite direction, a crew was affixing the cleats to the back bar which will hold up the glass shelves that are supposed to be carrying a whole bunch of liquor bottles and all sorts of drink glasses in just 48 hours. Dig it, all this activity, and more, was occurring simultaneously, almost in silence. It is kind of uncanny. This was like some sort of three-dimensional, syncopated ballet that had no choreographer, and didn’t need one. These guys all knew this ballet by heart. They’ve all done it many dozens of times in the past. These guys are pros.

Just like the toddlers that learn the Irish jig when their ages are still counted in the single digits, or the same with ballerinas, or great baseball players who make it to the pros’, the ballet I learned so early on was on the fancy restaurant floor. It is the dance between the busboys and waiters, the waiters floating huge, overloaded trays of streaming food between heavy bus tubs gliding down low, in and out through the same heavy, swinging doors through which everything in the restaurant simultaneously passes. It all erupting from the volcano called the “line.” This line where the sauciers and grillmen are on the one side of that counter, “the line,” where just prepared food is so excellently cleaned, cut and chopped then mixed and fired just perfectly and sets for a just second or two, waiting to be excellently presented from the other side of the line by the professional wait person to the hungry, anticipating customer.

There is an old joke in the restaurant business, probably there is a similar joke in every professional business. This joke is about the restaurant patron who tells his waiter that he has eaten in restaurants for a hundred years or so, thus, he must know all about the restaurant business. The patron only knows what happens on his side of the heavy swinging doors. Unless you walk through the volcano, doing the ballet in that narrow aisle in front of the line, dodging busboys, dishwashers, sweating cooks while carrying that huge tray of hot food on sliding dishes, and do this 200 time a night, you don’t know one thing about the restaurant business. You have to know how to handle, in a very gracious manner, all of the lavas that the volcano spews. It takes years of exhausting practice to be really good at it, to be a pro . . .

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