Memorial Day: Moving, Memorable, and Motivating.

What a rip-roaring blast this weekend has been! Mostly great beach weather and folks eager to enjoy the sun after the brutal winter here in the mid-Atlantic states.

The restaurant was stuffed to bursting from Friday through today with parties of two to parties of 20 or more. On average we served 1300 meals daily (lunch & dinner) with an all time record made on Saturday.  Lunch = 500+ Dinner = 1100+. That's right almost 1700 diners passed through the doors and tonight I am totally exhausted, but in a good way.

Everything went remarkably smoothly until last night when the "restaurant management" computer system experienced a nervous breakdown and sent everyone reeling for over two hours. Still, they pulled through.

A few items of note this holiday weekend from the "nation's summer Capitol":

More large family groups dining together than in past years.
Veterans from WW2, Korea, Viet Nam, Kuwait, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq were in town in full uniform and honoured with a special program dedicated to their service and sacrifices. (I got to shake hands with a few and thanked them for their service. Very moving experience.)
Many gay and lesbian couples holding hands openly on the streets. (They always did in the restaurant, so to us this was nothing new.)  A bold statement to the other visitors, to be sure.  No one seemed to care.
Many DC government workers sporting tattoos and multiple piercings.  This would have been a scandal a few years ago.
The obnoxious parking meters were operating properly, as opposed to last year when they bilked many out of their money registering no time and coughing up parking tickets by the dozens.
More people of colour are visiting the town. Now that's a nice change.

On a personal note I noticed that my quiet street has no sidewalks, so everyone walks in the street and still feels perfectly safe.  Now that's saying something! Click on the image above to embiggen.

Suppertime, and the livin' is easy.  No, wait! Never mind. I smell olives. I am one tired stump-jumper!

Cheers!

And so it goes.