People who work in the restaurant industry don’t usually get to experience the excitement that comes from the whole “T.G.I. FRIDAY!!!” thing… in fact, waking up to my radio announcing “IT’SSSSSSSSS FRRRRIIIDDDDAAAAAYYYYYY” feels just like a kick in the shin to me, (many thanks CJFX). While to sane people (and by sane, I mean those of you who know better than to work in a restaurant) the weekend is synonymous with the outdoors, parties, drinking, relaxing, watching movies, and freedom… but to those at the Justamere, it usually means long, busy days! It’s sort of a backwards idea, Monday can’t come soon enough! Then again, you have to be pretty backwards to take on the stress of cooking or serving food.

Now that being said, I imagine you’re all curious as to what someone like myself might do on a Saturday night while you’re out running free and wild…? Well, I’m glad you asked! And your question comes at the perfect time, because this last Saturday is an exceptional example of the constant trill seeker I am. It doesn’t matter to me that I work on Sunday morning.. I don’t give a care! I stayed up late anyway, having more fun than you can even imagine, doing things that would blow your mind, things that would make you ask “Hey Jillian, where can I sign up for your life??” Don’t get a head of yourselves though…

I’ll set the scene first… It was late Saturday evening, around 9:30pm, the time when things really start happening on a weekend night. I had just gotten up from a solid 4 hours of resting and chip eating (yes, of course they were Sweet Chilli Heat Doritos), so I was rarin’ to go. I had been anticipating this evening all afternoon! While I’m sure folks around town were shooting back glasses, Eileen and I started emptying glasses of our own, more than we could even keep track of. Right around the time the Pub was starting to turn up the dance floor music, we were cranking ours as well. Things were getting crazy! At one point there was even knives involved…. and enough pot(s) to keep us going for over 2 hours…

These next few photos are quite graphic, but I promised when I started this blog to give you a behind the scenes look at the Justamere and their staff. As promised, I will deliver!

 

That’s right folks… Eileen, Mark, and I spent our Saturday night in the kitchen of the Justamere, music blaring, washing a days worth of dishes! Now it’s not normally like this, we have super efficient waitstaff that who keep up with dishes all day long, but June 8th was no normal Saturday, like I’ve said. The Town cut our water off that day due to a crack in the pipes on Church Street, so in the middle of our lunch rush and while preparing for two banquets, we lost our water! Dishes and prep hit a standstill and everything had to be left until the water was turned back on!

We left the restaurant at 4pm, knowing that we would only have to come back later that night to clean up this mess. After some intensive laziness, we arrived back at 9:30pm, decked out in rubber boots and aprons, sleeves rolled up, tired but determined to clean the restaurant back up!

Three glass racks, two mug racks, silverware, plates, pots, pans, and almost 3 hours later we were finished. There were no drinks, no bon fires, or beach parties, just 3 people, not even talking, just washing dishes together. While it wasn’t the most exciting weekend, not by a mile, it also wasn’t anything terrible. There was work to be done, so we did it, and we did it together… Because that’s what the cool kids do, you know? They stay up until almost mid-night washing crusty dishes and they work on the weekends, because they’ve been lucky enough to find something that they truly love…

I’m so happy I get to spend my weekends with the cool kids.