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Finally Open!

We are finally open!  And, we are excited to say that things are going pretty well.  Of course, we have had a few bumps, a few rocky nights, but overall we are doing well for the first couple of weeks. 

I have to admit I was surprised to find how many of our guests have read this little blog.  Thank you.  And thank you for your patience as we are just getting going.  I had forgotten how unforgiving this business can be, how difficult to please, how tiring, and I have a newborn baby on top of it all.  We are working extremely hard to make sure that we are constantly improving. 

For instance, we will be introducing a whole new happy hour menu and concept later this week.  We’ve also hired a new baker, formerly the owner of the Bavarian Bakery in Selah, we are delighted to have in on staff, and hope that you all find his breads as good as we do.  We are also hoping to run our first week of specials starting this weekend. 

Clearly, we are listening to the feedback from our guests, and working to make their next experience even better than the last.  One of the best ways to provide us with that feedback is to visit OpenTable and leave a review.  I read over these reviews often, and I just want to say thank you to those of you who believe in us.  Thank you for your support and we hope to earn your continued patronage by constantly improving.

OPENING DELAYED ONE WEEK!!!

Due to complications between the two phone companies and arguments over who runs the phone lines, provides the dial tone, etc, we will be opening one week later on JUNE 29th instead of the planned June 22nd.  Without a dial tone for the phones, we cannot get a certificate of occupancy and therefore cannot do business.  Hopefully this is the very last fun, little construction delay.  With all the crisis and near disasters that we have overcome, I have to say I never imagined that getting a working phone would cause so much stress. 

Last week we conducted the majority of our interviewing and hiring.  It was so encouraging to find so many people that are as excited about working with us on this project as we are.  Such a huge compliment.  Thank you.  We have hired people for all the positions that we were looking to fill in the front and back of the house, and are no longer doing first interviews.  We believe we have truly pulled together one of the most dynamic staffs that any of us managers have ever worked with, and we are so excited to serve you.

Also, Jeff and I are excited to announce the arrival of our third baby, Henry David Euteneier who was born on June 8th at 2 am.  We have felt that we were expecting two “babies” in June for a long time, and made bets about which would arrive first.  We are overjoyed to have Henry here, but he has spent the last week in the NICU.  We are anxiously awaiting being able to finally take him home. 

As the reason for the delay is the phone lines, we still do not have a working number for you to call and make reservations.  Please know that no one is getting to make reservations yet because of this little problem, so you are not missing out.  We should have a phone on either Friday of this week or Monday of next week.  When we have a working phone, we will be very happy to give you the number, so that you can make reservations.

Thank you!

News about Interviewing and Hiring

We begin holding interviews on Monday, June 8th.  We will hold these initial interviews from 9 am -11 am, Monday thru Wednesday.  Applications are available at www.sageyakima.com, or we will have lots at the restaurant.

We have placed ads on Craigslist, and one will appear in the Yakima Herald from Sunday-Tuesday.  We have already received a great response from jobseekers, and have several excellent resumes and applications.  If you have already contacted us with your resume, we will contact you if we are interested in interviewing you.  Thank you so much for all of your interest.  It truly is flattering.  We look forward to working with many of you soon!

Exciting news about our Opening!

Woohoo!  We are finally getting very close to opening!  After quite the long haul to get here, it is more than surreal and extremely exciting.  We can’t wait for you all to see the inside, and we hope you find it well worth the wait.  There are still many details that need to come together, but with a lot of work and a little luck, we will open on time.  This means we are opening June 22nd!

Our hours will be:

Mon-Thurs 11 am- 9pm (lunch and dinner)

Friday 11 am -11 pm (lunch and dinner)

Saturday 10 am – 11 pm (brunch through dinner)

Sunday CLOSED

We have a couple of special events coming up, and those of you who have been watching our blog are the first to hear about them! 

June 20th–Pre-opening dinner, reservation only.  You can start making reservations next week after we have a real phone number (amazingly, getting a phone number has been a bit of a headache).  I will post the phone number here first!  Also, you will be able to make reservations online starting on the 17th!

June 26-27–Grand Opening–I would recommend making reservations to be a part of the excitement!

July 9th–Winemaker’s Dinner with Wineglass Cellars.  We are so excited to welcome Wineglass Cellars, www.wineglasscellars.com, to our restaurant to join us for a special night of wine and great food.  Details concerning the wines and the food paired with them will be available soon.  This will be a limited seated event (50), so I would recommend buying your tickets as soon as they are available.  Wineglass Cellars is a great local winery making several excellent wines like their Les Vignes de Marcoux Syrah which earned high points and reviews from both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast.  It will be a great night of both awesome food and wine!

The best way to stay connected and know what we are doing, as well as receive exclusive recipes and early invitations is to join our enewsletter group.  This option will be available when the real restaurant website launches next week at www.sageyakima.com.  This will be where we tell you first about tickets for Wine dinners like this one with Wineglass Cellars.

We will also be having a Winemaker’s Dinner with Thurston Wolfe winery in late July or early August.  News about this event will be on the website and in the enewsletter.

After we open, you can visit this blog (or connect to this blog from our website) to view our Chef’s Menu which will change more or less weekly and feature specials made from fresh, local cuisines. 

We are so excited to get in and get going.  We can’t wait to have you all over to our place to eat, drink and enjoy!

Job Link

Here is a link to our website that has the application available for download. 

http://www.sageyakima.com/jobs.html

Clicking on this link will allow you to download the job application.  Please Print, Fill Out, and Mail to 111 N 54th Ave, Yakima, WA 98908.

We’ve had a few delays this week, and have had to delay the opening of the restaurant by a couple of weeks.  We will now interview through June 12th, and begin training June 15th.  Hopefully the rest or construction goes smoothly and we can stick with this timeline.

Email me at michelle@sageyakima.com with any questions.  If you have questions about a cook/kitchen position, email jeff@sageyakima.com

Not a Computer Genius

Oops.

So I sincerely thought I had managed to attach the job application, but I don’t think it works.  I will have my very smart web gals fix this asap, but until then, email me at michelle@sageyakima.com and I will email you back with the attached form. 

Sorry for the confusion.  The rest of the information still is accurate.

Michelle

Interested in a Job?

We are getting closer and closer to opening the restaurant.  And that means we are starting to look for quality employees.  I am posting our job application.  If you want to apply, you need to PRINT it out (cannot be done online) fill it out, and mail it to: 111 N 54th Ave, Yakima, WA 98908.  This is the billing address for the restaurant, as I don’t believe that the restaurant has a mailbox yet.  We are looking for qualified, knowledgeable, enthusiastic employees that are interested in local food and wine.  We are hiring for all positions-front and back of the house, although we have already filled the positions for the front of the house managers.  Please include a resume with the application, if you have one. 

We will be doing all interviews starting May 25th through May 29th, and not until then.  Training will start June 1st.  At least we hope.  (Some things are still pending such as the lights–hopefully they will arrive and install without a problem because we don’t have extra time for problems.  And, I have spent the week wrangling with the Liquor license office, which was solved by getting a very nice clerk in the Secretary of State’s Corporation Division to officially color on a form to make the lady at the Liquor Control board happy)  But, things are looking like they will be finished and ready.  We will be posting the jobs on Craig’s List and in the paper in about a week, but we do give extra points for early and enthusiastic interest.

We have also just finished the preliminary menus–being focused on local, seasonal ingredients and tending to change our minds, we will most likely be changing these menus again tomorrow.  We will also be running a Chef’s Menu that will include limited seasonal goodies, or whatever amazing thing we happen to get our hands on, in an attempt to keep the regular menu a little more same.  This is our chance (okay, really Jeff’s chance) to finally cook what we want, whatever we want.  We only call it Pacific Northwest Cuisine because it sounds a little more professional than Jeff food.  But for today, the menus are together and we will be posting them on our new restaurant website later this month.  I will post a “taster” later this week to give you an idea of what we will be serving.

If you have any problems downloading the job application or questions, email me at michelle@sageyakima.com, and I will try and help you out.  Thank you for being interested enough to read our blog.     

Job Application

Counting Down

June.

I can’t count the number of times we have said this word in the last few months.  I am excited and encouraged by the enthusiasm and interest people have for our project.  And so, we have nearly worn out this little word because we are opening in June!

It is thrilling, nearly overwhelmingly surreal, and stressful as we edge closer and closer to opening time.  There are still a lot of details to work out and pull together.

For those of you interested in working for us, please email your resume to michelle@sageyakima.com.  We will be going through these resumes, making calls and holding interviews in the middle to end of May.  We will also (hopefully) have an application available online in May that can be emailed or mailed to us.  More information will follow about those specifics when the application is available. 

Here is our preliminary opening schedule:  The first weekend in June we will be holding special pre-opening events.  Details about these events will be available soon.  The next week we will open for business with a Grand Opening the second weekend of June, which will be reservation only.  You can begin making reservations at the beginning of May.  This is a preliminary schedule and could change if there are any delays with construction. 

We’ve heard a number of rumors about the restaurant, and want to set a few things straight.  Sage is not a fine dining restaurant.  It is upscale casual, which means that the food is nice, but the pricing and atmosphere are casual.  Sage is not a French restaurant.  We will be serving Pacific Northwest Cuisine, which means fish, steak, chicken, some pasta–basically good food made from local ingredients.  We have formed some very exciting relationships with local sustainable growers and foragers which will allow us to offer the best of local ingredients that this area has to offer.  Our wine list will feature NW area wines from Washington and Oregon.  We will be offering wine flights that allow you to experiment and experience a broader variety of our area’s excellent wines.  We will also be featuring local area microbrews and excellent cocktails.  There will a brunch served on Saturday mornings.  And then there is dessert, my personal favorite, with dangerously tempting items such as “Grandma Boone’s Naughty Cake” which is a devilish interpretation of an old family favorite.   

The restaurant portion of our website will launch in late May.  You will be able to make reservations online starting at the beginning of June, but we will take reservations starting in May by telephone. 

We are so thrilled that you all are excited about us, and can’t wait to see you in June!

Patience

We are still alive.  We are still working towards our goal of opening an awesome restaurant.  But, being awesome, requires amazing amounts of patience and hard work.  We are not going to open this fall, or winter, or next spring.  Maybe by next summer. 

Whenever we do open, you will know.  And we will open; there are no questions about that.  It is merely a question of when, and we don’t have a definitive answer.  Building takes a long time, at least it does this time.  So we are working on our patience, and we hope that you will still be hungry for us when they finally get us a restaurant where we can cook for you!