GM: Dale Horstman
Players: Karen Twelves, Matthew Klein, and Sean Nittner
System: Dogs in the Vineyard (rethemed to Kitchen Nightmares)
It was Dales turn at running Dogs for us and he gave us a great restaurant to save: Raeburn’s! And because it was Dale, he even made a logo for the game (see the custom restaurant sheet below).
Raeburn’s had it’s heyday in the 70s and has been one long string of slow building catastrophes since then. It’s changed ownership half a dozen times, but one thing that always remains is the family line. Originally it was run by Chef Claude Corbet, but in 2004, in it’s third relaunch since 1995, chef Jean Paul Lefluer (Claude’s illegitimate son) took over and has been head chef ever since. Lefluer has been the center of multiple minor scandals but every new owner, including the current owner Chase Marsby agreed to keep him on, despite the restaurant’s anemic performance and Lefluer’s own affairs and scandals.
Enter the Dogs, who naively believe that restaurateur who committed to cooking good food and taking care of their customers can succeed!
Surprises at every turn
Lefluer was mostly what we expected him to be: arrogant, lazy, and self-assured that he could never be fired. The kitchen was in such a bad state that most of the equipment had been replaced by a bank of of microwaves and more the half the menu was simply heated and the served. Lefluer wasn’t incompetent though… more on him in a bit.
What caught us buy surprise however was the thriving take-out business running out of the back during lunch. After some digging around (and pressing!) we found that the line cook Tito Almodóvar and the waiter Carmen Wen were running a side business selling Peruvian out the back of the restaurant during the lunch run after Lefluer left (he usually just got there for the open and left Tito to do the rest!).
Tess also found that the “storage” location in the back was an old tiki bar that had turned into a storage room. It has so much character and flair the rest of the venue was missing!
How to make it all work out
After lots of back and forth, pushing on Chase, challenging Lefluer to a cook off (it turns out he can cook when he cares) and making everyone realize there were two businesses here, we finagled:
- Tito’s menu to be served for lunched in the “secret speakeasy” in the back.
- Carmen and Chase to be partners in the joint businesses.
- Lefluer, reinvigorated, to run the front house.
- Restaurant critic Pavarti Gupta (who hadn’t revived the place because of her romantic history with Chase) to come in and see that it was now actually pretty incredible.
Love letters, maps, and sheets, oh my!
