Welcome, bienvenidos to Cook and the Fly
In this blog you'll find Mexiterranean food pictures and recipes, fishing stories, random thoughts and snippets of my new life in Southern Baja.

12.08.2011

How did I get here?

I was living in Victoria,BC for a few years when two things ahappened: I was growing stale and needed an adventure AND my boss/friend wanted to open a second location of his restaurant with me.
So I decided to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone and loaded up the old Jeep and drove down Highway 1 to Cabo...fishing my way South.
Why Cabo, you might ask...
I needed money, fast, and so I decided to jump into timeshare sales (I take the opportunity to apologize to all the good people whose money I took ... ) . Everything was going great , till the bubble burst and got stuck with a lot of bills and no real income.
A fortunate chain of events brought me to open my first restaurant: Cocina L'Oliva

All we had was a second hand metal rack,a really old 4 burners Wolf range and plastic table and chairs...but the food was good and the prices were CHEAP and very soon the good reviews started tocome in and bam! we were busy as hell!
At the end of the lease we are faced with the decision: put our moneyhere, fix up the place and deal with a first grade A-hole lanlady or move somewhere else and start anew  The answer presented itself when a couple of customers/friends put some money on the table and offered to go at it together..mistake! RULE #1: don't go in business with friends.
We regrettably did......





We moved and opened OPUS Ristorante with raving reviews and support; wonderful, right? NO! The friends realized hey actually had to work and got scared and let me and Lupita (my fiancee) alone, with no physical and financial help.RULE #2: Careful what you wish for.
Opus was successful and busy, considering the crappy tourist season we had, and Lupita,the part time help and I were working ourselves to death untill the season ended ,the money shrunk and the lease was up.
That's when we sat down and took the decision to close and capitalize on the experiences we made in these past few year in the restauant business in Baja.
RULE #3:adapt,overcome and survive. Never been so true; I am workinng on a couple new projects as we're speaking and wichever gets the green light first I'll go with.
Soooo, here's the "How I got here" part...
From now on , only new stuff and daily,or so, posts on my life here...from cooking,fishing,business, adventures and...didsadventures plus the random thoughts.
Hope I did not bored you .
Emilio

4 comments:

  1. Great stuff, you shuld be a writer
    Roberto Gottardello

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  2. I was in that jeep,, fishing rod and all!!
    And no document!!
    Awesome, I want to do it again!
    Roberto

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  3. An honest character who remembers the details and his take on the stuff of life is never a bore. Only characters who hide from their one story are bores. What was your best moment in the restaurant?

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  4. Best moment was a week after I closed it, when the "hot" chef in town called me to RSVP for a dinner with his wine making and tv chef friends.
    That's when you realized that you did not bust your arse for nothing.... ; )

    ReplyDelete