First Review for Donovan's Steak & Ale

We've been visited by two of our regional newspapers in the past few weeks and our first review appeared in the Watertown Daily Times this Sunday. Overall, very positive; 4.5 forks out of 5 is a good place to start. Everyone deserves a lot of credit for our success the first two months out of the gate. Donovan, Dana, Art, Marilyn and all the Reyome family have all put a crazy amount of time, effort, thought, and more into getting the place looking great and the waitstaff trained properly. It's great to be somewhere that everyone is on the same page and the owners are intimately involved in the daily operation of the restaurant and not simply absentee distractions. The servers, Laurie, Chelsea, Meagan, Paula, Erica, Natalie and Trevor have done a great job and exceeded my expectations in a short amount of time. Jeremy, with whom I worked at Maxfields, has been great; a terrific worker and good complement to my style and attitude. We've pretty much lost Chris to soccer and his senior year at high school unfortunately; but he's still a big help on Sunday nights. Trevor (the same one who is a server) is obviously good at multi-tasking and has come a really long way in just 2 months. Sean, another Maxfields transplant, is finally on board on the weekends and is a great addition to the kitchen. He managed to jump on the grill his first night (a Friday) and put out 100+ dinners with no problem. And, no restaurant could function for more than about an hour without a good dishwasher. John, our dishwasher keeps us loaded pretty well with plates and saute pans and does it without a complaint despite obviously being way too smart for such a repetitive boring and unpleasant job. We're planning on phasing him into cooking a little at a time to get him off dish a couple nights a week.

Anyway, things have gone really well so far thanks to the great team effort and good leadership. We're expecting another piece October 4 in the Plattsburgh Press Republican from their reviewer who dropped in for dinner and was so impressed that he decided to profile us. I'll try not to let it go to my head. We still have to get that last half a fork next time around. Thanks for the review Wally! This'll be a busy week. Time to work on the fall menu and try to figure out a Beer Dinner. I really want to have an opportunity to do some more upscale and intimidating stuff and a Beer Dinner seems a good venue for that.