Well, we certainly didn’t have THAT problem Wednesday night! Shell lost count somewhere around 320 people, and, despite the fact that we gave away a fair amount of food and wine (along with beer), a good group came into the shop for dining and beverages.

Speaking of beer, Budweiser brought seven cases of their craft brew stuff, and it was gone in an hour. Seven cases. Joel pulled all of our Bud products off the shelf and put it in the coolers downstairs to give away, and all of that beer went, too. Not only were there a lot of people here, there were a lot of thirsty people! We had four wine vendors pouring different wines, and they went through all their stock in less than two hours.

Special thanks to our girl, Kristin, from Choice, who has been with us since we opened; Jeremy, from Country Vintner, whose company was one of our original vendors; John, from TWI – which is now Carolina Craft (or something like that), who has also been with us for a while; and the guy who filled in for Liza, who, unfortunately, became violently ill the day of the event and thus could not make it – but she has also been with us for a long time. All great vendors, who get what we are trying to do here, and work with us to make sure we are getting the wines we need.

Also, thanks to Java Estate, who donated some coffee for the public (though we didn’t go through much coffee…); Island Cakery for serving up their mini treats – they supply our cheesecakes and muffins on a regular basis; The Elected Officials, who have really become a fun rock and roll band, and we like to think of them as the house band; Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wilcox for cutting the ribbon; the Chamber, for a nice crowd and perfect weather; R.A. Jeffreys for the beer; and, more importantly, to all of our regular customers who showed up to celebrate with us, and without whom we would not be in business!

The people upstairs did their share as well. In fact, one of our customers said they were drinking wine like it was their job! I love that. And, if it was their job, I would hire them. They know how to drink wine. I’m just sayin.’ Four bottles of Michael David’s Petite Petit later, they were opening something else. Not just a job, an adventure!

Anyway, I was so busy getting ready for the event; I never did put out an email last week (for those of you who might have actually missed it). We did smoked port tenderloins, salmon tar tar, mango gazpacho shots, and smoked tomato bruschetta with goat cheese. Inside we did a ravioli with crab special, along with our now famous Cajun blackened salmon and lemon dill cream sauce. Just a little something we threw together.

Back to semi-normal on Thursday, although I woke up wondering what the hell I was going to do about a wine tasting, with no vendors scheduled and unsure of my inventory after Wednesday. I managed to pull it off, though, thanks in large part to a smaller than usual wine tasting crowd. Our dinner crowd, however, made up for it, which transitioned us nicely into the weekend.

Friday, Jeremy returns to serenade us with his acoustic sounds, and Saturday, a new guy, Mickey Miller, will perform for the Treehouse crowd. Sunday, we will roll out a football special of some kind, along with dollar off beer specials. Yesterday I did a white bean chili with some of the leftover smoked pork tenderloin. I don’t want to say it was delicious, but three people said we should add it to the menu. OK, I DO want to say it was delicious, because, well, it was delicious!

Joel, our general maintenance man, installed a larger TV, so fans can actually see the action from across the room. We are not a sports bar, and we won’t have 37 different games on, but we WILL have good food, wine, and the aforementioned beer specials.