Monthly Archives: November 2012

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George Scopelitis set up a sign with bright orange letters reading “Holiday Menu” to greet pedestrians as they walked by Step Ins Restaurant and Lounge. The diner located in Parkchester in the Bronx offered its annual holiday specials for Thanksgiving on Thursday November 22, 2012. The full menu could be found in the dim lit restaurant provided to customers exclusively by Scopelitis.
The menu comprised of two poultry options including fried turkey, and duck seared and slow roasted with orange marmalade. Sides such as candied yams and gourmet stuffing accompanied the meat options to add balance to the menu.
Businesses such as Step Ins Restaurant are significantly affected by the holiday season seeing a short lived boost in clientele and then a sharp downward spiral. The holidays are typically the trickiest time of year for the Restaurant, but owners Christos and George Scopelitis know the steps it takes to pull through the tough times.
The Scopelitis brothers clearly understand that the economy and knowledge of their business plays a vital role in the customer flow. George Scopelitis said, “it is having a steady customer flow multiple days of the week that keeps the business afloat, not one day of mayhem and then six days of quiet.” Scopelitis further explained that the recession of 2007 and all struggles faced by the diner in the past have caused them to learn this lesson. The recession caused the restaurant to have to make a choice between raising prices while keeping food choices the same or keep price the same a lessen the food portions given to paying customers. They ultimately chose neither of the options and decided to keep prices and portion the same in order to maintain their client base. Initially the restaurant took a hit but managed to recover. This strategy worked keeping them alive during the recession and during their slow periods such as the holiday season.
Strategy can go a long way and in the case of Thanksgiving the Scopelitis brothers chose to serve a small selection in which they also limited the portion of food purchased specifically for the menu. Additionally, the general menu was adjusted from having a breakfast, lunch and dinner menu to having only two exclusive menus. The two exclusive menus were the breakfast and the holiday menus. The holiday menu was also fairly priced serving turkey and duck at $11 a plate including the sides and choice of drink. When asked about the dessert, Scopelitis stated that the dessert menu remained the same. They decided to keep it the same because it would have cost more money and would not likely have seen the return. This Thanksgiving the diner experienced a bigger holiday crowd causing the restaurant to go through their entire holiday menu by 9pm Thursday. George Scopelitis attributed this phenomenon to this year’s early start of Black Friday. He also stated that “the bigger crowd during Thanksgiving is also a small indicator of the economy trying to come back.”
Business has been largely slow but he estimates it will pick back up to a steadier pace in three weeks once Christmas is over. The key is being able to set a plan that will compensate for any potential loss in profit. Another clear example of this is when Hurricane Sandy hit, while the restaurant was not affected by damage from the storm it did however lose the business that would have normally been coming in the door due to the mass transit outage. The strategies adopted by Scopelitis have allowed for his business to be able to compensate for any down time the business experiences.
The Scopelitis brothers were able to reveal their knowledge about the restaurant business by the way they have planned for the tough business days they have encountered. George Scopelitis says, “You have to have tough skin meaning as a business owner you have to be in touch with the economic situation in the world and most importantly your customer base. Once you know what your customers want and plan a way to meet their expectations at a reasonable price, there is no doubt in the success that will follow.”

Black friday for employees

While black Friday may seem as a day for utter happiness for most who go out looking for cheaper prices on many things, employees at retails understand that its going to be a very long day. Companies require every employee under payroll to work that day despite the significance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Three shifts for the whole event usually surface, if you take the overnight shift you get no sleep, if you take the morning to afternoon shift you deal with the heaviest traffic of the whole day and if you take the afternoon to night shift you are tasked with recovery and closing of the store which may mean you wont get home until 3 to 4 am Saturday morning. All in all this is just a fun power point with some pictures of the hectic day. Please note that I would greatly appreciate If this power point does not leave the confines of this blog for the sake of the privacy of the company for which I work, which could lead me to some trouble.

Dressed in a grey Maryland Redskins T-shirt, with official dark red text of the team, Grandma Claudia Powley,70, sits upright on a cream, tweed fabric couch awaiting her first Thanksgiving dinner, ever. 

Dearie’s first Winter

It’s that time of year when we travel and gather around friends and family to enjoy each other’s company, stuff ourselves with lots of food and be thankful for health and life. But this year, the Bouchers of Castlewood Drive, Upper Marlboro Maryland have something extra special to be thankful for: Grandma Claudia, or as she is homely called—Dearie.

Dearie, 70, with her dark, mellow skin and silver-grey locks came to the United States of America on Tuesday November 20 from Guyana, South America. She is happy to be with her elder daughter, Vanda Boucher and grandchildren Laureni 24, Lyn 19 and Lawrence 21 and her brother Bertram among other relatives celebrating a new holiday, but what happened earlier that day was, for the family, a triumphant surprise of payback.

Longtime family friend Karen (also from Guyana), 41, came down to Maryland to visit from New York City unawares of Dearie’s arrival. That morning, after a nights rest, having driven in late on Thanksgiving eve, Karen got a cheerful shock when she saw Dearie stepping into the kitchen. Roars of laughter and screams filled the air as Karen could not contain her excitement while at the same time showcasing her resentment of being deceived, but nonetheless excited as she yelled with a Guyanese dialect, “why didn’t y’all tell me Dearie was coming—Dearie morning—wait I’m gonna text Penny now (Dearie’s other daughter who still resides in Guyana)—why didn’t she tell me and I spoke to her yesterday.”

After the outburst Vanda responds, “Because you always going to Guyana to surprise Penny so we decide to pay it back to you and surprise you.”

Now Dearie, Vanda, Karen and other relatives are gathered around the table laden  not with popular Thanksgiving dishes like candied yams, but with popular Guyanese foods: creamy mac n cheese, stuffed eggs (deviled eggs), Guyanese fried rice, potato salad, fried chicken, sweet golden corn kernels, Jollof rice ( a Nigerian red spiced rice since Laureni’s boyfriend is Nigerian) and a juicy turkey stuffed and overflowing with bunches of grapes.

The Thanksgiving Dinner Spread

After prayer everyone loads up their plates and settle in to watch the NFL Cowboys versus Redskins game. It is this time that Dearie sits on the couch beaming at everyone around her. She says in her Guyanese dialect, “I’m enjoying my first thanksgiving very much. When I see them eat, 2,3,6 s plates of food. They eat plenty food. But, I was expecting it. I heard about thanksgiving, about all the fancy dishes, family coming over and all and I’m enjoying myself, my first thanksgiving. I get to see my brother who I haven’t seen since 2009 and I get to meet my granddaughter’s boyfriend (of 6 years) for the first time. But I don’t like football, I prefer to watch something else. I’m looking forward to more thanksgivings. But I won’t help cook, my grandchildren will cook for me. Now it’s time for me to be taken care of.” Dearie was enjoying her first thanksgiving, but it was a little trying since there was no running water.

Repping the Redskins

The family prepared thanksgiving meal and spent the entire day (and night) with no running water since the main water pipeline in the neighborhood broke and the water was shut off. To compensate households for the inconvenience, boxes of 1 gallon bottled water were distributed by the water company. The bottled water was used in the kitchen to cook and in the bathroom for hygiene proposes. Thirteen people in one house with no running water and bathroom runs was a difficult situation, but it did not damper the day.

Boxes of Water

As night sets in and everyone has eaten their fill they’re all fully focused on the game. Screams and shouts of “Hold on to the ball” and “Be careful R.G.” flow over the air. At commercial breaks random conversations rise, from Laureni asking “water come back yet?” to Bertram saying in a Guyanese dialect “in hockey from the time they leave the net they fighting.”

Dearie looks on with a smile on her face, snuggled next to her daughter Vanda.

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