Not a "Real" Restaurant

Sometimes when I visit restaurants, I feel like they're the busy I wish our cafe were, or they have the flooring I wish we had, or I like the chalkboard menu...the silverware...the salad.  I imagine that people can see right through me and know my ill confidence.  I think that my every decision has been misguided and that I'm a total phony and a failure...and everyone knows it!  I'm not a REAL restaurant. 

A night like tonight comes along though, and I have to embrace that idea as the reason people love our cafe so much...as the reason I LOVE our cafe so much!  We're NOT a real restaurant!  Christmas is a few days away, and people are having their holiday get-togethers, their office parties, their little lunches with friends they need to see and hug...the people more important than a Christmas card.  Those parties and lunches are playing out here, table by table, all day long.  Time seems to have slowed as we are serving food to people who cherish one another.  The urgency of everyday life, of appointments and commitments---has faded as the light of the season is shining bright. 

We had a romantic wedding lunch here today that glowed with that bright light.  The table was set with masses of sparkling twinkle lights and red roses.  The young couple was all smiles and nerves as most of their family is in China.  They'll travel there in the spring to celebrate, but here today, they enjoyed lunch with close friends and reveled in the glory of this new stage of their lives together.  As we shifted to dinner service, the goodwill of the day continued as different groups of our longtime friends came to dinner. 

Without planning, they all sat at adjoining tables and started to converse.  Bianca offered some leftover spaghetti that she'd made just for us, so some decided on  spaghetti for dinner.  I started heating and serving leftovers, menu items,  cranberry sauce from the office party last night, fudge, crusty bread---the food tumbled out of the kitchen to waiting "family"---one was reading intently (I've gotten my friend Laurie addicted to the "Under the Tuscan Sun" series); some were talking to those at other tables; some were laughing and talking animatedly in the shared room; Andrea Bocelli was cranked up on the sound system. 

So tonight, like most days and nights here, the cafe didn't feel like a "real"restaurant, where each table is distinct and people keep to themselves---where some might think it rude for a person from a neighboring table to speak or reach for a piece of bread!   Because here, in our odd and kind of misfit way, you can count on food and ease and comfort and joy!  Not a "real" restaurant, but the brightest possible, most magical light!