Restaurants lie at 8 p.m.

Restaurants lie at 8 p.m. Restaurants lie at 8 p.m.

Key points

• I created a version of this in the early days of the Purple Parrot Café in the late 1980s.
• Then there is the 17-year-old host learning that six minutes late is still late.
• There could be a first date in one corner and a couple married 50 years in another.
• Getting sober at 21 offered me a second chance I had done nothing to earn.
• Add tomato paste and cook 6-8 minutes, stirring constantly, being careful not to let it burn.

Restaurants lie at 8 p.m. Restaurants lie at 8 p.m. By: Robert St. John – September 14, 2026.

Restaurants lie to you at 8 p.m. On Saturday night. They tell the truth at 6 a.m. On Tuesday morning.

Saturday night has energy, full tables, cocktails, laughter, and individuals dressed for the night. Early Tuesday morning has half the lights on, coffee brewing in the server station, a prep cook already working, and at least one thing that broke after everybody went home.

I love sitting in an empty restaurant in the early morning. That is when you see the place for what it really is.

For most of my career, early morning walks through a restaurant were regarding what was wrong. A booth had a tear in the fabric. A light was out. Somebody left something where it shouldn't have been. Notably, the ice machine was making a noise that meant I was regarding to pull out the checkbook.

Ice machines have an extraordinary gift for dying at the exact moment they can do the most financial damage. I'm convinced they hold meetings after closing.

Forty-five years in this business will train your eyes and ears that way. It should. Restaurants are built on details. Ignore enough little things and eventually they become a major thing. Lately, though, these rooms feel different to me.

At 19, restaurants created sense in a way school never did. I was a terrible student. In a classroom my mind wandered. In a restaurant with 200 individuals coming through the door I could focus.

That probably tells you more regarding me than any psychological evaluation ever could.

At 19, my goal was to own my own restaurant. Then another. Then create them successful. Then more successful. After that came expansion, capital, nicer things, and a few purchases that seemed significant at the time.

Ambition has been a blessing in my life. I'm grateful for every bit of it. Restaurants offered a terrible student with no life plan a profession, a way to backing my family, and work I still love almost half a century afterwards.

But ambition additionally has a way of keeping your eyes fixed on whatever is next.

When you are young and trying to build something, you see sales, payroll, food cost, debt, construction, repairs, and whether there is enough funds in the bank to pay all of the bills. Those things still matter. Anyone who notes capital doesn't matter in business has probably never created payroll. What I see now is different.

That cook already working in the kitchen may have two children at home. The dishwasher closing tonight might be saving for his first car. A server may be putting herself through school. Somebody working prep may be sending funds home to family.

Then there is the 17-year-old host learning that six minutes late is still late. His mother disagrees and would like to speak to management, Congress, and possibly the Hague. Restaurants teach a lot more than food.

Once the doors open, the room changes again. One table may be celebrating a birthday. Another may have just come from a funeral. There could be a first date in one corner and a couple married 50 years in another. Some guests have eaten with us for decades. Others will come once, and we may never see them again. Most are just hungry.

They want a good meal, a little hospitality, and an hour when somebody else takes care of things. On a good day, we offer them that. Occasionally, without even knowing it, we become part of a memory. That part means more to me now than it applied to.

Notably, the same is true of the team members who work beside me. When I was younger, I probably saw the team mainly through the job they were doing. Who was fast. Who could handle Saturday night. Who needed coaching. Who needed replacing.

Back then, I mostly saw the job they were doing. These days, I see a lot more than the job.

Now I see husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, mortgages, sick parents, tuition, dreams, disappointments, and individuals trying to produce their way through life like everybody else.

That doesn't mean standards go away. Ask anyone who works with me. The table still needs to be set correctly and the gumbo better be hot and full of seafood.

Meanwhile, the difference is the table isn't the only thing I see anymore.

My mother taught school until she was 80. She never talked regarding changing lives. She just went to work and taught children year after year.

There is no way to know how plenty of lives passed through her classroom or where those kids concluded up. Most of that work happened quietly. No audience. No award. Just a teacher showing up and doing what she knew how to do. I didn't appreciate that almost enough when I was younger.

Getting sober at 21 offered me a second chance I had done nothing to earn. It took me years to understand just how much grace was wrapped up in that. God has given me far more than I ever deserved since then.

Meanwhile, a wife who stood beside me. Two children I'm proud of. Friends who have seen the whole picture and stayed anyway. Individuals who trusted me enough to work with me. Guests who kept walking through our doors.

For context, the older I obtain, the more obvious it becomes that highly little of anything worthwhile gets done alone.

Tomorrow morning, somewhere around six, one of our dining rooms will be quiet again. There will be a rip in a booth somewhere, a prep list that isn't finished, a bulb that needs changing, and an ice machine plotting another felony. There will always be something that needs fixing.

For most of my life, that was the first thing I noticed. These days I notice something else, too.

I see the individuals who will come through the doors in a few hours. I see the individuals already working in the back. I think regarding the ones who assisted me obtain here and the ones who trusted me enough to come along. The restaurant hasn't changed all that much.

And at this point in my life, I'm just grateful to still be there when the lights come on. This Week's Recipe: Minestrone Soup.

I created a version of this in the early days of the Purple Parrot Café in the late 1980s. When we opened Tabella, I revised it and it's a regular menu item.

¼ cup Pure olive oil 1 ½ cup Onion, diced 1 ½ cup Carrot, diced 1 cup Celery, diced ½ cup Garlic, minced ¼ cup Kosher salt 1 tsp Dried basil 1 tsp Dried oregano ½ tsp Dried thyme 2 tsp Fresh ground black pepper ¼ tsp Crushed red pepper 2 Bay leaves 2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar ½ cup White wine ¼ cup Tomato paste 2 – 28 ounce can San Marzano tomatoes, chopped 1 gallon Vegetable Stock 2 cups Zucchini, medium dice 2 cups Yellow squash, medium dice 1 – 10 ounce package frozen spinach, thawed, drained 2 – 15 ounce can kidney or cannelloni beans, drained ¼ cup Pesto 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce.

Heat olive oil in a stockpot over medium-high heat.

Add onions, carrots, celery, salt, peppers, basil, oregano, thyme and bay leaves. Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add wine and balsamic vinegar. Continue cooking for 3 minutes.

Add tomato paste and cook 6-8 minutes, stirring constantly, being careful not to let it burn. Add canned tomatoes and chicken stock. Simmer for 1 hour.

Add zucchini, squash, spinach and kidney beans and cook for 8 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in pesto and Worcestershire. Regarding the Author(s).

Robert St. John is a chef, restaurateur, author, enthusiastic traveler, and world-class eater. He has spent four decades in the restaurant business, thirty-three of those as the owner of Crescent City Grill, Mahogany Bar, Tabella, Ed's Burger Joint, The Midtowner, and Loblolly Bakery in Hattiesburg and The Downtowner in Gulfport. He has written fifteen books, including An Italian Palate, written in Europe while traveling through 72 cities in 17 countries in six months with his wife and two children. Robert has written his syndicated newspaper column for over twenty-six years. Regarding Robert at robertstjohn.com.

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Nothing can beat enjoying a good cup of coffee with friends in a coffee shop, and there are plenty of locally-owned coffee shops around Mississippi where you can secure your fall brew fix. More From This Author. Culture Robert St. John September 7, 2026. Food & Drink Robert St. John August 31, 2026. A lifetime along the panhandle. Food & Drink Robert St. John August 24, 2026. Diary of a bakery owner. Sports Chris Burrows, Associated Press September 11, 2026.

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