IanBoden

I've been moiling over the last hand full of post this week for the last couple days trying to organize my thoughts and figure out how to say what I'd like to say, as a lot of what's been said has been on my mind for sometime now, and I think this might be the perfect forum to say it.  Instead of pre righting and reading over it several times I'm just going to go for it, so please excuses my terrible spelling and grammar as I'm a cook not a writer"¦.

Just prior to opening The Shack I had been working for another company that more or less opened a restaurant for me.  As I did not see eye to eye with this group on vision or business I realized that working for someone else wouldn't be in my cards.  There was a restaurant down the street from our house in Staunton that I had done a pop up at and it was for rent.  My thought was to open a temporary restaurant in that space to have some income to support my family and myself while a wrote a business plan for a larger built to suit restaurant and hopefully entice some investors in the mean time.  Yes The Shack was supposed to be a temporary spot for 8 months, hence some of our issues with HV/AC which we didn't have at all, noise, limited work space in the kitchen and limited space for check out etc.  Things do change!  Our third service open we were excited and honored to have Joshua Ozersky dine with us, and everything changed!!!!!  Over the last nine months The Shack has gotten more media attention then I have gotten over the course of my 23 year restaurant career.  As you may or may not know this is a blessing and a curse.

People speak of hype a hell of a lot when talking about The Shack.  The reality is that we did not create the hype, that was created by people whom have enjoyed there time with us and of course the media.  That's not to say that I'm not grateful for every thing that's been said.  I get a bit emotional about it quite honestly every time a read anything about it.  Especially because this place is such a personal restaurant to me and my wife.  It's named after the little shack that my wife's grandma Tissy's raised her 5 kids out in Swoope VA about 20 miles from here.  Unfortunatly I never got to meet her, but this place is an homage to this woman that meant so much to my wife and her family.

Look I tell this to every reporter, food writer, blogger that every speaks with me, the press is great and I feel blessed, but it doesn't mean shit.  I still wake up every morning come to work and run a restaurant.  If i don't love what i do then non of this means a damn thing.  The attention is gravy but it's not what drives me on a daily bases.  I didn't open the shack to be on the cover of a magazine or wine awards or get recognized.  I did it to do what I love, which is cook food that makes people feel good and hopefully they connect to it.  Thats it!

Once again I feel very fortunate for all of the attention, but if it all went away I wouldn't be upset as long as I can run my business and support my family doing what I love then every thing is good in my book.

Some realities that we are currently dealing with.  We have already taken steps to fix our lack of HV/AC, so things will get better.  We are hoping to expand our kitchen in the next several months so we may deal with issues as far as timing of courses.  We hope to deal with some dinning room noise issues in the near future to help with the sounds as we are only 400 sqft and a brick building that's close to 100 years old.  And of course we strive every day to put to the best food we can.  Yes as a chef your only as good as your last plate, but everyone has an off day.

I hope this helps people understand what and who we are.  In the future if there are constructive things to say about what we do please do not hesitate to contact me, as I'm not an ego driven chef and will not disregard criticism.

Thanks for reading this.

Ian Boden

Chef/Owner

The Shack