Keithstg

4 hours ago, Pat said:

I think VA restaurants that open can only seat people outside in this phase. Unless the weather turns around quickly, that could be mighty chilly.

For DC residents this is a no-go anyway: Mayor Bowser was asked about VA's potential reopening a few days ago and she emphasized that, while DC residents are under a stay-at-home order, they cannot go eat at Virginia restaurants if they open.

(Sorry, I guess I'm not playing along with the question.)

Just curious, how would Mayor Bowser possibly enforce this? And I say this as a former “Green Team” fan. No allegiance now that I don’t live in DC...

On 5/7/2020 at 10:59 PM, curiouskitkatt said:

The Inn  has been taking reservations beginning 5/15.  As of today, the evening is sold out. The Governor of VA, as of right now is slated to launch “phase one” of opening the state, not specifying what part of the state is to open. How is this gonna happen? Would you dine at the Inn on 5/15 with no definitive plan of reopening restaurants for dine in, documented? Please discuss.

Yes, but as with most things I don't think that there is any "correct" answer other than one that works for each individual. In fact, will see about a reservation this AM.

On 5/7/2020 at 5:18 AM, Tom Power said:

Liquid Liquidation Is Back!  (that's for the old school) 

Corduroy quietly reopened for takeout last week.  This is more than a pivot, it's a brand new business with a lot of resources not going to use.    I have a lot of beer, wine and spirits on the shelf that might as well find a good home.  We have takeout, a virtual farmers market and super discounted adult beverages. You can pick up dinner, produce and cheap drinks in one stop curbside pick-up.  All alcohol purchases must be made with the purchase of a prepared food item.  Here is the To Go wine list that will be on line tomorrow.  Ordering is online through Tock right now which is still adapting to this.  Email corduroydc@mindspring.com for details.  

wineList5.7.20.xlsx 26.68 kB · 52 downloads

Thanks Tom - email sent!

20 hours ago, Deborah Lee said:

Last Summer, 4 lbs of Spot Prawns were a promotional gift with pay in full purchase so that's what got me to give Premium Sitka Seafood Share a try for the first time.  Also, Spot Prawns were included in the December share.  So lucky to have extra.

Also, I'm NOT 100% satisfied with quality of Sitka Seafood.  Price matches what you get though.  Will keep searching for seafood purveyor.  I may try out ProFish.  Wholesale is now available to the public:  https://www.profish.com/home

FWIW, we have been very happy with fish from Wild for Salmon, and there is a buying club local to us. Maybe worth consideration: https://www.wildforsalmon.com/

On 4/24/2020 at 5:31 PM, lion said:

Field & Main and Hunters Head are both good options. Haven't heard of Middleburg Tennis Club or been to it, is that an old fashioned club or new restaurant? Red Truck bakery is closed from my wife told me when we were searching for open bakeries. 

Red Truck will be back open on May 1. They closed for a bit to avoid burnout. Middleburg Tennis Club is a private tennis club on Zulla Road.

Honestly, I don't love Hunters Head, but we eat there a fair bit because my kids enjoy it. It's fine if you stick with the staples (and in the old days, avoid the weekends).

Red Bar Sushi for lunch today. Honestly think they are the best restaurant in Middleburg proper, and have been for a while.

---

Fresh Baguette (MC Horoscope)
Vace (saf)
Dining in Middleburg (lion)
Beau Thai (petercarrjones)
Scrappy's Bagel Bar (Deborah Lee)
Uncle Liu's (Ericandblueboy)

Perhaps of limited interest, but:

Middleburg Tennis Club (last night): Chicken Pot Pie for two (x2)

Field & Main: Burgers, gnocci with spring pesto and chicken (last week, ordered twice) Coq au Vin (this coming Saturday)

Hunters Head: Shepherds Pie, Fish and Chips (Tuesday) - honestly they are probably doing a better job with takeout than with the restaurant open. Far more consistent.

Planning on a drive into DC to pick up Kinship to-go next week...

This is wild. Still drop by daily and haven't had much to post...what's going on? If Dr.com is down, what a run. Feel fortunate to have seen it from (almost) the beginning, and still have my membership card!

Actually, I do have some things to post:

1. Wine Consumption has increased exponentially.

2. Field and Main has great takeout options, as well as a very fun blind tasting game on FB live every Thursday night at 7. Takeout encompasses sanwiches, etc and heat & serve mains - all have been uniformly excellent.

3. The Whole Ox continues to serve the community extraordinarily well and efficiently

4. Trying to do takeout 1x/2x week to support restaurants locally. Would do more with DC based restaurants if they had an option to pick up somewhere between Middleburg and DC, but don't know if that makes any fiscal sense (I suspect not)... 

20 hours ago, Pool Boy said:

I am at a point in my life where, if I want to, I can spend $x to go do the thing I want to do. Like go see a concert. With really good seats. Possibly even if it involves overnight stays. Travel. Another country. If I want to. The thing is, most of me thinks 'This is crazy - all the expense this would be for what - a concert?!'

But then I think some of the people I want to see are getting on in years. Other people are potentially fleeting and awesome. Why not? How many chances will I get?

And yet still I mull and dither.

When do you pull the trigger?

Now. Don's comment about deathbed regrets seems spot-on to me.

18 hours ago, franch said:

i keep wanting to go but i can't get past the pretentious menu

Well, it's not the Shaw Bijou - lol.

On 2/3/2020 at 4:55 AM, zgast said:

My only advice would be to not hold onto points - simply use them as you can since they're devalued constantly.  

This x 100. Credit Card benefits have been diminishing forever - this isn't news. Airlines have changed their programs radically and hotels are not too far behind (Bonvoy now has a spend requirement for it's top tier). I'd concentrate on defining an event no more than 12 months out and saving points for that event, then starting over.

19 hours ago, deangold said:

Having a little bit of experience with Whole Foods and out of stock situations, the probably culprit is probably the automatic reorder system. Amazon is trying to impose a just in time inventory model with all product going out tot he floor immediately. TJ's has this model too. Little to nothing in the backroom. With TJ's, they are managing something like 1800 sku's, and orders arrive 7 days a week. WIth the exception of bread, everything comes on a TJ's truck. I believe that team members write an order but it is computer inventory assisted and movement is tracked on every sku so the system know how much was sold since the last order cycle. 

The typical Whole Foods has tens of thousands of items. And this is a major hinderance in the just in time model. The law of large numbers assures you that a iven percentage of skus are going to be out of stock on any given day. How many is acceptable is a parameter in the purchasing replenishment system. Apparently, Amazon has quite a tolerence for out of stocks {OOS}.

Now comes the double zinger. When a product is OOS,the movement data is skewed. It is very hard to design a system that captures this in replenishment ordering. If an item runs OOS at 3pm and is replenished the next morning at 8am, the disruption to movement is greater than if the item runs out of stock at 8pm {after the store's rush} and is replenished at 12 noon. Both items were OOS the same number of hours but the "missing" movement is far greater in the latter case. So the reorders will be short what they "should be" and you will get out of stocks caused by that as well. There will be a recovery curve until optimal OOS behavior is restored. On top of that, items at a WFM especially in groceries tend t come in cases. So if an item comes in a case of 12 then the system or a team member needs to decide when to pull the trigger and reorder. OOS behavior is harder to optimize. If you can order by the each {ie most of health & beauty}, it is much easier. But produce and groceries are almost all by the case. 

I saw this OOS rebound problem all the time at Restaurant Depot. They would run out of something like Mexican coke and the next order would come in too small to cover one order cycle, so it goes OOS again. The system tried to build in a slight cushion on inventory to sales to make the optimal OOS rate, but the 'too small' reorder will happen a certain number of cycles and then go away until the next time there is a rush on the item.

Why does this model suck at keeping your local WFM stocked and doesn't seem to be a huge problem at Amazon? That is because you can see every out of stock on the shelf when you walk a WFM. When you order an item with a 2 day guaranteed delivery time and it takes 3, you miht not even notice anything. Or you might question what does the guarantee mean? And Amazon can fulfill your order from any number of warehouses. But if you go into P Street and want garlic, either garlic is there or not. If it is fully stocked at Tenley Town and Tyson's {and for that matter San Francisco} it doesn't help one bit. In fact, if you are told well Tyson's has tons, it might make the problem seem worse. Soul crushing even.

Another factor is the variability of consumer choice. The model works best when consumer behavior is most easily predicted. Cranberries at Thanks giving comes once a year. So if last year there was way too much cranberry int he store, this year there will be less. But if this year, Martha Steward or some influencer on IG has a killer recipe calling for lots of cranberries, you local store is sure to run out. Of course, if Gwyneth Paltrow says don't eat cranberries, and there is a glut this year, next year cranberries will be scarce. Thanks Gwyneth!

Last add: Why is Tyson's well stocked when it is a new store and P Street, which has been around since I was a lot younger and less cynical, can't seem to get their shiitake together? Because Tyson's is new and they have a bigger budget for spoilage and waste. The parameters of the system are set with much more cushion and less out of stocks occur. Until the quarterly bonuses paid the Store Team Leaders come out and they realize that their cushy inventory levels are costing them money. Then the numbers get tightened down. And OOS begin to grow.

Of course, it could be that Jeff Bezos thinks you are all sheep and won't atop whopping at his stores no matter how crappy they get. 

 

Thanks so much, Dean. That was super-informative!

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/food/article/21111660/shoppers-say-two-dc-whole-foods-are-poorly-stocked-some-blame-jeff-bezos

Was hoping for something approximating competent management post-Amazon, but here we are. The Fair Lakes WF has degraded significantly as well. The new Tysons Location is superb, however.

3 minutes ago, MarkS said:

 

Actually all rooms were renovated last year.  Much better then the Sheraton we previously stayed in.  When it's 2 nights a week, 45+ weeks a year, out of my pocket the Ritz isnt happening.

Glad to hear it's been renovated!  The Ritz has also been renovated (still cheesy though), and I am amazed they continue to command a premium rate in Tysons. Bonvoy has been so frustrating I've all but stopped using them. Am LT Plat, Ambassador since the program was unpublished (legacy starwood obv). Sad to see such dilution.

1 hour ago, MarkS said:

We stay weekly at the Westin in Tysons...

 

Oof.  Hope it's been renovated - that property was dreadful.

21 hours ago, Pat said:

Aren't all of his restaurants run on the no tipping model? I know at least some are.

Yes. Have been for quite a while.

23 hours ago, Pool Boy said:

Never been, never felt like I missed anything. The experience of standing in line for hours turned me off from the beginning. No reservations? I have no reservations of never dining there.

I've been half a dozen times, never waited in line. If interested: http://www.taskrabbit.com

On 12/12/2019 at 1:33 PM, DaveO said:

Its my opinion more power to Boras.  He is working to get a deal that suit his clients--and this year his clients and his firm have hit the jackpot--with more clients set to be signed in Free Agency.

On negotiations of contracts of these sorts a court would look at a contract with an agent and a lawyer and assume there was professional representation on both sides.  That is not always the case.  My sense is that Boras is very professional and does a great job for his firm's clients.  Its quite obvious that not all team owners are that professional (though they should be).  "Dipshit" owners are so odious in all capacities that I suspect players approach their offer's and in the back of their minds they are thinking something like "this dipshit has to pay me 5-10-15-20% or more above the market to get me to play (or coach or be a GM) to work for him/her.  Alternatively the best players won't go to these teams and they end up with lessor teams. 

This, though tough for some to understand. I included Moustakas because after supposedly being backed into a $6.5 million one year deal, he ended up making $16.5M including buyouts, and now has a multi-year deal with a team on the rise, including a $4M buyout OR a $20M team option for a fifth year. It's almost as though the Boras Corp knows the market better than non-professionals.

Boras Corporation clients have signed approx. $900M worth of contracts (NPV) between last week and yesterday. One of those contracts was Mike Moustakas, who signed for 4 years and $64M.

10 minutes ago, Bart said:

Will he get booed like Bryce, or will he get cheers (because he's so cool, unlike Bryce)?

While I'll happily boo Bryce, I don't think I could ever boo Rendon.

I hope and expect that Rendon will get a standing ovation. Great player and class guy. Too bad he'll be out in the AL West fighting for .500, though I guess a turnaround is always possible.

13 hours ago, DaveO said:

The Strasburg deal has $80 million deferred and paid out 2028-2030.  

When mlb calculates for spending over the max is that based on actual spend or face value of contracts?

It also suggests to me they have the money for Rendon.

Lastly the opt out in Strasburgs 7 yr $175 million contract really paid off. He got extra years and $10 million more a year.

Deferrals do not change the salary cap (Average Annual Value, or AAV) hit of the contract assuming that the amount is deferred without interest. In that case the only thing that changes is the Net Present Value of the contract - and of course the flexibility it provides ownership in actual dollars.

Of course the Lerners have the money for Rendon if they want to spend it and incur the taxes.

I can't think of an opt-out that didn't pay off for the player in the long run. I'm sure that there's been an example or two, but none come to mind off the top of my head.

19 hours ago, Bob Wells said:

I'm glad to see new places giving Taste of Urbanspace a shot, but long term I'm dubious about the success of this thing.

I'm dubious in the short term. The entire space is a ghost town save 12-1. The new steak frites place was good on a last visit, and the pizza is serviceable. I think the concept is very interesting, but mall traffic just doesn't migrate to the third floor, and it seems like the nearby office workers aren't doing so in large numbers either.

18 hours ago, Bart said:

I don't know if this is the answer, but in Tom's chat last week, someone (maybe you!  😉 asked why he doesn't mention Corduroy much/ever in his chats anymore.  His answer was that the menu has been unchanged for years, and the place/decor could use a refresher.

Both of those things are absolutely true. That said, I come by about 4x/ year and the experience is always excellent, and I am looking for the old favorites (have been going since the 4 points on K Street). Would like to say I'd go more if the menu changed more, but the reality is that I'm seldom in DC, so the new usually prevails.

15 hours ago, DaveO said:

I was told they got a "sweetheart" inexpensive deal.  Guess it wasn't sweetheart enough in this environment

The location certainly didn't help.

Amazing! Absolutely no quit in this team. So happy for all of them, but particularly Ryan Zimmerman and of course the Lerner family.

7 hours ago, Kibbee Nayee said:

From my friend Michael Bozzelli at Bozzelli's flagship in Springfield.

I would take a Bozzelli's chicken parm sandwich over all of them.

 

Never had the chicken parm, but enjoyed the pizza at the DC location. Will check it out, though totally unrelated to a popeye's (or Shake Shack) chicken sandwich.