I have family in Indianapolis, and they told me about this new “organic” restaurant they had just experienced. We were all excited to think that the nationwide interest in local, whole food eating might be growing. But was this another “Grill?” No. And here’s why…

A couple weeks later, I heard from my family again. They said that they were so excited about this new restaurant that they took a good friend so that she might also share in their joy. Her friend cannot eat wheat gluten.

When it came time to order, their friend ordered the closest thing she could find to meet her dietary restrictions. She asked for the hamburger but asked that it come without the bun. The server informed her that they could not accommodate this request… for it would ruin the “integrity” of the dish.

While I can understand the logic behind the server’s argument, I cannot believe this story. I’ve turned down a customer’s request to make vegan omelet out of flax seed egg replacer because I felt as though serving brown mush and calling it an omelet might give the wrong impression of our cooking ability. I have, however, seen the Grill bend over backwards (and then some) to accommodate our customer’s dietary needs and quirky preferences. I live far away, so I can brag on the Grill a bit. Here are some “customer-first” efforts I’ve seen/heard of at the Grill:

• Reworking the Thousand Island Dressing recipe on the fly to make a vegan version so a customer could enjoy a truly vegan Tempeh Rueban (also, with vegan cheese substituted instead of swiss).

• Making specialty hard shell corn tacos so a customer could enjoy Ron’s Mexi Plate without flour.

• Going through a months-long recipe revision process of our buckwheat pancake so it is not only gluten-free, but also vegan, yummy, and something you’d come back for.

• Driving mid-shift to Red Front to pick up an avocado for a customer really needing an Avo Melt when the kitchen was short on avocado

• Keeping a stock of a special sauce on hand for essentially one customer for one night a week (and we do it gladly… and would do it for you too once you attend nearly a decade of consecutive Mexi nights).

 And there are more, boy are there more. But maybe I’ll stop for the moment. Anyone want to add their own?

What does the app offer?

1. Take Out Menu- Breakfast, lunch or dinner, we made it super easy to find what you want and call us right from the app!

2. Direct Connection to this Blog- Now you can read our blog wherever you are.

3. Pics- You can check out our Flickr picture feed.  We try to keep up some colorful pics!

4. Shout Outs and Shout Posts- You can post a shout out and/or add a pic from your camera.  This is like a Facebook “Wall” exclusively for those with the app.

5. LGC Trivia- Try our trivia game to find out some fun facts about the LGC.  If you get a 100% correct, you win a free bumper sticker!

6. LGC Notifications- Every once in a while, we like to send a out a fun coupon, deal or simple contest.  If you have the app, you get the notifications!

We are always on the look out for fresh ideas and new content, so send us your thoughts and suggestions.  We love to hear from you!

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to go to the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy. I kept going back and forth on deciding if I should go because I was about to move into my new house, but I felt like it would be worth my while. I’ve been at the Grill for two years and a member for one. I do not have much experience with collectives outside of the Grill so this was a great chance to see what is going on in the world with other collectives and see how they run things.

I had an amazing time. I met so many nice people. It was great to be around so many people who understand the joys and struggles of working in a collective. At the Grill, it is easy to get caught up in your on and off shift work. Sometimes there isn’t much time left over to talk about being a collective and what that means to you and the business. But this weekend that’s all I had time for.

I attended a few workshops and it was very insightful learning how other collectives work and meeting the people from them. As interesting as the workshops were, the thing I enjoyed the most was meeting and chatting with another restaurant collective, Casa Nueva. I was able to ask questions from people in the same field as myself. I walked away from that meeting with an important word. That word is accountability. At times we at the grill, lack when it comes to accountability. I learned some great tools that could help build structure around our accountability.

I’m excited for the energy I received after going to the conference. Overall a wonderful and inspiring weekend!

A few months ago I took notes on an impromptu conversation after a membership meeting about “giving negative feedback,”(Also known as, “how to encourage people’s behavior in a healthier direction without sounding like a jerk,” a.k.a. “how to suggest a change in current action without being oppressive and verbally violent,” a.k.a. “how to make a timely suggestion without tripping over yourself four times to make sure you don’t ‘hurt’ anyone.”)

I don’t know everything, but sometimes I see something that just shouldn’t be happening.  The question is, how do I  ask/tell someone to do something differently or to try doing something my way without:

1. abusing my power, and in turn, the relationship
2. sounding like a stuttering, insecure goof who doesn’t really believe what he’s saying and feels like apologizing immediately after he says it
3. sounding like a bossy know-it-all who just runs around telling people what to do
4.  not taking so long thinking about the best way to say something so that the moment is totally lost and I spend the night wallowing in regret that I didn’t have the guts to “speak spontaneously, honestly, and from the heart”

It’s a tall order for a person charged with “leading” her or his peers.

So… after the meeting, a few of us talked about it. Here’s what came out of the conversation… Would you agree, disagree, add to, or subtract from this list?

• Give observations based on specific effects or reasons.  Example: ”I’ve noticed if the potatoes are cut this thick, they don’t cook all the way through in the fryer”
• Base a request on how it affects me. Example: ”Hey, can you use the chopping blade instead of the small shredding blade for the Mexi cabbage? I’m cooking Down Home on Friday and I find that the shredding blade cuts the cabbage too thin to be used again as leftovers.”
• Don’t miss the moment…meaning, don’t over think it. If it’s important to you, opt for saying something rather than nothing.
• Be creative or humorous.
• Preface with an acknowledgment that it’s difficult to throw criticism out there.  Share your realization that what’s about to be said may already have been said 100 times from others.
• Be careful of “projections.” This is where you criticize someone else on behavior you don’t want to admit is true about yourself.  Example: ”Hey, I know you don’t want to clean out the bus pans and trash can lid, but someone’s got to do it-” … Wait, no, it’s ME who doesn’t want to do that at the end of the night!

You might recall, not too long ago, a particular weekend where you arrived at the front door of our humble little restaurant- full of hope and visions of the Beth’s favorite or tofu grinder that would soon fill your hollow belly.

Only you found the building locked tight, barring your admittance. Perhaps you pressed your nose to a darkened window and peered wistfully through the glass before retreating to contemplate another, if less gratifying, breakfast option.

If this is the case, we are very truly sorry for the disappointment we may have caused you, and for the second-rate breakfast you were forced to eat as a result.

However, we are not at all sorry for the closing itself, as it gave some of us the opportunity to spend a weekend in communion with over 200 other cooperatively-minded individuals- hailing from the east coast and beyond.

I will freely admit that working in a cooperative environment is vastly more challenging than a traditional workplace. Our days off tend to be eaten up by meetings that can last hours because all in attendance want to be heard.  Change can be painfully slow, especially when it involves 10 people coming to consensus on the best course of action.

Each of us has a distinctly different vision of the direction in which we would like to see our business grow. Things get lost in the shuffle of responsibilities and focuses, not to mention the occasionally high turnover of membership.

Yet, as I have watched the collective grow and change over the last 8 years, I can’t even remotely imagine making my living anywhere else. In this group, I have found a family, a place where I am recognized for exactly who I am and what I have to offer – a family that genuinely wants to see me grow and develop.

True, we fight.  We work so closely together in a maddeningly tiny space for something we all care about so deeply.  But as a result, we learn the value of strong communication and how to truly listen to each other.

After weathering innumerable Sundays in the trenches cooking frantically for the hungry hordes with a single stalwart comrade, sometimes barely skirting that tenuous border between glory and absolute madness and disaster, I know for a fact that I have come away with a few allies for life.

Even so, it can be all too easy to find ourselves lost in the details and forget exactly what it is that we are devoting our lives and our sanity to.

Most of the east coast, south of the Mason-Dixon line, is a veritable cooperative wasteland. There are isolated and bright oases, but Harrisonburg is certainly not one of them – yet.

The more thickly coop-populated areas of the country have created vast networks to support each other with funds and resource centers or simply with shared ideas and common goals.

But, it can feel a bit lonely here at times.

Over the course of the weekend, I began to realize that although I would certainly return with some new tools and perspectives to help us in our own group, my greatest gain would be my replenished energy and passion for our cooperative model.

Finding ourselves surrounded by so many people of incredibly diverse backgrounds, building vastly different businesses all based on the same concepts of democracy and compassion, had a profoundly refreshing effect on all of us.

It was the reminder I needed as to why I chose this challenging path. I am working for something greater than myself and greater than our little business.

As a thriving cooperative and one of a very few co-op restaurants in our region, we are now at a point where we can reach beyond ourselves to share experiences, triumphs, and failures and perhaps encourage the movement along a little.

Somewhere in the middle of the weekend, most of us were able to spend several hours with three members and one associate (non-member) from Casa Nueva, a sister restaurant collective in Athens, OH.  We directly drew much of our own business and collective structure from them.

Our new friends had limitless patience with us as we bombarded them with questions concerning every imaginable facet of the business. It was an incredibly gratifying experience, but something akin to realizing that the hero you’ve idolized throughout your entire childhood is merely human, albeit wise and accomplished far beyond your own limited years and means.

They were able to give us a lot of answers and encouragement, but we also came to the reassuring realization that we share the same difficulties.   They still work on the same problems that we do.  Perhaps most cooperatives constantly struggle with these issues.

We formed a sort of partnership. Sometime in the next few months, several of them will be making the trek to observe our collective in action, hopefully returning to Athens with at least a fraction of the insight they have given us.

We returned brimming with hope and desperately needing sleep. We were refreshed and ebullient with camaraderie, and counting down the months until we get to experience the whole thing all over again next summer at the national conference.

Hey everybody!  The posts at the LGC Blog will now be shared with Facebook. Basically this means when one of the LGC bloggers write a post, all the Facebook friends will know about it.

It’s been a great blog so far.  Most of the entries are written by worker owners who each give their own perspective and flavor to each post.  There are personal stories, funny anecdotes, touching witticisms and quite a bit of earned-wisdom to be found throughout.

Readers are invited to respond with their own comments at any time.  We hope our little blog can be a helpful digital-community resource!

If you haven’t had the chance, check it out.

Several weeks ago Oliver and I traveled to Baltimore, MD for the Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy.  I was hesitant to bring a two-year-old into this environment, but the opportunity for my husband Chris to be home alone and pack up our entire house for our up-coming move was too great to pass up.  There was also a child-care collective which would be there to hang out with the kiddies, which seemed like a great resource.

The conference was wonderful! There were many many other collectives represented there.  It was so energizing to be reminded that we are part of a greater movement.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind: rolling silverware, flipping pancakes, negotiating schedule requests… It’s not hard to forget that we are doing more than other restaurants.

When we are at the Little Grill we spend so much energy talking and thinking about the little details, (how to fit the new refrigerator in and how to cut labor costs) but at the conference we were primarily focusing on what it means to be a collective and how to make our lives better within the collective.  As an “in-active” activist, this type of connection with a greater movement and a greater cause is so energizing.

My primary focus was on Human Resources (a word that everyone at the conference shunned).  I went to workshops on health care and one called “putting the humanity back in human resources.”  I learned about collectives with menstrual leave policies and creative alternatives to expensive traditional health care plans.  I came back ready to hear from every worker about their needs and to try new creative ways to meet them all.  My greatest wish for the Little Grill Collective is that our worker-owners won’t be compelled to leave, simply because we can’t meet their long-term needs.  One day…

As far as Oliver was concerned, he did great.  He had fun with the child-care collective.  He made a friend who was one day older than him and many friends who were many years older than him.  By the end of the conference, there were people I had never met saying “Hello Oliver!”  I didn’t sit down for a single meal, but it was worth it.

And when we got home from our trip, our entire house was in boxes! A highly successful weekend!

Left to Right: Jerry Holsopple, Del Hershberger, Tom Frank, Steve and Betsy Dintaman.

A Customer Perspective:

We had some customers email us this story.  Basically, folks from 3 different states ran into each other at the LGC.  They’re commonality is that they worked together in Lithuania.  Enjoy!

We are home in Harrisonburg for the summer from our work at LCC International University (http://www.lcc.lt/) in Klaipeda, Lithuania. When Tom Frank, from Connecticut and also a professor at LCC, visited and wanted to take us to lunch today we of course chose the Little Grill. We had no sooner sat down than the door opened and in walked Jerry Holsopple, an occasional LCC prof from Harrisonburg, with Del Hershberger from Hesston Kansas who spent 2009/10 school year at the university. What fun to reenact the times we have all sat around tables together in Klaipeda! Maybe soon the Little Grill will have Svyturys (popular Lithuanian beer) and kepta duona (fried rye bread) on the menu.

Betsy and Steve Dintaman

You may wonder what compels this kind of video into existence.  Well, here are some words from the VBMC.

The Vegan Black Metal Chef Project has 2 main purposes.

1) Help answer the question “what do vegans eat”/show vegan cooking in the most informative and fun way possible while making some great music to go along with it.

2) Help people bring consciousness to their lives and actions.

The first will be addressed with of course the videos and various articles under the “Feed Your Body” category.

The second will be addressed with a series of articles and videos under the “Feed Your Mind” category.

My Greatest wish is that you find this useful. Thank youall for all of the great support.

Check out the site at:  VeganBlackMetalChef.com

A Ryan Perspective:

You might remember me. You might have forgotten about me. You might never have seen me. I’ll write to you just the same. I was the tall, bearded guy often seen in the kitchen on Mexi nights and Saturdays. But then, there have been numerous tall, bearded guys floating in and out of the Grill lately, so sorry if that doesn’t get you any closer to a recollection. Even still, I write to you just the same…

June 14^th, 2011 was my last day at the Grill. I think I had falafel. At 3am the next morning, me and my little family (wife Janie and magic-baby-daughter Juniper) packed up and moved to Flint, Michigan, for good. It was a hard move (Harrisonburg is a jealous, possessive siren that calls many back), but we’re glad we’re here now. I heard once that one should never let the past nor the future steal the present, so I’ll stop the intro and get to it…

As the title implies, I’m not at the Grill, but the Grill is still in me. I’ve kept some Grill side projects to work on from the Midwest, and I’ve also committed to writing for the Grillblog. This explains why I’ll be showing up here on the web yet never in the building. I hope this is a pardonable transgression.

But I ask the question that maybe you are asking… “Why?”

Why is it so hard to leave the Grill, or maybe more appropriately, why is it so hard (or impossible) to fully separate oneself from the Grill once oneself has fully experienced the Little Grill Collective? I’ll share my best attempts to explain this oft repeated phenomenon.

As an employer, the Grill allowed me to be as genuinely true to myself and my values as I possibly could imagine being, short of starting my own company consisting of me, myself, and I. I found that, by working at the Grill, I could provide a valuable and profitable service/product to the community while also having an element of control over how this service/product played out and infusing my work with my own interests and passions. While living out my life as a made-from-scratch, whole-foods cook, I could also practice and play the role of community organizer, mediator, small business owner, teacher, neighbor, artist, friend, and prophet (meaning one who points to the way things “ought” to be…cooperative, compassionate, sustainable, and just). For me, the Grill was not an employer that required me to check my mind and my dreams at the time clock.

I believe that emotion drives attention and attention drives learning. I felt a lot of emotion at the Grill, and as a result, I learned a lot. I’ve rubbed shoulders with enough folk from other food service establishments to know that not every cook feels the positive emotion that I felt while preparing and serving meals at the Grill. The “freezer to fryer” mentality that the majority of our nation’s cooks are currently oppressed by cannot be found in the tiny kitchen at 621 N. Main St. A couple years ago, as a newbie cook (VERY newbie by the way), I was quickly draw in to the emotional process of preparing food at the Grill as I watched other veteran cooks (VERY veteran by the way) prep make-from-scratch veggie chili, hummus, falafel, pancakes and more!). Here are some warning signs that the workers at a restaurant are emotionally invested in the food they serve: never-ending debates about the absolute perfect way to make a whole wheat biscuit, whipping up outstanding specials in their free time (just check out the crazy stuff being put together on Wednesday nights to know this is true), making their dishes from scratch (who needs pre-made salsa?!), serving soysage (if you knew all the steps it takes to make this stuff, you’d know we were crazy about food prep… or just crazy.)

For most of us, it is either home or it quickly becomes a home away from home. Trust me, I live in the real world now (and have for almost two months): The Little Grill is a special place and generally uncommon in this wide world of ours. Those who experience the Grill usually find it hard to let it go.

So “Why?”

Well, because I love you Little Grill.