Tom S.

Matt S.

People open restaurants for lots of reasons. Certainly some do it because the thing they love the most in the world is food, others probably do it just because they can’t think of anything else they’d rather do. I once knew a guy who, I thought, opened a big fancy restaurant because he wanted to be around different pretty women all the time.

I opened a restaurant for a few reasons, but one of them trumps all the rest by a pretty wide margin. The greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life is to collaborate creatively with other people—nothing has ever given me more joy, and I’m tempted to say that no circumstances have ever drawn better work out of me.

One of the greatest events of the development stage of this restaurant was my mother’s discovery of the woman who produces our centerpiece flower arrangement every week. My mom I think was having restless nights as she tried to envision our progress from 3,000 miles away, and as is her habit, hit the nail on the head when she announced that she had found someone to design an arrangement for our opening and maybe beyond. She had been poking around on the internet and had found something spectacular.

What she found was a woman named Pat Miller, who owns a company called A Bed of Roses (www.abedofrosessf.com), which it turned out is located not very far from Heirloom in the Mission. Pat took one look at our almost-ready dining room in mid-April and seemed, right on the spot, to thrill to the idea of building an arrangement to suit the room. A day or two later, something unspeakably beautiful arrived at our door—I’m hesitant to describe it in worldly terms—which looked like something out of Lewis Carroll. I half expected a four-inch troll to jump out from behind one of the stems.

In the seven months since then, Pat has turned out one gorgeous arrangement after another for us, every one as or more stunning than the last. And every time we receive the new week’s delivery, I can’t help but feel like she has us in mind when she constructs these works of art. She possesses buckets of talent of course—any of you (or all of you) who have seen these arrangements know that; but what amazes me is the sense I always have when I see these things that they all just seem to fit our aesthetic here. Her work each and every week is breathtaking and inspired, and we wouldn’t be exactly whole, as I think we have been, without her wonderful sensibility.

There are so many moving pieces to so many of our endeavors, and I think one of the reasons I’ve always loved restaurants is because they, in particular, present opportunities everywhere to think creatively and deliciously about better ways to do things.

Happy Holidays, best wishes for a festive and healthy season,

Matt

Click on the image to the left to see A Bed of Roses arrangement on the table of Check Please!

The hit series featuring ordinary diners reviewing local restaurants airs on KQED TV9/HD Fri at 8:30pm, repeats Sat at 9am & 1pm, Sun at 5:30pm, Thu at 7:30pm. Also featured on KQED Life Sat at 6:30pm & Sun 12pm.

Check, Please! Bay Area is now airing its fourth season on KQED. The success of Check, Please! Bay Area has added a new dimension to the famous Bay Area restaurant scene, as regular diners become amateur food critics of popular and hidden local restaurants. With more and more people clamoring to share their favorites combined with the never-ending supply of great Bay Area dining, the fourth season of Check, Please! Bay Area promises to be even tastier than the first two.

Every week, Check, Please! Bay Area features three guests who are local diners, not professional restaurant critics. Each guest chooses their favorite restaurant and the other two guests visit that restaurant under total anonymity — the restaurants are not notified that Check, Please! “reviewers” are dining there. After trying each other’s restaurant recommendations, the guests come on the show to discuss, dispute, and celebrate their dining experiences. The panel of diners is moderated by host Leslie Sbrocco, an award-winning author, wine connoisseur, newspaper columnist, and speaker. At the end of the show, each restaurant is rated based on the panelists’ comments.

The concept was originated by David Manilow, the executive producer for the original version of the program, based in Chicago. Now entering its seventh season as the highest-rated local program on public television station WTTW in Chicago, Check, Please! enjoys a huge fan base with 300,000 weekly viewers.

Once again the food is shot entirely in high definition making each forkful mouthwateringly tempting.

On this website you can watch the episodes online, download the video podcasts to your computer or ipod, read guest reviews, get restaurant information and recipes, add your comments on the program and restaurants, and apply to be a Check, Please! Bay Area guest.

With some of the world’s best chefs basing their landmark restaurants in this region and a wealth of locally grown produce and ingredients, the Bay Area is a foodie’s paradise. San Francisco and the surrounding areas offer a diverse selection of ethnic epicurean delights, as well as California cuisine, invented here by pioneers of organic cooking. Check, Please! Bay Area continues to explore this fantastic world of food through local diners ready to dish about their favorite neighborhood places.

I needed an affordable arrangement for my boss who was home recovering from surgery. Two days later, we got a call. The flowers had been delivered, and were greatly appreciated and admired.

I hope to make some vessels someday for Pat to fill with flowers!

Thanks Pat!!!

– Scott Montgomery, Geographic Expeditions

They deliver so if you are even considering ordering flowers over the internet for someone in the San Francisco area, forget it – call Pat instead. For about the same price, you will get a bouquet that is tens times better. Couple a treat from here with a dinner at Parcel 104 and you could get yourself one heck of a “get out of jail free” card with your honey.

IanS.
San Jose, CA
via Yelp