What It Was Like Growing Up in a Restaurant

(It was literally in our house.)

I made my favorite soup this week.

Hi, hi! I am in LA for a bit. Today is my boyfriend’s birthday (happy 47 to him!). We went to a nice dinner with just the two of us last night, and tonight we will get the kids and drive out to Malibu for dinner with his parents.

I’ve been really excited about this week’s essay. It’s something near and dear to my heart. I hope it makes for an enjoyable read. You may need to click through to Substack to read the whole thing.

I grew up on Cape Cod, where my parents owned a restaurant. It was called The Red Pheasant, and it was also my house. And so: I truly grew up in a restaurant. The 200-year-old barn was painted a cheerful shade of red, and it was surrounded by flowers (my mom is a master gardener). Our four-bedroom house made up the front of the building, and if you walked through a door in our kitchen, you would get to a little office that connected to the restaurant’s kitchen. Walk through that kitchen, and you got to the dining room area, where there was a big cozy fireplace, wide-plank barn floors—charmingly uneven—and a collection of old paintings. It was often humming with guests—their conversations, the clinking of silver against china . . . a happy buzz. Above the dining room was a small apartment, which sometimes housed staff.

a photo of my sister in 1986; to show you just some of my mom’s flowers.

All this was, for my parents, a blessing and a curse. 

Customers often tried to walk right into our house, thinking it was the restaurant. My parents literally lived at work, so they were always working. My dad was the head chef, and my mom ran the front of the house. But while raising three girls, they were always able to be around. Even if we were with a sitter, they still tucked us in and kissed us goodnight. And if there were some sort of emergency, they were always nearby.

When I got to be a little bit older, I realized this was something rare and special, but at the time it felt perfectly normal. I’m told that on my first day of preschool, I asked the other little girls what their house was called. 

My parents’ restaurant was a farm-to-table restaurant before that was a thing (this was the 80s!). I used to hang out in my dad’s office (drawing all over his desk calendar, which I’m sure he loved) as the day’s vendors came in. There was the produce guy, delivering hydroponic tomatoes and greens that were literally grown a mile down the road. There was the baker—the bread was always baked fresh that day. There was the fishmonger who dropped off dayboat scallops, fish, lobsters, and more. Everything was fresh; we knew where every single ingredient came from. 

I have memories of sitting in the back of the kitchen, peeling potatoes, watching my dad work. There would be three buckets. One was flipped over to be my little stool and the other two were for the potatoes! After a few hours, my hands would hurt and I’d beg for a new project. I loved watching my dad chop up vegetables, awestruck. (I’m still a bit awestruck. I am bad at chopping, and when I ask my dad for tips, he just tells me to practice.)

I always had a job. When I was 12 they let me do prep work to earn some extra money. I was small enough to sit atop the pantry, drying silverware and glasses, making rollups (if you never worked in a restaurant, a rollup is a place setting, rolled into a napkin—makes setting the table a bit easier). Each server would tip me a couple dollars and by the end of the night I’d usually have $15. (This was a lot in 1993.) When I turned 14, I graduated to busing tables. Age 16, running food. And once I was 18, I waited tables. In between, I helped with prep work and washing dishes. This, for better or worse, instilled in me a healthy work ethic and an appreciation for having my own money. I remember being 12 and buying my own overalls at Gap Kids, thinking I was very very fancy. My mom’s rule was that half of everything I made went into a savings account. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was able to buy my first car. A sexy “iced mocha” (aka brown) ’92 Ford Taurus for $3,500. Let’s just say it was safe and dependable, which is exactly what I needed. I was a terrible driver.

1998: my first car was a real thing of beauty, purchased entirely with my own money.

Overall, growing up in a restaurant was the best. In middle school, I had slumber parties where we’d wait until the restaurant had closed (and my parents had gone to sleep), and sneak into the kitchen . . . and head straight to the dessert cabinet. Six little girls in their nightgowns, hovered around the dessert station, just going crazy over these decadent desserts. The first thing to go was always the mousse (white chocolate, dark chocolate, black cherry) piped into miniature dark chocolate cups. I remember taking squeeze bottles of raspberry coulis and crème anglaise, squirting the sauces directly into our mouths. A giant tub of french vanilla ice cream? That would be next. I doubt we cleaned up very well. My dad would be up early, shaking his head. I don’t remember ever getting in trouble for this, but I do remember my dad asking us to at least eat one of each flavor of mousse so that there would be the same number of each flavor left. If we left all the dark chocolate behind, he couldn’t do anything with them. Eventually my parents started locking the dessert cabinet (although the freezer, which held the ice cream, never got locked!).

Being a restaurant child did have its downsides though, especially at school. I was already an easy target: an awkward late bloomer with frizzy hair and glasses. The restaurant gave the boys at school extra ammo for making me feel like a freak. In one particular memory from my freshman year of high school, I was sitting in art class quietly working on a project. (I remember this so clearly that I can even tell you it was a string art piece with green and white thread.) 

One of the boys in my class approached me: “My parents were at your restaurant last night, and your parents served them snails.” I was equal parts horrified and defensive. There was absolutely no way. I laughed in his face. My parents would never serve someone snails. Dis-gusting! But when I got home and asked my mother about it, she confirmed my worst fears. Escargots. It was a special on the menu that week. My mother insisted they were delicious; I was aghast. And to those boys, I became “snail girl.” (I’d just like to go on the record and say that my mom was right: Escargot is delicious. Especially with loads of garlic and butter . . . and a crusty baguette.)

But growing up, I didn’t even like fish or seafood. It’s hard to believe now that I did not eat oysters, lobster, or my dad’s sole meuniére until my 20s. Once, my parents pranked me and gave me a scallop, telling me it was a marshmallow. My dad put it directly into my mouth, so I couldn’t tell the texture or density. It took me a while to forgive him. This all kills me now, of course. I was living in a restaurant and not eating these delicacies when I could have had them in abundance (and for free!). It’s said that your taste buds change every seven years—something happened in my early 20s and I started to love it all. Lobster. Crab legs. Oysters. Even scallops and escargots. Suddenly I couldn’t get enough. Still can’t!

our cute little fam (and my unfortunate bangs) having dinner in the restaurant in 1997.

Several years ago, my parents sold the restaurant and moved to Charleston. They sold it to a younger couple from Brooklyn, who rebranded it to The Pheasant. It’s been bittersweet. The hours were a grind and it was incredibly hard work. But the memories are so special, as was all that my parents accomplished during their time running it. It was a magical place to grow up and I am so grateful for the appreciation my parents gave me for good food (along with a strong work ethic and a birds’ eye view of the ins and outs of running a business).

I love Audible. I listen to audiobooks constantly. Getting ready, folding laundry, making dinner, or out for a stress-walk. Right now, I'm listening to Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon and it's amazing. Juicy and informative, a very fun read. Now through January 21st, eligible Amazon customers in the US can sign up for Audible Premium Plus at $0.99 for the first three months.

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