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Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit
News
Nina Kallabat,
left, of West Bloomfield Township, Chris Pavlov of Shelby Township
and Christine Paul of Oxford are served by Linda Foehr. The menu
reflects Kipp Bourdeau's experience at resorts in Georgia and
Florida.
Dining with
Molly Bistro survives
first year with smiles and 'war stories'
By Molly
Abraham / Special to The Detroit
News
Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News
Susan
and Kipp Bourdeau -- he's a Culinary Institute of America
grad, she used to work for the Ritz-Carlton chain -- could
write a book on the challenges that come with opening a
restaurant.
Bistro
Bourdeau Location: 3315 Auburn at Squirrel,
Auburn Hills Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri., 4-10 p.m. Sat. Closed Sunday.
Prices: Lunch sandwiches and salads
$4.50-$9.95, entrees $8.95-$15.95; dinner appetizers $3.95-$7.95,
entrees $12.95-$23.95. Call: (248)
852-3410. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery
AUBURN
HILLS -- Kipp and Susan Bourdeau looked at some 30 locations before
they found it -- the building on the corner of Auburn and Squirrel roads
in Auburn Hills. The area's attractive demographics -- the affluence and
sheer size of the potential customer base -- and the spacious corner
property, which included a big parking lot, combined to make them look
at each other and say, "We'll take it." Former
owner Patrick Elwell could hardly recognize the place after three months
of construction. The restaurant known as Patrick's, which offered
traditional American fare, was completely gutted and redesigned. Its
former square shape was turned into a circular main dining room, done up
in French blue and cream, with knotty wood partitions recalling the
wooden crates once used to ship wine from Europe. Dictionary definitions
of "bistro" were lettered on the walls. The
Bourdeaus wrote a bright, contemporary American menu that fits on a
single page with dishes reflecting Kipp's past experience at resorts in
Florida and Georgia, and a hint of New Orleans thrown in. They describe
their restaurant's style as "casual fine dining, unpretentious and based
on fresh products." And so, on Jan. 9, 2001, the
couple, at 27 and 31 respectively, unveiled Bistro Bourdeau and embarked
on that crucial first year in one of the toughest businesses there is.
It would be a year that would put them through the
full range of emotions. There were the four months
of road construction at their corner that meant customers would often
have to trek through mud to get to them; the equipment that failed at
the most inopportune moments; the deliveries that didn't arrive on time;
the nights when only two guests showed up; and then, in April, a real
tragedy, the sudden death of Kipp's 35-year-old brother.
They closed the restaurant that day and put a sign
on the door explaining why, only to have a customer yell at them for
inconveniencing her and the guests she wanted to bring to dinner.
"We've been up and down with every emotion you can
hit," says Kipp, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America's class
of '92. "The biggest challenge is keeping the fire going that made us
want to do this in the first place. Sometimes, you're so tired, trying
to get yourself up in the morning, you (have to) remind yourself that
you are feeding their (customers') souls." The
restaurant employs 35 people, and while the help in the front of the
house has stayed pretty constant over the year, the kitchen has
experienced a lot of turnover. Perhaps 40 people have come and gone, but
now Kipp has the crew he can depend on. "When we
were having a hard time staffing the kitchen, one day it came down to me
and Susan and the pastry chef (Sheila Nawrocki)," Kipp says. "There were
200 people waiting in the dining room. I did the saute work, Susan
manned the broiler, and Sheila handled the salads. We managed to get it
done." Then there was the day the exhaust system
in the kitchen failed in the midst of another busy lunch.
"The smoke in the kitchen was so bad you couldn't
see your hand in front of your face," Kipp says. The staff managed by
opening the back doors and putting fans in the kitchen to keep the smoke
from getting into the packed dining room. But that
wasn't the worst time. One hot Friday night in July, "all the coolers
went down, and the alarm went off at 2 in the morning."
The couple, who fortunately live just five minutes
away, had to find dry ice and rush back to the restaurant in the middle
of the night to save the $10,000 inventory, then set up for Saturday
night and put on what they call their perma smiles to face their busiest
time of the week. Kipp has become his own repair
man, something he learned the hard way when a convection oven didn't
seem to be working, and he ended up paying a $125 fee to find out the
plug to the fan had come loose. After that experience, he started doing
many of his own repairs and now boasts that he can fix almost anything
in the restaurant. Susan, who learned the
restaurant trade in the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain in Washington, D.C.,
and Hawaii, runs the front of the house, with Kipp in the kitchen, but
they've cross-trained so that each can handle whatever job needs to be
done. "I still don't like to wait tables, but I
can do it," Kipp says. And like most restaurant owners, they can, and
have, washed dishes at 2 a.m. In their first year,
they've served 43,000 diners. A small hand-written sign at the entrance
to the dining room gives the running account of the tally.
"And we've washed 400,000 dishes," Susan adds.
The Bourdeaus know they are a lot luckier than
many proprietors. They have financial backing from Kipp's father, a
Flint businessman. And so the fact that they didn't actually make money
the first year -- a pretty impossible target -- won't deter them from
moving on to their second. "We're excited to see
what the year will bring," Kipp says. Hopefully,
no more road construction, power outages or forks stuck in the bottom of
the dishwasher.
A late
Valentine date Here's a Valentine's
wine dinner for procrastinators. It takes place on Feb. 19, five days
after Valentine's Day, at one of the most romantic restaurants around.
That's Windsor's Mason Girardot Alan Manor on the corner of Peter and
Mill streets not far from the Ambassador Bridge, (519) 253-9212.
The menu includes carrot and tomato soup with
cranberry swirl (a Valentine in itself); quail eggs wrapped in cucumber;
smoked salmon with ginger yogurt and pomegranate honey; tamarind-cured
filet mignon with date demi-glace; and dark chocolate sponge cake with
pear compote in white chocolate sauce. The
accompanying wines with each course are from Peninsula Ridge Estate
Winery. The cost is $75 (U.S.), and reservations are necessary -- e-mail
wine enthusiast and dinner organizer Jim Rice at mailto:pegasus@provide net.
The restaurant's manager, Dhiren Miyanger, an
actor who starred in a made-for-TV movie on CBC two weeks ago, is still
accepting congratulations for his winning performance as a Vancouver
crime reporter.
You can reach Molly Abraham at (313)
222-1475 or mailto:abraham67@home
com. Jane Rayburn's restaurant reviews run Fridays in The Detroit News
Weekend Guide section.
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