we are coming up on one year of forkheartknife.

we opened may 5, 2010. planning to be a catering kitchen that would throw dinner parties with our extra food. a place that neighbors could enjoy. filling a niche for creative, well prepared, inexpensive food in a creative neighborhood. a chance for us to get different energy into the kitchen, to offer hospitality, to meet new friends. we knew our limited equipment (1 induction burner, an oven, a 2-door fridge…) wouldn’t be able to accommodate diners for that ‘real restaurant’ experience. so we’d just turn it a little, make a game out of ‘restaurant’….

catering is a funny thing. we enjoyed doing food for small parties, lunches, dinners, friends… we enjoyed the creativity that almost all of our customers let us run with. but, our schedule was all over the map! so, we decided to ground ourselves with a thursday night dinner. open to the public, consistently good food- but a changing menu. adventure.

thursday nights were packed! we couldn’t make enough food! we developed menus that we could prepare ahead in our space, warming hot food and tossing salads together to order. like a catered dinner party over the course of 4 hours. with lots of people pouring in to see what we were serving up for dinner. folks seemed to love the sense of adventure, the rush of not knowing what was to be served or even if they’d get food, the energy in the place… we loved the energy too. the outpouring of support from OTR neighbors, the chance to host our friends and family in a place that we’d created. a cozy, fun, open kitchen- gave lots of interaction and energy to us! we decided to share the lovely light of day in our kitchen with a sunday brunch.

then we were doing two steady meals a week. selling out of food at both meals, serving 60-80 customers. rocking the little place! working double time- a day to prepare the food and a day to serve the meals. we started getting some kind press: bloggers, metromix, citybeat… we started getting questions: why aren’t we open more often? why aren’t we open for lunch? how are we going to make the place bigger?

we started feeling pressure to offer more meals. so we added friday dinner. this way we could be a part of the monthly main street final fridays. we could cook wednesday for thursdays and fridays, saturdays for sundays. this brought us to a very full work week. we enjoyed being open to the public. planning a menu that excited us and throwing it up on our paper menu gave us a control over the food that catering didn’t. we were at 5 to 6 days of planning, shopping, cooking, and serving. and the tipping point: was it time to drop the catering aspect and just run this thing as a restaurant? would people be into a little place that only offers a few meals? would we be able to create this intimate, friendly atmosphere over and over? would we be able to continue creating menus that excited us and our customers using our limited equipment? could we keep up with the set schedule, the customer expectations, the interactions? we decided to go for it.

we enjoyed a summer and fall of menus inspired by the fresh veggies we are getting from OTR homegrown, megan hill at lorax on liberty/elm, from timmy’s backyard garden. food is fun and we were coming up with menus that worked and sometimes didn’t work in our space. we were learning lots. meeting tons of neighbors. selling our food. keeping things fresh.

winter came and we knew we needed to add another day to make up for the loss of our 3 outdoor tables. we did some private dinners in our space in december to keep things moving. january 1 we switched things up. the brunch meal seemed to get the most attention, like a nod in cincinnati magazine (yikes!), that brought with it hour+ wait times on sundays. we needed to spread things out a bit. we decided to add saturday brunch. we knew we couldn’t physically do friday night and be back early saturday morning, so we chose to offer wednesday/thursday dinners. we always thought we were a weeknight kinda place anyway. there are tons of other great weekend/high-end places in OTR- we wanted to be the neighborhood place that served your weeknight meal. simple and low -maintenance. at this point we’re at four days a week. with one day mostly off. still selling out of food. we’re tired. it’s winter. food is comforting and warm. nothing is in season in cincinnati. nothing is ‘local’. menu inspiration is getting harder. our lack of equipment frustrating.

we are flattered and excited to have two bites featured in cincinnati magazine’s restaurant issue! and also nominated for crazy awards in citybeat’s best of issue. things feel pretty wild and crazy and we are starting to see lots of new customers who are finding out about us, making treks to OTR from who-knows-where. bringing with them expectations that we can’t and don’t want to meet. managing new customers and their expectations, managing long wait times: this is starting to feel overwhelming. our space is so intimate, the experience we offer is so giving of ourselves: our creativity, our emotion, our grieving, our energy. we are sharing all of this with a new kind of customer. one who doesn’t know that we are limited. one who doesn’t know that there is a long week of work going into just these four meals. one who doesn’t respect that we have opened and are maintaining a business (and a restaurant at that!)- we find it hard to rejuvenate after these meals. we are not getting the joy from our neighbors and friends and families (who decide not to wait, or take up a table) that made this place feel so magic. we can’t imagine another year of trying to make this tiny, ill-equiped, intimate space work . . .

this is why we have decided not to renew our lease. we will serve our food until our birthday, may 5 with heart! and then we will look to the future and see where we find ourselves next.

we love that we have had this opportunity in cincinnati.

we are so happy that we have been embraced by so many! especially our neighbors and friends in OTR. OTR is an amazing neighborhood full of support.

we have felt loved and we have loved in return!

we don’t know what is in store for us, but we are looking forward to the future, to more good food, to more small restaurants, to more freshness and to more travel. we hope that we continue to see lots of creativity bursting out of this town! three cheers for the risk-takers and the independent thinkers and business owners! we see so much around us and we want to be a part of this great community of cincinnati!

thank you so much! and we look forward to pouring our hearts into each meal we serve until our birthday, may 5.