May 7th-13th, we will be offering an additional PINK topping for our waffles- all proceeds going to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Our special topping will actually be not a sauce (how unlike us), but a framboise whipped cream– a homemade whipped cream laced with Lindeman’s Framboise Lambic, tres Belge.

(If unfamiliar with the Framboise Lambic, it is a tart, fruity “beer” made with raspberries and it tastes more like a sparkling wine than any beer you’ve ever had).

So when you come in those dates, make sure you do your soul, and well as your tastebuds, some good and order a waffle with framboise whipped cream.

And that philosophy holds true for our beer selection as well. Change it up and change it often is how we do things here. There is so much good, great, better beer out there and we have so little space that we are choosy when choosing what to carry and if it’s here one week, doesn’t mean it will be here the next.

So far, we’ve kept our Belgian (high in ABV content) staples- Piraat, Duvel, Gulden Draak, Corsendonk. These are so yummy that it might break our hearts to lose them. We’ve kept around Narragansett to satisfy a standard lager preference. We’ve kept Slumbrew’s Porter Square Porter on tap since we cook with it. After that, we’ve been ruthlessly editing our beer list.

Come and gone so far have been- Left Hand Nitro, Smuttynose IPA (I did love the label on that bottle), Pretty Things Jack D’or, vintage brews from Pretty Things, 21st Amendment Bitter American, 21st Amendment Monk’s Blood, 21st Amendment Allies Win the War, Unibroue Trois Pistoles, Chimay Triple…. I’m sure I’m missing some.

On tap now is Unibroue Ephemere, Slumbrew Porter Square Porter, Avery White Rascal, Tripel Karmeliet. Get them while they’re here!

…99 bottles of beer on the wall….

The most important requirement is the ability to work the late night weekend shift (we close at 2AM). Living nearby is helpful in that regard, since the T closes down before we close.

If interested, email Tanya at tkropinicki@sausllc.com

10. Maple syrup:  This one doesn’t come out of left field…we do have waffles, but we always explain that it’s not that kind of waffle.  Our alternative to this request? The salted caramel usually fills the void just fine.

9. Sweet potato fries: The customer reactions to “No, sorry we do not have sweet potato fries” range anywhere from slightly disappointed to downright angry.  It appears there are more than a few devotees to this tuber, alas it will not be appearing on our menu anytime soon.

8. Lattes/Cappuccinos/etc.: We have coffee, cold brewed iced coffee in the summer, and hot tea…but that’s the end of the line for us.  Once upon a time we considered investing in an espresso machine, but decided…nah, let’s save room for beer taps instead. Amen.

7. Pizza: While most pizza requests come from our late-night patrons, here is a real life conversation I once had with a sober guy: Sober guy: I hear you guys have good slices. Me: Slices…of pizza? Sorry, we don’t.  Sober guy: What? You don’t have slices? What do you have?

6. Coca Cola: Sigh…we have been trying to procure cans of coke from our beverage supplier for months now.  This is something we hope to carry in the future…in the meantime, it is embarrassing to explain to customers how we don’t have basic pop…er…soda.

5. Oysters/Fish sandwich/Clam chowder: Believe it or not, we have been mistaken for the Union Oyster House (our next door neighbor).  The Union Oyster House! The oldest restaurant in continuous service in the United States! Come on people.

4. Deep fried _____: Chicken, pickles, you name it…we’ve had a request for it.  It makes complete sense…customers see the 3 large capacity deep fryers and instantly their darkest, deepest fried desires are triggered.  Mine is personally for Beignets, but Chin won’t do it.

3. Honey mustard sauce: I feel like we’re just being jerks by not having this…it is truly delicious.

2. Burgers: These come from the ones who have scanned our menu, noticed the word burger, noticed the fries and condiments and calculated that what we do is meat patties.  We get it…it’s confusing…what the FRIK is a burger sausage? It’s a frikandel and it’s everything you love in a burger and everything you love in a sausage, combined in delicious harmony.

….That said, one marriage of food attributes that we absolutely do not condone is our number 1 most requested menu item not on our menu…

1. Waffle fries: We have fries. We have waffles. We even have sandwiches and salads now…but never have we made, nor ever will we make waffle fries.  We kind of understand the mistake…but only vaguely…the two items are separate but equal items, and never to cross paths into a hybrid creation probably invented by the jealous brother of the guy who invented sweet potato fries…both inventors, might I add, sickos intent on ruining the integrity of the good ole fashioned Belgian fry or English chip or all American French Fry.

March 1st.

Crazy. In one year a lot has changed.

We’ve added to our menu- frikandel, sandwiches, salads and small bites.. We added beer.

We’ve been through 6- count them- 6 waffle irons!

We’ve changed our hours.

We’ve lost our downstairs painting (I’m not getting over that one…)

We’ve had the bathroom door kicked in, the bathroom handicap rail torn off the wall.

We’ve tweaked almost all of our recipes.

We’ve stopped serving fountain sodas.

…The list goes on…

So much more has changed in our first year. I guess all I’m saying is I can’t wait to see what Year Two brings.

We learned things break. A lot. Without warning.

And you can’t freak out. You have to deal with it- one problem at a time.

We learned how to cope with unexpected crap going wrong. Waffle iron broken? OMG what else is new?- we have like 3 backups. Freezer isn’t freezing? Just hit it really hard- it’ll pop back on. Outlet not providing electricity? Which circuit breaker controls that outlet? Someone broke the toilet paper holder off the wall in the bathroom? Seriously people.

Currently one of our fryers is broken. It was working just fine one night and the next morning it just doesn’t turn on. Ah well. Such is life. We have two other fryers, luckily.

Anyway, we learned how to repair some things on our own (just call me MacGyver). And we learned to keep certain phone numbers handy for repairs we can’t make on our own. Live and learn.

…What else have we learned?

Well, far too much about potatoes. I say it all the time- I know more about potatoes than I ever cared to learn.

We know that aged potatoes make better fries. We know that freezing the fries between fries makes the final fry crispier (figure out that riddle!). However, we also know overfreezing the fries makes them greasy- this has been a difficult lesson to learn. We learned how to semi-effectively combat this if unintentional overfreezing does occur.

We learned a lot about this season’s potato harvest, which I won’t bore you with.

Lastly, we learned what a rotten potato smells like… and what I would compare it to, I don’t feel like I can write on this blog. But take my word for it, it’s not the smell you would imagine. It’s much worse.

And with that disturbing thought, I leave you.

Now that we are on this side of 2012, we are realizing how close we are to coming up on a year old. We’re getting all nostalgic and teary-eyed. So here begins the Anniversary Series: a countdown to March 1st and our One Year. We are going to discuss what we’ve learned in the year, how we grew and what to expect from us.

Lesson One: Flexibility and Giving the People What They Want

We knew we wanted to start small and grow from there. We opened as frites and waffles (and of course all the homemade sauces). That was our vision.

Even though we knew going into it we wanted to eventually add to our menu, we didn’t know what direction we wanted it to take. It turns out, that was one of the smartest non-decisions we made. We ended up pretty much letting customers decide the direction of the menu. We listened to what people were asking for, what they wanted to eat for lunch/dinner/whenever, what they remembered from Belgium… And that’s what we added to the menu.

The frikandel was born of 1.Dutch people suggesting it specifically and 2. Dudes asking for MEAT late night.

The newest menu additions (coming on Monday) are croquettes (specifically asked for by multiple Belgians and Dutch customers, as well as a vegetarian option to satisfy those continual requests), chicken sate and beer braised chicken (I can’t count the number of times a customer has asked if there is anything chicken on the menu) …and the Sloppy Jacques- our own little risky (non-specifically requested) idea.

So…while we learned a lesson about being flexible with our menu and offerings, there is still much to learn in the coming year since we haven’t even introduced the new menu. We’ll keep learning and being flexible. Who knows what will happen next with our menu. Love it!

We will be closed tomorrow Jan. 1, 2012, New Years Day

Happy New Year!

Our answers always vary a little. We tell how we were laid off. How we decided not to get real jobs again and instead go for this crazy dream of ours. And how our family and friends kindly invested.

But here is what we don’t usually say… the E! True Hollywood story.

Most of our investors, the first ones to give us ca$h money and who really helped us initially get off the ground are kids our age- professional online poker players. Chin went to BU and got in with a group of kids who apparently decided to sit down and be serious and strategic about playing online poker. Crazy, I know, but they were earning more money than I’ve seen in my life. They sat down with us, let us spell out our own strategic plan and responded by writing some checks. And true to who they were, our meetings didn’t take place in board or conference rooms but in restaurants over good food, sometimes over a drink or two or three, and in one instance- in a cigar bar (naturally).

Not everyone who invested belongs to this underground group but the majority do. It’s a colorful story… In fact when one guy in particular wrote his baller check, he put it in this super serious poker set case, purposefully reminiscent of a brief case filled with money, but instead more tailored to his profession and when you opened it up just one small check inside. Good times.

Anyway, that’s who we are- a bunch of rag-tag amateurs who take what we do very seriously, funded by what is now illegal in the U.S. This was all done before it was illegal in the U.S., by the way.