Reflection and Renovation Ramblings

Every year I have a goal of starting to blog regularly, I have loads of ideas and half written blogs but never seem to manage to prioritize finishing them or getting them posted. Maybe 2025 is the year, but I won't start this blog by saying this is the year - maybe that's the trick!

I thought I would start this year off with a blog on reflection. At the end of a year and the beginning of a new year, I think it's natural to reflect but also to look forward at what's ahead. At the end of 2024 I found myself reflecting quite a bit not only on 2024, but on the last decade.

January 2015 I headed off to Ballymaloe Cookery School to attend their intensive twelve week course. When I decided to go to culinary school it wasn't with the thought of working in food, it was just to follow a passion and continue to learn. Not to mention, it was never with the intention of starting a business. I think back to Ballymaloe often and how it changed the path I was on, then 27 I had no idea what was ahead. I started to dream up starting a cooking school about four weeks into the course - about ten years ago to date!

When I started the business, I had a vision, passion, drive and support but not much else. I am so fortunate that the business (then the Ruby Apron) took off and set me up for what was next, learning the ins and outs of running a business, trying new things and learning the importance and value of pivoting and adapting, and always being willing to learn.

The first five years of business were wildly different to the next five years. Ask any business owner what it was like to run a business through a global pandemic, and they'll tell you it was a challenge like they'd never faced. Awn Kitchen opened in Lansdowne smack dab in the middle of it all. I remember through the thick of things when the café was still open people would often say to me, “you must be doing something right,” and those words although they came with well intention, were like a dagger in my side - I was surviving. If you're new here, you can read more about the café and the decision to close it here.

Right, back to the point of this blog! After closing the café it took a while for it to sink in - how big it was that I had opened a café (during a pandemic!), and how big it was that I was able to step back and say, this isn't working. But more than that, how great it was that I had built a business where I wasn't going to lose it all. The café truly was meant to be part of the Awn Kitchen story, and without it I don't think the business would have survived the pandemic but, closing it was also the best decision I've made to date as a business owner. There were lots of bits and pieces to figure out after closing the café, things to sell, organizing and revamping the space. Although I walked through the door nearly every day for a year walking through the café I didn't quite know what was next for Awn. When December hit, I realised I could no longer say, “I closed the café at the end of last year…” it had now been a year. It clicked for me, it was time to do something, but what?

Change is always scary - a million what ifs? But it felt like time. When I get an idea in my head it goes from something small to go time with little time in between. Ha! So once classes were done for 2024 we worked to clean, organize and prep the space for a renovation that was set to start on January 2. If you've been to Awn before, you know that it's basically two rooms, the front half (which was the café) and the back half (the workshop), and there is a doorway that separates the two. It all started with the idea that the space would be opened by getting rid of the doorway. The contractor fell through which felt like the most overwhelming thing - the space was a mess, and I still had a business to run. I met with a few other contractors and pricing came in way too high. My brother Scott (who I think felt a bit bad for me!), showed up the morning of Friday, January 3 to talk things through and one thing led to another, the space was now not only a mess but a full-blown construction zone. I taught my first class that afternoon, thankfully the construction zone was in the front half of the space. I bribed him with cinnamon buns and reminded him that he started something that needed to be finished. He spent the weekend tearing apart cabinets and getting things set up.

It takes a village it wasn't just Scott that helped, friends and family jumped in - running errands, listening to my ideas, helping me put ideas together, painting, decorating, de-cluttering, donating, cleaning… All while classes were still running, it was a lot of moving things back and forth (never buy chairs that don't stack!), we taught one class without flooring up front and one class without base boards, but it all came together with a mural and the final touches being completed over the next few weeks.

So what did we do? I said it started with the doorway, and it did - which in the end is still there. But the other big thing was making more space for larger groups but still having a space that was comfortable and warm for our regular classes where we have groups of 8 - 10. The front had a u-shaped island which was home to the espresso machine, and really, other than redecorating, the main thing we did was break that u-shaped island apart leaving one section of it to use as a buffet. Our dining table was in the workshop which was moved up front along with adding a second table. We reused the cabinets from up front to build a small island to fill the space where the table originally was, which makes for more workspace, but also just more counter space and might just be one of my favourite changes. My cousin Alyssa painted a topographical mural along the main front wall, and we added lots of plants and lamps to brighten and warm the space up. We re-used as much as we could and I brought things in from home that have meaning to me.

I really think this might be my favourite version of my business to date, and I am so excited for the opportunities this space holds. But more than that, I am excited for all the lovely meals I get to host and all the people I get to meet because of this wee business of mine. When I told customers in 2019 that I was expanding the biggest question was, “how will you replicate this?” This being, a home kitchen and the feeling that came with that - I worked hard to replicate it when we opened here in 2021, and the workshop does feel homey, but the front was definitely a commercial space - and now I think it's the best of both worlds. Here's to the next decade of business.