A Mission Statement in the Making – A Balancing Act.

Our First Goal was to create a new business model and see if it survived.
Our Immediate Goal now is to become a Lexington Landmark…
Our vision is a Balagula Brand on the back of your shirts all over the country. This is in direct contradiction to one of our most successful slogans: “Definitely, too weird to franchise.” Therein lies one of our balancing acts.

Our perpetual business strategy is experimental and somewhat theatrical. Experimental by necessity, since we’re not a franchise, we need to continually try out new systems, ways of doing business, test our assumptions and incorporate fresh ideas. We have to be willing to experiment. Theatrical to us implies changeable, flexible, and expressive and dictates decisions in design and management that allows for flexibility and play. The space was designed with theater in mind – the service area was a set. Merging the disparate operating systems of Buffet at lunch and fine dinning in the evening took some creative thinking. Having jazz on one night, theater on another, buying dresses and having dinner in the same space was the result of balancing, merging and living with some contradiction all supported by our own little theater model of business. After the initial 10 years three companion businesses emerged: restaurant, retail and internet mail order. In 2001 we moved downtown into our current space or should I say set.

Designing and decorating a space for us was a process that expressed our business strategy of balancing -- a tug of war between function and aesthetics, between what customers experience who stop by for an hour or so and what we experience being in the space for much longer periods of time. The theater model helped us through this process. The emphasis became what the customer experienced rather than consumed and carried away and for us in business, understanding that we play roles and we shouldn’t take them (ourselves) too seriously.

Our perpetual business philosophy is contradictory but delicious.

This is where we work. “We cook and plan menus. We wash dishes and sing opera, do therapy, clean and clean and clean, solve all our relationship problems, make speeches and even hide......from the public. We pick products, pack boxes, file little papers and answer the phone. We have our fights and our quiet times here at work.. This is where we deal with the Incoming and Outgoing........food and supplies, money and garbage. The kitchen is a process...like life.... a place you pass through finding out who you are.......maybe.” So our perpetual goal is to find out who we are and help others do the same and have all that happen in a very beautiful space around very delicious food on a table. That’s the inside story. All businesses have two stories, however, two results, one for the people who work there and one for the customers who go there. How does our life at work fit into this community – who are these customers, anyway, I could get a lot of personal growth accomplish without customers, right? . Here are a few thoughts:

Through out the centuries culture has always happened around food.
In community, celebrations and memorials are centered around food in the kitchen - or around a campfire - That’s where culture happens. Where we prepare our foods, tell (and invent) our stories, have family fights, engage in and honor certain customs and remember our pasts - or at least maybe a humorous anecdote from the day before.

In acknowledging that we want to accommodate it. Which means do we really need to turn every table three times a night? Stay a while. Enjoy conversation. That’s why we have music after 9, so our customers can talk. Book clubs, family reunions,
knitting clubs and first dates, proposals and performances both private and public all happen in our restaurant. Business indeed can be considered a cultural experience. Being aware of all this it’s natural for us to incorporate theater, music and social activities into the rhythm and space of the business. That’s us, a modern day camp-fire experience both for us who work here and those who visit. Where’s the contradiction?

Living with cash flow, profit loss statements, loan payments, payroll, health insurance, tax deductions, deferred depreciation, equity positions, partnership agreements, LLC, S corporations, trademark attorney, intellectual property lawsuits, consultants, cash flow, lines of credit. Yes, we do all of this too and have yet made an art of it. The contradiction stands blissfully unresolved.

Just a note of retail:
Our retail philosophy is somewhat contradictory. We would like to see our lives as more than linear journeys thru a consumer landscape of collecting stuff, stuff we can’t take to the grave. In this sense we hope that you buy less from us or from anybody -- Less and more thoughtful. Is it possible to simultaneously promote less shopping less neurotic buying and less habitual consuming and still feel good about advertising, sales and merchandising that are designed to encourage more buying. I did say contradictory? We would like the buying experience to be more about learning and lifestyle, meaningful giving; and, eating to be more about tasting and seeing than filling your face. So, in lieu of resolving this contradiction we simply and merrily do both.