Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

eryone a part of the service experience from the dishwasher to the cooks, bartenders and servers; everyone runs the food and interacts with guests. Everyone feels like they are a part of the entire experience, and it also allows us to tip everyone. Gardner: The flip side of that, too — we’ve both worked fine dining where I’m making this $40 plate and getting paid $10/hr and the server walks in, works half the time, and is pulling down $70,000 a year. So we also wholeheartedly believe that the tips should be shared by all the staff. I think an effect we weren’t anticipating is that, since so much of the time with guests isn’t consumed by the rote ordering, staff have more time to interact with the customers. In some ways, I think it ends up be ing a more intimate experience, despite the technology, because there are actual conversations happening on a human-to-human level. EBR: Speaking of human levels, do you two get a night off? Naylor: We typically work from 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. to midnight or 1 a.m. We are getting to the point where Sundays are kind of our off day —we pop in for an hour or so and do some inventory and general admin work, but otherwise we try and take our dog for a walk and be persons. EBR: Is it hard to dissociate and not talk shop? Naylor: I feel like, for most of our relationship, we’ve been working to gether, whether or not it’s been in restaurants or on the truck or whatever else we’ve been doing. Work and not work kind of meld together. It never feels like, oh, we’re just talking about work. It’s kind of fun to figure it out together, while throwing in jokes and talking about non-related work things. Gardner: I think we’re also lucky to have established a work dynamic to gether before a romantic dynamic, because I think doing it in the reverse would probably have created a lot more friction. EBR: Both of you aren’t even 30; do you ever just stop and think, wow, I can’t believe how far we’ve come? Naylor: We did think about it the other day and were like, this is insane!

When we think back to the days of our pizza pop-ups, where we had an oven that was definitely too heavy to be on a trailer … and somehow it worked; it got us here. Gardner: At least with the pizza pop-up and the food truck, the buck kind of stopped with us, and at the end of the day it was mostly our own butts on the line. But with this, it was an experience of having a staff of 20 people —many of which were total strangers to us — willing to put their trust in us. It’s been incredibly humbling. EBR: Last question: when you do go out for food, what are your go-to spots? Naylor: Honestly, we eat a lot at Riverside [Lunch]. Gardner: A lot of taco trucks. Naylor: A lot of taco trucks; the one outside Reid’s Grocery is probably our favorite.

Umma’s is open Wednesday-Thursday: 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday: 5 p.m.-12 a.m. Saturday: 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. 20 W Water St Charlottesville, VA 22902

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