Bash Bowl 2023: Restaurant Impossible

This is the third and final week of Bash Bowl 2023! I'm pleased to announce that my team, Twisted Scissors, won last week and we're now tied 1-1 with the Scrappin' Banshees. This is the first page I made for Week 3: 

Restaurant Impossible (affiliate link)

Here is the playbook for this round: 

Ignoring the fact that "medias" makes me twitch, this was a very challenging assignment for me. I use circles regularly and chipboard occasionally, but the rest of the items rarely appear on my pages. And certainly not all of them on the same page. And unfortunately, chipboard letters were specifically disqualified; they account for 95% of my chipboard usage. I was not at all confident that I could make a page I liked with all the elements. But I did! 

Since circles and chipboard were the easiest, I started there. I chose a patterned paper with circles, then punched large circles from black cardstock. I added the two required "medias" (paint and mist) to the chipboard stars, then added some bonus glitter. That wasn't necessary, as the chipboard letters are my glitter element (since they couldn't be my chipboard element). I struggled with where to put ribbons and stitching, settling on white ribbons to anchor the circles and stitching on the ribbons (three stitches on each, for a grand total of 9 stitches - not a lot, but it counts!). 

This page tells the story of Steve and me appearing on an episode of Restaurant Impossible in 2021. I thought I'd blogged about it at the time, but apparently I didn't. While watching the show together one evening, Trevor said it would be really fun to be volunteers on Restaurant Impossible. He did the research and discovered they were recruiting for a restaurant in Berkeley two weeks from then. Unfortunately, they were shooting on a school day... plus volunteers had to be 18+. Trevor encouraged us to apply without him, which we did. We were selected, had to do COVID tests via FedEx, and arrived to KC's BBQ in Berkeley early on a Monday morning. After doing another COVID test and signing paperwork (in which we found out we would be paid $16+/hour for work we would have happily done for free), it was time for shooting. 

The producers lined all the diners up in front of the restaurant. We were in the back, but a Production Assistant moved Steve and me to the very front of the line! I was the first one through the door, the first to order, the first to receive food, the first to be interviewed on camera by a PA, and the first to have an interview with Robert Irvine. I figured we were pretty much guaranteed to be recognizable in the episode, unlike our time on Mythbusters. Fortunately, the kitchen was clean and we were able to eat the food. We'd been warned that we might not eat (or be allowed to finish our food, if we were the first served) if Robert had to shut down the kitchen. Overall, the restaurant wasn't that bad. The food was fine, but nothing I'd return for. The seating area was old and battered, but clean. 

After we ate and did our interviews, we had a quick orientation and then cleared everything out of the restaurant. Everything, including outlet covers and fixtures... everything. With that done, my next job was cleaning the bases of all of the tables and then taping off the silver part to prep them for paint. I helped sort through all the random stuff we'd removed from the restaurant, cleaned and painted the host stand, helped schlep panels, and did more cleaning. Steve spent most of the day puttying holes in the walls and helping to build banquette seating. We hardly saw each other since he was in the restaurant most of the time and I was outdoors amongst the work tents. Dinner was catered. Other than that break, we worked hard until 8:00 pm when we were released. They'd told us to expect it to go until 10:00 pm or later - sometimes they go until 2:00 am – but this was a small restaurant and there weren't any big surprises or obstacles, the weather cooperated, and for the most part everything went as planned.

Of course, it was really neat meeting the on-camera people. While Tom Bury and and I didn't exchange more than 2 or 3 words, I spent a lot of time talking with Taniya Nayak. It was great fun chatting with fellow volunteers Ro and Alicia, sisters who are aunts of the current owner. They had a lot of neat stories to tell and behind-the-scenes details to share. The whole experience was so much fun. 

Since we weren't part of the reveal/dining the following night, we visited the restaurant a few weeks later with Trevor to see it. We sat on the banquette Steve built and admired the host stand I painted and the cement boards I schlepped. It was fun recognizing all the little details. We ordered a lot of food so that we could try what we had before (which was improved) and some new stuff too. Unfortunately, even though they now sell their burnt ends instead of throwing them out (!!) they were sold out. Everything was very tasty, particularly the brisket tacos they'd added to the menu. We brought home more than we ate, but BBQ makes good leftovers.

While we had to wait literally years before our first Mythbusters episode aired, our Restaurant Impossible episode (Season 19 Episode 5) aired 3 months to the day after we filmed. And as predicted, we were definitely recognizable. In fact, we didn't know the episode had aired until friends (who didn't know we'd been on) messaged to say they'd seen us! As I said, the whole experience was awesome and I'm glad to finally have it documented both in the scrapbook and now on the blog.