| My husband, George and I talked for many years about opening up a restaurant where he would do the cooking and I would do anything but the cooking. We spent many evenings sitting on our screened-in porch, sipping a glass of wine and visualizing how our dream would be. Needless to say, the reality turned out to be quite different from our fantasy.
I remember talking about having live music on the weekends and dancing together in our own restaurant, making new friends with customers, and leisurely enjoying the fruits of George's cooking labors. I don't remember much discussion about hard work, long hours, and lots of stress. The reality has been a combination of both, mixed in with some hilarious moments, incredible adrenalin highs, and feelings of pride and accomplishment.
Many people want to know how we got the name ShoeBooties. It's from an "All In The Family" episode where Archie and his son-in-law were accidentally locked in the basement together. To keep warm, they started drinking the homemade wine Edith had put up which loosened Archie's tongue and he began reminiscing about being a child during the Depression.
He said his family was so poor he didn't have a matching pair of shoes to wear to school, so he had to wear one shoe and one boot and the kids would make fun of him and call him "Shoebootie". There was something about the sound of it that we really liked and it became a nickname in our family. We always thought it would be a great name for a nightclub and pictured it in a bold script on a large red neon sign across the top of a building.
When it came time to open our restaurant, we took a family vote and it was unanimous - everyone wanted to call it ShoeBooties. After field testing the name on extended family and friends without one favorable reaction, we were a little hesitant, but decided to stick with it. We did add the word "Cafe" so that people wouldn't think it was a shoe store. Now we can't imagine it being called anything else. |
