Back to Our Roots

What is The Atom?

Who are we?

Where are we going?

These are questions that have been plaguing my brain for the past few months as I have been striving to find balance in my own life and the lives of my employees.

We have been so ambitious!  We’ve taken on events, fine dining, and catering over the past year.  And we’ve succeeded more than I ever dreamed with unique recipes, cooking methods, and creative problem solving. We’ve trained bakers, baristas, and cooks.  We’ve struggled to stay on top of inventory to create these recipes – which is a challenge living where we live, but we’ve done it.  We’ve experimented offering dishes on our dinner menu that we don’t typically see in this area.  And we’ve enjoyed being able to offer those things.

But the complexity of offering as many options as we do makes me reflect on our little bistro we had before we moved to our new location, because I think some may have forgotten that we are the same business.  The Atom has grown, but it still rides on the same frame it started with.  We don’t have a multifaceted team to keep these moving pieces working in tandem. Between me and my manager, Bryar, we handle all of the inventory, scheduling (we have almost 30 employees), creating of systems and procedures, bookkeeping, advertising, monitoring the website and socials, managing employees, settling conflicts, creating prep lists, and monitoring quality control.  We are still a very small business, but our outward appearance means the expectations from our customers is higher.  We receive much less grace from our customers and are held to a higher standard.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think much of my life I have thrived by creating something out of nothing.  Sewing clothes for my kids when I couldn’t afford to buy them.  Learning woodworking to turn scrap wood into bookshelves because that was the only way I would get them. Skills like drywall, painting, cabinetry, upholstery, and art – a way to elevate my life without breaking the bank.  If I want to do something, I take on learning that skill instead of hiring it out.

That’s how The Atom came to be.  That’s how our new building came to be. I had to learn coffee because I wanted a coffee shop in my photography gallery.  I had to learn commercial cooking because I wanted to offer sandwiches.  Every cabinet, every piece of drywall, every curtain, every piece of custom art or lighting – I have created – because I can.  I never really ask myself if I ‘should’.

Last fall we decided to take on a dinner menu, because we could.  And we did it.  We decided we would take this little bistro and turn it in to a hybrid restaurant and switch to fine dining in the evenings.  The table cloths came out, and I made custom menu covers from my old photography backgrounds.  I worked with my chefs to create a menu we could be proud of.  And we made some beautiful and tasty dishes.

There were times that I couldn’t believe what we had created.  But there were days that I thought I would never see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The strain of keeping up with a completely different menu was enough to keep me up at night – and enough to keep me from remembering what life used to feel like.

So, I started asking those questions.  Who are we?  What are we doing?  Where are we going?

I had already violated so many of my own rules.  The biggest one was “Know who you are.  Don’t try and be someone else. Do what you do and do it well.” I see too many restaurants trying to be everything to everybody.  And we all see too many restaurants fail.

 “Do what you do.  Do it well.”

The Atom has been known for our amazing breakfasts and lunch.  Our homemade bread was a gamechanger for us when we honed in that recipe in 2019.  And we’ve since added our own homemade cinnamon rolls, banana bread, gluten free bread, flatbreads, and cakes.  We use only the freshest ingredients, creative homemade sauces, spreads, and dressings.  Our soups sell out regularly, and our burritos keep us hopping.  We’ve nailed that menu, and we know it well… because it is US.

But I fell victim to the multiple requests we had for a ‘dinner menu’ when we moved to our new building and extended our hours.

“We need more nice dinner places to eat out here!”

My response should have been, “Yes!  You should do that!”  But I’m a people pleaser and a self-doubter at my core.  So I thought…Maybe we should!  We can!  We can learn it!  Let’s do it! 

We did it.

And I’m so proud of what we accomplished, but at the end of the day, The Atom is a casual bistro.  That’s where my brain lives.  That’s where I rest.

Today, we are finding our way back to our roots. We will serve breakfast burritos all day, regular breakfasts until 2pm, and our Sandwiches, Wraps, Salads, and Tacos all day long.  It makes me smile just putting that down on paper.  We will still run dinner specials, because we can, and because we actually enjoy making the occasional pasta or steak or tri-tip or meatloaf.  We will still do catering, because we can, and we enjoy that as well. But day to day, we are choosing the simpler route. Because we know who we are.

We are The Atom.  We are a Coffee Bar and Bistro.   We do what we do.  And we do it well.