A guest brought his two-year-old son to allmine and later wrote a review about the highchair waiting at their table. He could have left that detail out. Instead, he wanted us to know he noticed we had thought about his family before they arrived.
I loved that. When you spend your days looking after someone, it feels good to find that someone has looked after you, too. Before dinner begun, they had one less thing to arrange. We knew they were coming, and we had made room.
That kind of feeling is what brings us back to certain people and places. With each visit, we have a little less explaining to do and more room to be ourselves. Eventually, choosing where to go includes knowing who will be glad to see us and how we’ll feel when we arrive.
This week, the Oceanside Chamber named me Entrepreneur of the Year, recognizing the relationships and connections I’ve helped build. I’m proud of that honor, and it has made me appreciate the people who turn my hopes for allmine into the welcome you receive. My name is on the award, but someone on our team read that reservation and had the highchair ready. They understood what mattered and cared enough to act.
I believe that entrepreneurship begins with seeing what people can bring to one another and creating the conditions for that to happen. Chef Sid and our kitchen team give people food worth returning for. Lila and our service team help them settle in and enjoy being here. My responsibility is to give that work direction while making sure the people doing it feel trusted, supported, and valued themselves.
I see this throughout Oceanside, at the Chamber, at MainStreet Oceanside, and in our neighboring businesses. People make introductions, offer help, and remember to follow up. A town becomes a community through people taking an interest in one another.
allmine is not a restaurant.
At least, that word feels too small for everything I hope can happen here. It is a community space that happens to sell pizzas, where a meal gives us a reason to gather and relationships give us a reason to return.
Our book club makes this tangible. Women who began as strangers meet once a month, yet already they feel like friends to one another and to me. There is a month of living between those evenings, but we have somewhere to return to and a conversation to pick up.
We begin with the book and find ourselves talking about life. Someone recognizes herself in a character’s decision. Another reads about beginning again and considers something she still wants to do. As we explain what moved us, we reveal a little of ourselves. The next time we meet, we know more than each other’s names.
This month, we’re reading Notes of Deception, the true story of four American musicians who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985 to connect with Jewish dissidents denied permission to leave. Under KGB surveillance, they carried information hidden in musical notation.
On October 20, Merryl Goldberg, the saxophonist who devised that code and coauthored the book, will join us at allmine.
What a privilege to have Merryl at our table, hearing her tell a story she risked so much to live. I’m grateful we get to share this evening with her, and I would love for you to join us.
Her story offers an extraordinary example of people using what they know to reach others. That impulse gives purpose to our everyday work, too. We have something to offer, and someone whose life might be better because we offered it.
Sometimes we learn how much it mattered through a few words about a highchair.
I am in awe of my team, and grateful they choose to allmine every day. Perhaps it deserves to be a verb: to take care with what you do because you understand who it matters to. They give it meaning each time they look after a guest or one another.
And you help make it a community each time you return, bring a friend, or share something of yourself at our table. The award carries my name, but what I’m proudest of is what we are building together: somewhere people can feel expected, included, and glad they came. We’ve been waiting for you.
Roxana and your allmine family
