finalizing a menu, oh wait, I mean ten menus.

This has been a long and arduous journey. I was, at first, excited to do either a menu or a CD layout. I was then excited to do a menu layout for Beachwood BBQ, which is one of the best restaurants in the town/city/state/country/planet/solar system/etc. In fact, it is probably up there with Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which may or may not have fantastic food but is the best atmosphere you could ever imagine.

Then I began the project and discovered that the ideas I liked the most were among the least favoured of my designs. I put this down to a misunderstanding between myself and my class/mates/professor as to exactly what kind of restaurant Beachwood BBQ is: dry barbecue. That's the bare bones. If you go to their site, you will quickly ascertain that they have a retro theme - if you go the restaurant first, you will look at their site, logo, and menus askance. What on earth do they have to do with the actual restaurant?

Nothing.

Beachwood BBQ focuses largely on beer. They have a pegboard with their rotating draft beers... complete with a live webcam. Um. Big on beer. But that's not to say that they are a pub or bar (ignoring the half that is a bar, because we are going to ignore it, okay?). They're kind of classy without intention, kind of elegant in a rustic, earthy way, and kind of - kind of - retro in that some of their decor is retro (by which I mean one clock, and the colours of their dishware, kind of).

And the food

is

amazing.

I rarely even eat the barbecue, I'm so in love with some of their appetizers. And who can say no to a restaurant that not only has wild boar meatloaf, but also alligator and tasso stew (yeah, get back to you when I try these - I think my brother and/or dad had the meatloaf)?

Anyway. Enough talking. So much work, so little in the way of satisfactory results, here is what I am doing tonight, fingers crossed this turns out amazing:

I grabbed everything I could find (that might be useful) from

around the house.

Before you say anything, Mom, I kept it contained
so none got on the carpet.

mm shells

Tea stainin' a message in a bottle. Several bottles, actually,
but here's one.

where I'm at so far (actually farther, but I'm lazy. I mean,
I want to surprise you!).