Done at Primo, wish I wasn't

On Thursday Lily and I sadly left our temporary home that was the employee parking lot at Primo. We'll miss the pigs, and plants, and of course the people the most. I learned so much in the kitchen, Lily learned a lot in the garden, and we ate so much great food during our stay. I can see myself working in that kind of restaurant for a long time, and I have a feeling we'll be back at Primo at some point, possibly to work and if not, definitely to eat.

After a couple days back home, I've been thinking a bit about my experience in Rockland and why Primo is so different than any other restaurant I have worked at before. I came to a realization that can be explained by some of the things the employees do when they are not at work:

One server named Evan is a mushroom foraging junky. Every nice-weather day before work, he heads to his spots in the forest and picks beautiful (and safe) wild mushrooms for the restaurant, which for the past couple weeks have been mostly big, red, beautifugly lobster mushrooms. Evan shows his daily catch to a couple of people every day, who in turn inquire about any recent mushroom turf-wars, prod him for his secret spots, and ask when chantarelles are coming up.

One day on a mutual day off, a couple of cooks headed to the ocean to pick sea beans, a sort of small sea-weed like plant that tastes like the salty sea grass. They brought in a bag full of sea beans to show Chef, with "look at what we got" expressions on their faces. Chef tasted one and nodded approvingly and thanked them. They went up to eat dinner at the bar and were taken care of as a reward.

We ate five wonderful meals at the bar during our stay. Each time we went up to the bar, there were at least two or three other Primo employees on their day off who came to eat dinner at the bar. One night, the whole bar was filled with Primo employees drinking good drink and eating great grub. These people love the food they cook or serve so much that they eat at their own restaurant regularly, at a frequency far beyond any other restaurant I have encountered. One night I grilled the grill cook (sorry) Jason about why he doesn't get "desensitized" from the food he cooks and sees all the time. He defends by saying the food at Primo is simply way better than any other options in the area, and instead of ordering something off the grill which he handles, cooks, smells, and sees every day, he just orders off the saute station.

I have come to the conclusion that most of the people at Primo share a common passion for food that extends beyond their hours at work. True, for a handful of people Primo is just a job to them like at any restaurant, but many employees are in Rockland, ME, or have stayed in Rockland, because of Primo.

-Wax