At around 12:30pm on April 19, I received a message from our front of house in Darlington.
“Kuya, we’re still alive. I have to cut kitchen service by 12:45pm. We’re out of food.”
I was in Flemington at the time, in the middle of Filofomo Fest with Kariton Gelato. Vinny and I were talking to customers, serving drinks, scooping gelatos, checking on things, making sure everything was running the way it should.
I paused for a bit when I read it.
Wait, was it a miscalculation? Did we underestimate this day? Maybe. We always try to prepare enough. Stretch what we can. Anticipate the flow of a Sunday.
But to be honest, yesterday wasn’t just a Sunday.
Taguan Darlington was running its usual service. At the same time, we were out in Flemington for the festival. And later that evening, we had our pub kitchen takeover at Lord Gladstone in Chippendale with Sip and Spin.
Three different spaces. Three different setups. All moving at once. It really did feel like everything, everywhere, all at once.
And by the end of it, all of them sold out.
By the time the day was done, it didn’t feel like a miscalculation anymore. It felt like something else entirely.
Gratitude.
Because for us to run out across all those spaces means people showed up. Not just once, but across the city. Different places, different crowds, but somehow the same energy carried through all of them.
It’s easy to measure a day like that in numbers. Plates served. Drinks made. Tickets closed. Things sold out. But that wasn’t what stayed with me.
What stayed was seeing the same feeling move through different rooms. A shared understanding of what we’re trying to build.
To feel at home, wherever you are.
Not just in Darlington. Not just at a festival. Not just inside a pub kitchen. But anywhere we go and maybe that’s what home has started to mean for us. Not a fixed place. Not a complete menu. Not even everything going perfectly. Just people.
The ones who work with us. The ones who keep showing up. The ones who somehow move in the same direction, even when everything feels scattered.
The day after, we were tired. A little short on a few things. Still catching up. But moments like that remind me that even when things run out, something else fills up.
Even in the chaos, even in the noise, you can still choose to be here. You can still choose to care. Maybe we’re all just trying to make sense of it.
A little like Jobu Tupaki staring into the bagel. But instead of falling into it, we stayed.
Kinaya natin today.