How the Birchwood’s new owner will celebrate one year in business today (Hint: She never stops working)

[one_third]Even though she had 16-plus years of experience in the restaurant and catering business under her belt, Danielle Sessa knew owning her own place would be different.

What Sessa didn’t know when she bought the Birchwood restaurant in 2014 was just how how different owning her own place would be. First, there was the $600,000-plus in renovations to the place and new equipment it needed. Then, there was the fact that she’d have to oversee three different businesses, really — the bar, the restaurant and the catering hall. A year into it, she looks back and marvels at how each has grown — especially the catering business.

“We did more than 200 parties in our first year,” Sessa said, sitting at a desk piled with papers, catalogues, menus and register receipts in a tiny, cluttered second-floor office. “When we first started our brunch, we had 20 or 30 people. Last Sunday, we had 200.” She’s already booked 500 guests for Thanksgiving dinner — thee will be seven seatings — up from 200 last year.

By any measure, Sessa’s incarnation of the Birchwood of Polish Town has enjoyed success in its first year of operation.

“It’s exceeded my expectations,” she said. “The numbers have been great.The way we’ve been embraced by the community has been great. The feeling is great. I love it here,” she said, smiling with satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

“I’ve got a staff now that’s all the right people and they are like family,” she said.

The hired help joins Sessa and her own immediate family in the trenches — her dad Frank and sister Angie work the floor, her brother Frankie and mother Jacqueline are in the kitchen.

For her part, Sessa does whatever needs doing. “I’m very hands-on,” she said this afternoon, sitting in her cramped upstairs office, where she’d been entering cash register receipts into Quickbook. When she’s not doing the bookkeeping, ordering food and supplies, creating menus and planning parties, she’s on the floor of the restaurant helping with table service, in the kitchen overseeing meal preparation, pitching in behind the bar when it’s busy, and even working the line serving food at a catered affair.

“For me, that’s what it’s all about — experiencing first hand what people think of the food you serve, the service you provide,” she explains. “I want to serve you my food myself,” she says.

Sessa takes it all very personally. “When we host a party — when they walk into the room for the first time and see what you’ve done for them,” she pauses and looks off at the image she’s just conjured. “The look they get on their faces. That’s what I live for.”

A perfectionist workaholic, Sessa spends just about every waking moment working. Even her “down time” is spent watching Food Network and cooking shows because, she explains, “I’m always looking for new ideas.” Even at 2 a.m. Luckily Sessa doesn’t require a lot of sleep; she averages just four to six hours a night. “My mind just won’t shut down. I should be asleep but I’m in bed on my computer looking for certain table linens.” She laughs. “It’s just who I am.”

The giant leap of faith she took a year ago required guts, drive and a sense of adventure — as anyone blessed (or cursed) with an entrepreneurial spirit will tell you. For Sessa, who turned 34 this summer, it was also a statement about coming into her own as a woman — owning and operating her own business in what is still considered “a man’s world.”

The rewards have been many. But probably one of the greatest rewards of all so far, she says, has been watching her sister Angie grow with the business. Angie, who turns 30 in December, has Down’s syndrome. Though she’s worked at McDonald’s, Angie has really blossomed working in a family business that she’s got a personal stake in. She began by helping out with behind-the-scenes chores. Then she started bussing tables. From there she went to filling and serving bread baskets and water glasses.

One very busy night, when Sessa was short-handed, Angie saw that her sister needed help. On her own, she took a table’s drink order. Then another table’s dessert order.

“To some people that may seem like no big deal, but for Angie, who struggles with reading and writing — that’s her biggest challenge — it was a very big deal,” Sessa recalls, her eyes growing moist. “Watching her grow this past year has been the best thing of all.”

The Birchwood of Polish Town celebrates its first anniversary in business today. But the celebration will go on without any fanfare from its owner. She’s got Thanksgiving dinner for 500 to worry about, after all. Right down to the most minute detail.