She ran the kitchen here from '83 to '90, and has cooked and managed in San Francisco, Key West, and Chicago. In 1994 she returned to The Winds as General Manager, and to her absolute delight, a new partner in the restaurant. Wiley regards a restaurant as a deeply-felt environment full of color, excitement, comfort, the pleasure of food and drink, and the potential for encounter. Conversation really flows among people around a table, particularly when they're being well taken care of in a good restaurant. And anything that happens in life can happen here.
People cry a lot.
They get breakthrough ideas while eating lunch. Guests want a certain table for life because their water broke there during dinner, or they got engaged there years ago. One woman went off and forgot an envelope with a thousand dollars cash in it. Sometimes people fight, but warmth and laughter, even romance, are much more the norm. I've seen grumpy, silent teenagers start grinning and talking to their parents by the time they get to the chocolate mousse.