Refurbished Emzara's

well good morning everyone we're down here you know I'm having problems you know the problems on my heaven I've spent on all this food how am I gonna talk with all this food that smells so good okay I'm down here at Emma's aras restaurant and Zara's kitchen we call it it's a 1500 seat restaurant downstairs upstairs be one of the biggest restaurants in North in North America some down here at M Zara's restaurant I have with me Dan Anderson and then your position here so okay so we had some reconnection products okay so I'm the vice president of operations for the museum in the arc and we have just refurbished I mean we've only been open what a year and a half right but we actually had not finished MSR as a restaurant correct so we put a floor on it it it's actually a vinyl floor it looks just like wood yeah and we do that upstairs as well and we're really doing this whole place up and look at the buffet the beautiful buffet in the middle we actually turned it into a buffet restaurant and we were using these temporaries sort of buffets on wheels but now we've been building in my face that's right we're really close to the finish and we get rave reviews oh yeah the food here is the food here is so fresh yeah I mean even if I don't like chicken I'm not a chicken person I don't eat chicken I hate chicken but I will eat the chicken down here that's good because actually you don't use frozen chicken nope fresh chicken fresh chicken it's hand brother hand bread and there's cooked in a pressure cooker roasted yes and it is it's very moist it's not you know it seals it in it's not like what I call hotel chicken you know when you go to those meals at hotels yeah it's right off this piece of dried start on a plate it's got no taste you know it's really moist it's really tender it's really good but it's gonna have a look at the buffet here and the prices people can't get over the prices so what's an adult so adults $13.99 and that's all you can eat and that includes drinks hot and cold drinks and dessert dessert which includes ice cream yep that's right soft-serve ice cream ice cream and other desserts yes and for senior citizen ten nine 9 and again all-you-can-eat including dessert and drink and then for kids 699 so I don't think you can get a deal out there like that at any other theme bars no duel no do and let's have a look here we'll go over you want to shake them to the buff guy over here and we're actually right now building a whole new buffet line as well because there's so popular we're building a whole new buffet line down the back here right and in closing in the kitchen there so I'm modifying all of that that's under construction right here we have a temporary buffer line in front but that should be ready by what next week yeah they actually you can see a piece of countertop sitting there right now so that means they're putting the counters on the counters or quartz so really yes they're beautiful countertops so maybe we can get a little peek it looks like there's a nice sitting right in the middle there's even get a pig this is the one that's under construction and oh I see it yes yeah so there you get a little glimpse as to what's going to what's going to be there and so this will take the place of these temporary ones here yes this whole run here this whole length here is a total of 54 buffet wells 54 by faith and then there's additional 58 over here is gonna double yeah holy so let's let's poke around this I want you people to see what we do here at Ark encounter and why this is so popular so we can see the vegetables and yes you've got to Eric and cheese our own recipe corn and you got Pollock here Jen everything here like the pot roast is actually hand roasted it's not a it's not a already made product so they put different names on depending what you have each day yes mm-hmm so those riblets look good don't they yeah they do we have met met worst and sauerkraut we have red skin potatoes - chicken yes that's the chicken even we other than chick-fil-a right we yes I think so we go through a lot of chicken it's pretty amazing how much chicken all and they consumed in the day here and then 50 then so we reduced the chicken population here yeah so and then the seller you've got your your cold side here which is your fresh salad bar and that extends all the way around there's two soups today they're still getting those out here as they set up for the day yeah the buffets opening here in just a moment because the people I'm in here yet so and these these are the salads we make these by hand these are pasta salad and a pea salad and then there's a superfood salad down here which is kale so give it another what our and this whole pool be full and PL be going upstairs everything upstairs there's thousands of people coming every day and everybody wants to come here and I see people starting to come yeah because it's opening here in a moment so there's the superfood salad that's nuke and it's really good what is it it's a kale superfood salad all right and then the reasons are the carrot-raisin salad we make here as well so it's not just out of a tub so we do a lot of fresh stuff for you mm-hm you know what I might do here is what I normally do I go to my Facebook and a home along and see what questions are out from people all right so we will do that as we're going around here so let's continue on here and so you know we call that in Australia call that beetroot yeah we just got beets here you just call it baits here and there's it's actually a good reason why those beets are there because I saw ruminates Ren likes them so it's pickled beets yeah well they're yeah they're kind of Anna sure I love pickled beets I've got a little wing to them they're good okay that's our the same the chicken is so good the buffet is delicious we were just up there in March and so let's see what else they're saying here great value buffet is good and reasonably priced super food yum-yum okay so we got saying some come and said let's walk around this and look at our own fabricators built this didn't they yes this was all done in-house it's all going to have very professional the cabinets were all handmade at our facility these are not you can't buy these try and buy these cabinets here the cabinets are all handmade and they built the entire thing here maybe we could get a bit of a look down here see all the heat lights you know we had to bring as well we had to bring an extra 400 amps of service in the building just to handle just ahead of a thing like lights that's right and Oh what we're starting to see people coming in now and getting ready for this I definitely want to thank Tim Wallingford Harry and his crew these guys really worked hard on this it looks gorgeous someone said why not walk the whole line and comment on the dishes as you go well we've been doing that actually yeah those are our sliders right there those are really popular they're Certified Angus beef cheeseburgers and then we've got the fries next to there those are um they have a coating on them but they're really tasty they're called Sidewinder fries I love those blender fries yeah I'm addicted to them they're really good I've made out my addicted to them and mash pairs of gravy the baked beans are smoked on our smoker you know we can see people getting ready someone asked about desserts well actually the dessert lines right now they're building new dessert yes these are temporary ones for the moment and there is stuff out so noise they still haven't got the names on they just getting ready to get the night no my guests who say all the things that currently folks to eat the regular food first before they have a dessert yeah yeah well as well as the different desserts that they put out yeah and we change that we're going to be changed some of the desserts and some cobblers and some other homemade things and then of course the soft-serve ice cream is is really really but kids love this officer yeah the kids love this also and as we come around here you can see the drink machines and then we have these temporary lines down here until we get the new ones open yeah as you can see so and then the the Pepsi machines now have ice makers on top so we then so now we don't have to worry about everybody's got the nice when they need it somebody here said we were just there last week everything was delicious highly recommend this restaurant someone said where's the lamington yeah they don't make Australian desserts here unfortunately aren't they up to talk to them but we have a massive kitchen in there yeah they're I mean compared to other restaurants it's huge we do a lot of food for the rest of the park in here too plus we run any catering meals out of here as well so they're just getting ready to put the new boppy lines in there and that'll be yeah it'll look just like this line Steve's arts and all just like these new lines here and will double our capacity is what it will do right all right because then and look at that it opens here at 11 o'clock and already people are pouring in of course we prepare all this food just so just all the APS known we prepare this food for nobody that's right because nobody comes no it's pretty sad we put it out then we up take it all back and in the kitchen there and they're preparing like crazy now cooking all this food for no one yes that's right all that corn breads for nobody yeah so even the corn bread we just put that the show we make it from scratch that well Danielle corn bread add that yet jalapeno really is really good that's jalapeno corn red with honey glaze on the top honey honey going I love honey wow you do that really that sweet yes that's sweet so you make all that who yourself yes yeah Kelly and her team make a lot of stuff from scratch someone said are they healthy options they're all healthy oh yeah oh yeah we matter of fact we rotate things in and out the broccoli steamed there's there's all kinds of gluten-free options you just have to eat and we can help guide you steamed broccoli lots of vegetables the carrots there's pasta with marinara sauce there's all kinds of things you need depending on your diet just ask us and we'll help out do that out we we try to do whatever we came for people accommodate people comma date people they see those little buttons down there yeah underneath the wells yeah we put in a new call button system so as we expand these all the way around they push the button when they take a pan of food out and that tells the kitchen to replenish it Oh real so it shows up on a screen back there that tells them I just took the backup of broccoli they start bringing broccoli out so we don't have to run back and forth and figure it out you know I didn't even know that yeah that's a new I'm the president I didn't know that's a new development we just started installing them and we've been testing the system out so eventually every pan of food will have its own button that's incredible yeah master yeah so and then we have the lifts over there today I think you know we're just putting in you see behind the curtains there but this is a lift to go up to the second floor that's right and it'll be poor handicapped people for wheelchairs and so on I mean there's plenty of room here on the first floor but right the second floor is amazing up there too yeah now that we have these yes but those are going away we'll be doing regular dishes regular dishes regular knives and forks so we're getting rid of all the plastic and we're really upgrading this entire restaurant in a massive way yes which is really things got a lot of work but the guys really chipped a you know you know what I've been places like Disney and other places to be honest I haven't experienced a buffet at the quality of food like this someone said vagin or dairy-free please is it well label for those with food sensitivity yes and you can ask anybody we're actually redoing all the labels but you can ask any employee we have we can direct you to what whatever your particular needs are we can direct you to it so especially on the look on the label and it'll tell you what's vegan and what's not okay visited last October and the buffet is wonderful could have started the tour with a buffet and worked off some calories and hit it again all being said and done at the arc just shows that God provides yeah we tried to do things in the best possible way so someone said not vague and yum-yum so there's someone who's vague into someone not there yet but we're getting all the labels done so that people will be able to know what's what's vague and what's not and there's food for everyone so if you just want steamed vegetables we have that if you want salad fresh salad we have that if you want fried chicken does that this fish is ha gross and outside because we have the smokehouse so we have the smokehouse with smoked brisket smoked salmon smoked pork smoked pork and then we're in West Village you can get actually West milling a lot of fun oh really yeah we're working on that right now so because you know thousands of people coming here every day and having a big impact on Northern Kentucky okay but this hungry this is I mean we're setting a standard here for buffets I mean really well Kelly our food service director and she really talks to her folks about I don't want to taste good I wanted to taste excellent so she actually makes them taste their food when they do the recipe for the first time oh really they have to taste everything before they understand how to prepare it so we have some really great people here and by the way we are right now in need of seasonals to come and be employed here hey even if you know it could be college student certainly have to sign our statement of faith it's it's an abridged version the fundamentals of Christianity for seasonals it's not the same as the statement of faith for the full-time managers and so on but we employ Christians here and because we're a Christian organization and they need to exhibit Christian grace and everything that they do so because of who we are but we do need seasonal workers you know even someone who maybe has dropped their kids off at school and I've got three or four hours away they can come and work for those three and if you're into culinary arts we do a lot of stuff from scratch so you'll learn a lot from our guys not just old frozen stuff and all over something there was a lot of stuff here which I think people really really appreciate someone said we actually drove seven hours one way for this food looks delicious what is the cost well and the cost is we you know I I go to some of these secular attractions and you feel like you just ripped off and buying a ticket and then you ripped off buying food that nine dollar hamburger yeah exactly what's the price here it's thirteen ninety nine for adults again that's all you can eat that's includes dessert drink and coffee if you like hot beverages it's thirteen ninety nine for adults 1099 for seniors and $6.99 for kids I mean that's incredible I mean you have a buffet of this size of this quality made from scratch food and drinks and dessert I think that's absolutely are phenomenal and that's what we want to do actually we're also doing some additional things at the Creation Museum are we yeah we've we just added a soup and salad area down in Palm Cafe that's just really been popular the soups are all in there the other they're all really hearty and well made and then the sandwiches you know the grilled cheese you can get a grilled cheese and tomato bisque it's just delicious okay how about if we think we can keep our phone signal we'll sneak upstairs and give you a look at what we've done upstairs here again this is the incredible buffet at Emma's Aras kitchen there people are starting to pour in now I think we're expecting about 3000 people today yeah yeah and probably about 2,000 at the museum today we've had for the last few days between the museum and the arc about six thousand people total a day it's been very busy having a good time so as we sneak around here let's go upstairs and if our thig not for signal stays which we hope it will we're going to go up to the next floor and just show up here because once this starts filling up down here then they open up for people to go up here as well and just to show you there's plenty of room here I'll show you what we're doing down here at the arc someone said great price so here we are if you look up here you can see this is an amazing area so between there you can actually seat more people upstairs then downstairs because downstairs you have the buffet lions and and the restrooms and all the rest right and but this is an amazing area and this will be full Yaman one day I mean there's just the view from out and on that deck is gorgeous so in the summer people set up here - oh yeah and I'd love to see that they can you can see the bow there actually let's go out there and have a look season without the ark you know what we better see the ark so let's go outside here so the buffet here opens at 11 o'clock so it's only just opened and so we're starting to see people now pouring in so okay so it's coming out here let me show you what we're doing out here we'll come over here and you can see right there you can see the bow of the Ark and we'll just show you and I'm gonna get down to tell us what we're putting in actually we've renamed it we've renamed at the village market yes and very soon when people come here actually on the other side you can't see it but we have houses there where there's birds and there's these big monument stones we call that monument walk and that's where people will walk down to come into the ark we're just coming out of window and so we're just getting ready to open these outside the ark and this is village market I'll come back to that in a moment if you ever look over here you see our smokehouse and so there they have a scaly brisket brisket locos they smoked the risk of row you can see the big smoker right beside yeah the smokehouse there they just hit a thousand pounds of pork just two days ago so there's a lot of meat going through that smoker and our chef that runs the smoker he pays attention to that quite a bit we also do our baked beans in there so they smoke over time okay and when sometimes will smoke macaroni and cheese which is really good maybe we can use the video and do a close-up look at that smoke oh that's one of those big smokers it is run by it's a southern pride and it is a southern pride it's a rotisserie smoker and our chef Stephan usually mans that himself so now if you can look and see this construction going on there this is going up pretty quickly now they got all the infrastructure in but we're putting in four shade areas mm-hmm and so we're calling this rainbow ridge yeah and people can go get food and eat there we also have food in the gift store as well yes in fact we just started doing these large cookies one of our fudge vendors started doing cookies and they were just wildly popular it's a quarter pound cookie it's a really big cookie quarter pound cookie they go like no they do and then they make fudge in there and then make brittle now tell us what's what's going in here and this will be open soon again village market yes so we've got a couple snack stands that are doing popcorn kettle corn and some other flavors pop when I see that kind of stuff then we have the mint the donut kiosk over there we're doing mini donuts and you get those top with like strawberries and cream or caramel or like candy bits like Heath bits and then the store over here the one that says potter's wheel now is actually going to be Oscar Navas workshop he does beautiful work and he'll actually you can actually go watch him paint and then a lot of his products are available in there then the larger building in the middle there that's so FAR's and we're going to fill in this area with picnic tables you'll be able to order from a really broad menu there's a Monte Cristo sandwich there's handed corn dogs there's quesadillas all kinds of stuff off that menu and you'll be able to sit down and relax and then order order off a menu there so that'll be kind of fun for folks and then in the far corner we're doing rolled ice cream yeah rolled ice cream itself around here it's uh so we can get a bit of a closer look it's a big trend in Thailand actually is where it started and you take the ice cream as it's liquid and you put it on what's called an anti-griddle which is a griddle that's really cold it's the Hot Ice Bowl anti-griddle hmm and then it freezes in a flat sheet and then you just scrape it up with a spatula and it rolls into a tube and then you put that in a taco shell that we make here like a waffle cone taco shell and then you top over the huns of toppings so it's an ice cream taco so yeah so if you ought to get an ice cream talk yeah yeah a lot of fun you can do different colors down here we have pizza so people want to know if there's a range of food here there's a big range of food here you got all these outside food venues and we will have of course hand squeezed lemonade in the summer like we did last year and I we're adding cone ice so if you like shaved ice okay that'll be available this year when it's hot and of course there's a coffee shop up there mhm and a coffee shop in the gift store yes and there's snack bars on deck two and A one one and two and two inside the arc and of course inside the arc there you have all those exhibits and you can walk through all three decks deck one deck to deck three and we we've added since people you know people who have already visited will probably be surprised that we we just added a new exhibit just last week that's right all kinds of change over the winter hole all true history of the world big three-dimensional yeah thing that's in there and then down the back we have the zoo and we start the camel rides again when they're started there are they just started okay so now the winters over we started the camel rides and donkey rides you can walk through the zoo we have a petting area and that stars do expansion we'll be expanding the zoo over there we have a stage over here in the village market and we're looking at do some like a more formal presentations there as well then we're expanding the zoo behind the arc and that'll start to happen this year as well so man things like well we've got the theater the big cranes look oh yeah let's have a look there you can't see the floor from here but you can see the big crane I see they brought that in today they're starting to put the steel up now we're building a 2,500 seat auditorium with a 36 thousand square foot basement for all sorts of workshops and then a 10,000 square foot Lobby that goes on the front yep we're going to have a food area food bookstore and we'll be doing presentations daily present place I'll be speaking here when I search for sorts of interesting things this is really become a major major attraction and people pour in from all over the world so somebody said here what impressed me about the Ark Encounter is how absolutely everything was thought through in detail another example of that outstanding somebody said here Wow Disney look out exactly and yeah and you know the interesting thing people are starting to realize places like Disney have become so secularized and pushing the gauge and pushing the the you know this whole gender issue transgender all that sort of thing and in their movies and other things and people are realizing hey we want to take our kids to a family-friendly place those are hard to find these days hard to find about the Ark Encounter the Creation Museum here in Northern Kentucky family-friendly and you know I have non-christians probably 30% of people who come here we worked out or non-christians and you know what they tell me we love the way you presented it so close class is outstanding and and and you know you're bold about what you believe and you know at the same time it's presented in such a sensitive way in a nice way so it's not threatening it's just you know I'm not hitting them on the people or having a good time I mean the atheists were claiming that we were gonna you know basically line people up against a wall with a firing squad and and you know convert now or you can't believe this place and the stupid things they come out with and I've met people from all over the world here yeah I know well you know I spoke at the Museum this week and of course you know I asked how many people come from outside of Ohio Indiana Kentucky you know the rumor that the legacy Hall got a thousand people I mean 95% of people with their hands up and they come from all over the world and that day I said what country is you from there were people from Nicaragua there were people from Brazil people from Canada I mean every day I speak at the Creation Museum that we find people from all over the world and you know those people come here as well and there are more people that actually come to the Ark and it's just amazing to see them yeah countries they come from it well even though across the United States I met a couple from Seattle the other day in the elevator and I asked them you know where they were from and they said Seattle area I said what brings you here and he said the Ark Encounter did his wife has a cancer she had terminal cancer and this was on her list and she was having a great time in the special she came here and they went to the museum that was two things she wanted to do hey I let you into a secret you know we actually already have the funds to expand the zoo at the back and we're doing that and putting in the rainbow ridge we've got monument walk ready to open and that'll open very soon people be able to walk down there see the birds in those buildings over there and also see the monuments is number of monuments in hieroglyphs that tell the history of the world up until the flood there'll be some goats over there too and we're gonna have some goats over there - and then village market here will open very soon again you know we're coming out of winter we have a an artist in there who you can watch doing all sorts of intriguing things but beyond where the 2500 seat auditorium is going the next section we decided to do yesterday we've made the decision because you know we're going to put in a wall city we're going to put in a tower we're gonna put in all sorts of different things but one of the things we just had to do next is to put in a children's adventure area right over there beside the auditorium so kids got to have something fun to do get that energy going someone said here we see a lot of international travelers staying with us at the Sun rising across the street we recently had a group from Japan so I said I've met people from all over the world and it's interesting that let me see what else they're saying here foreign ministry is yours for years was excited when the Creation Museum was opened and I can counter and so on looking forward to come in and seeing one day so yeah people come from all over that people probably watching now from all over I believe state as well I have a lot of people get on here and there they're from Australia and I know some people don't seem to sleep at night but anyway today it's going to pour rain I think they said this house yeah but we'll still be busy yeah I mean if you flew from Japan you're coming no matter what exactly and see the buses coming up and dropping fuel when do the big boss to is the sake of the bus do they start close to now actually in the next week or two we'll start seeing you know 10 to 15 and then it'll be 20 to 30 and pretty soon by summer it's 40 to 50 there was one day last year I think couple of days were there 70 buses here in one day so then the museum sees about as much much traffic as this does this does as well and those bus to has come from all over oh yeah yeah and people are thrilled they're having a great time and we're actually actually doing some bus tours to they come from the East Coast and maybe go to the Museum of the Bible and then sight and sound across here to the arc station Museum yeah we've got a Christian attractions to her representative over that lives on the East Coast and she's been working pretty hard to to organize folks there's a lot of interest and even in New York City for coming to see the Ark you know it's interesting you just see a continual line of people just coming into the Ark and of course you can have thousands of people here but they disappear it's re yeah you'll see them till they come out of those gift shop doors exactly yeah and it's it's just exciting to see that well okay so Dan thanks for the update all right to see what's happening here at the Ark and Zara's kitchen and all the things that are going on and we're now ramping up and it's it's Easter this week yes actually Easter is two weeks earlier this year than last year yeah so Spring Break is probably two to three weeks later than last year but just the way they organize things but we're still busy but we're so busy thousands of people every day and we get that auditorium open by the end of summer we hope and we'll bring other things online here as we get them finished but we actually open up all the outside places that were sort of closed for winter within the next week well yeah April yeah which is right around the corner which is yeah he's right around yeah it's next week I know is that yeah actually I'm speaking at the Museum on Tuesday oh okay actually I'm speaking at the Museum on Saturday to Saturday at 3 o'clock I'm speaking of legacy hall a legacy hall and then again Tuesday we have speaking everyday but I'm doing Saturday 3 o'clock and Tuesday at 3 o'clock and once we get the auditorium here we'll be you know what I just noticed look they've already got three big steel yeah they're doing the verticals now and there's no static oh yeah that I've been doing that while we've been standing yeah well once they get that foundation done and they got that fool goes a little bit it was really positive it was just too much rain this this past winter but somebody here said an Aussie here it's only 2:30 a.m. see what I mean some people gonna sleep so they must be like me well we'll see you at the arc yeah see you at the axe someday so with that we will Oh somebody sit here one more thing can we get a box of brochures for the ark on the Creation Museum for the Sun rising I guess always request them I know I did this is your plan we'll take care of that you'll take care of this way you make sure we do yep all right and here we are in Grant County Kentucky and very welcoming community actually but serving the Northern Kentucky area and lots of other things to do around here yes it's my other attraction it's growing too it's people are realizing come to Northern Kentucky for your vacation go to the Kentucky Horse Park go to the date and airports music the biggest in the world Newport Aquarium declares all kinds of stuff to narrow mammoths catcher Reds game if it doesn't rain out yeah exactly catch a Bengals game if in fact if you're being okay all right we won't say anymore anyway with that we'll finish up here at the actodine thanks

Channel: Ken Ham

Views: 3,040

Rating: 4.4444447 out of 5

Keywords: Ken Ham, ArkEncounter, Emzara's Restaurant, Emzara's, Restaurant, Buffet

Id: AUEXJehAiJY

Length: 30min 41sec (1841 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 29 2018