When a large envelope arrived with the Michelin Tire logo on it, I thought it was a letter trying to sell tires. My subconscious, however, told me to open the envelope so I went ahead and opened the envelope. To my surprise it wasn't an advertisement at all.

The letter was from Michelin Travel and Lifestyle North America.

"Congratulations to the entire team at Mozzeria for your recent Recommended rating in the MICHELIN Guide San Francisco, Bay Area and Wine Country 2013. This honor places you in an elite group of restaurants and hotels rated and selected by Michelin's local, anonymous inspectors."

My reaction? Wow!! Of course, I am ecstatic! This is definitely the highest honor and recognition from the food industry to date. I must congratulate how proud we are of the entire team at Mozzeria. Congratulations, Mozzeria team!

What is Michelin?
Michelin Guide was first created in France and eventually introduced additional guides for other countries. At this time, only 3 U.S. cities are listed in the Michelin Guides - New York City, Chicago and San Francisco Bay Area.

Michelin publishes two books series: Red and Green. Michelin Red Guide focuses on restaurants and hotels only. Michelin Green Guide is for travel and tourism.

Michelin has secret inspectors who take their jobs seriously – they don’t even tell their family what they do for a living. And officials in the Michelin company, itself don’t know them either.

Out of over 5,000 restaurants in San Francisco, Michelin’s local and unknown inspectors selected 539 restaurants to be featured in the 2013 Michelin San Francisco Bay Area Red Guide. And this year they included Mozzeria!

This is truly an honor for Mozzeria, and we are proud to display the Michelin certificate on the menu board and the Michelin recommended rating decal in the front window.

Although I will never know who our Michelin secret inspector was, or if I would even meet him or her again, I wanted to post this note:

 

Dear Michelin Secret Inspector,

We cannot tell you how excited and honored we are to receive this amazing recognition from you. It shows we make great food … you have overlooked our being Deaf and found our food impressive. For this, we thank you and we will continue to provide great food and service to all customers. Please come and visit us again, and sign "Hello" to us.