“Have you guys ever thought about opening a restaurant?” “This is better than restaurant food. You guys need to get your own place.”

Jim and Bill heard hundreds of comments like these over the years and in 2004 they did something about it. After much consideration, thought and planning, relying upon years of career experience and fearlessness in athletics, education, sales, marketing, communications and public relations, they pondered different restaurant concepts. If you’re going to open your own restaurant, what’s your niche? Where do you put it? What’s it cost to build one, buy one, promote one, staff one? Recalling General Patton’s observation that “fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man,” they decided on a new and different concept.

What if the customer were in charge of the menu, the time, the dècor, the dress code, the size of the table and number of other diners? If a movie theatre can be “delivered” to a home, why not a restaurant? Not just a meal, but a restaurant. One in which you can see who you wish, talk to who you wish, and can actually hear what you and they are saying. One where parking is not an issue and your outfit doesn’t have to meet the quality of the food, unless you want it to. Where if the music is too loud, you can turn it down. Shopping malls, libraries, universities, business offices, arcades, casinos, “athletic” contests, even sexual relationships have all gone virtual and are today delivered to the laps of customers, literally, on their terms, on their schedule. Why not a seven-course meal, restaurant quality, prepared and served by your own personal chef, in your dining room?

Always on the cutting edge, confirmed non-conformists, Jim and Bill opened their virtual restaurant, The Comfort Brothers, locations unlimited by conventional bounds of bricks and mortar, storefronts and street addresses.

Specializing in dinner parties of 2 to 24 (that’s right, 2, and how many caterers will take on that few?) another important difference between the Comfort Brothers and conventional caterers is, except in rare cases, we do not employ a staff. The principals (we) are the staff, keeping overhead low, accountability and quality high.

Fearless in the kitchen, the Comfort Brothers are experienced in all cuisines and have cooked and served for groups and events as diverse as corporate executives, birthdays for 16 to 18 to 21 to 40 to 80 year-olds, family reunions, Derby Day celebrants, boards of directors, graduations, proms, committees and clubs, and even for a well-known local “real” chefs in his home, in his kitchen.

Products of proper upbringing, the Comfort Brothers believe in leaving a place cleaner than it was when we arrived. Enjoy yourself and retire when you need to. We’ll lock up when the cleanup is done.

Willing to take it on the road, the Comfort Brothers have been presented as a gift (a great idea at holiday time!) and delivered themselves to dining rooms from Virginia Beach to Washington D.C.