|
Consult the Chef A Restaurant, Bar, & Catering Consulting Company. Serving San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay, South Bay, North Bay & Nationwide Food & Beverage Service Businesses |
 |
|
| • | Chef's Blog |
| • | Talkback |
| • | Contact Us |
| • | Links |
| • | Chef's Charity |
Our Public Forum Communication/Information service is our Chef "Talkback" that allows website visitors and Restaurant, Bar, Hospitality, Catering business Owner/Operators to "Consult the Chef" by simply asking questions and receiving the Chef's written response (as soon as he's available) to their inquiries. Sometimes proprietary consulting issues may be involved, so we wouldn't necessarily explain things in full detail, but we can certainly point you in the right direction. But please remember, these are for one or two simple issues per person and not designed to be an ongoing conversation that substitutes for Fully Contracted Consultation
Food Cost cutting, Employee Benefits programs, quick Recipe improvements, How to identify a quality Cook or Chef during interviews, how to step out from the "pre-canned" Marketing that Franchisers provide to truly develop your business, how hot are Scotch Bonnet peppers, if you take Strawberries and stew them like Applesauce, do they really taste more like Prunes than Rhubarb does…(sorry couldn't help mixing in an old Groucho Marx reference)…
Really, anything you want and the Chef will do the best he can to give you the quick simple answer. Then we'll probably post a catalogue of these questions & answers as well, so we'll build a Consulting Library of Owner Operated Restaurant, Catering, Corporate Chain Restaurant, Franchised Restaurant and Institutional Foodservice Solutions that visitors can review to run better Hospitality Industry businesses.
-
Your Name is on the door. Your Recipes are on the Menu. Your Money built this place. Great! You’re a business Success! But at what cost? What about the rest of your life? It’s a tough pill to swallow, but the truth is…You don’t TRUST ANYONE BUT YOU!
The sad part is, in today’s technological environment, there really is no need for this type of paranoid thinking. You have so many tools at your disposal to let yourself have a rich Personal life and operate a thriving Food & Beverage Service Business.
Productivity dwindles after about 8 hrs on the job and after 10 hours it drops by 50%. If you’re working 12 to 14 hours, 6 or 7 days a week, you are causing more problems than you’re solving. You’re not keeping accurate records. You’re not keeping a sharp eye for detail. You’re not cooking any better food. You’re a tired, Brain Dead Zombie whose a walking accident insurance claim waiting to happen. I know the BBC T.V. series “Chef” makes fun, but leaving our places only when we’re sick and tired, is well…sick…and tired!
Why do you think most Chef’s are done in the Kitchen by age 55 or look like 60 when they’re 45? I haven’t even touched on why so many of us are single, especially us Men!
It’s impossible to give enough time to Children, a loving Spouse or even a significant other if you are NEVER THERE! It’s time to realize there are solutions to balanced life.
Because our creative Egos draw us here, it’s hard to think that maybe others can Cook as well as us, Manage as well as us, Market as well, Control Costs, etc. So let’s address these issues we face. We seem to confuse our time and presence in our Businesses with:
- Quality 2. Intelligence 3. Security 4. Effective Management 5. Earnings
So here are overview solutions and quick paths to the 5day / 50 hour work week…
Quality
Most Culinary Schools teach terminology, recipe, technique, history, equipment and a brief overview of FOH & BOH operations and ideological management. They don’t teach you how to teach! If you don’t teach others what you do, you are doomed to these soul sucking hours and life. You need Training Manuals for every Recipe and Position in your business. A Top line cook can learn your recipes. An assistant can do an inventory and order. A lead server can do some light bookkeeping. Start Teaching your staff, today!
Intelligence
Not smarts, but rather information. Unfortunately, what should be limited time spent gathering Inventory, Usage and Sales Numbers that really effect the profitability of your business, turns into far too much time spent with personal information gathering on employees, neighboring businesses or God forbid, personal relationships at the business.
Security
“If I’m not there, they’ll rob me blind!” Horse Hockey! Haven’t you heard of Video Security Monitoring? These days, you can have visual access on your Laptop or Cell phone. Your POS system can poll your operating numbers to any location in the World, by the minute! You can buy that Hot Blonde a Margarita in the Manzanillo surfside bar one minute, check your lunch sales the next to see if you can ask her to Dinner!
Management
Effective Managers haves systems and forms for everything. They can predict customer trends, food cost increases, and most importantly, inventory, waste and usage to the dollar or pound. If you don’t have the systems and programs in place that can catch accounting oddities, “like missing cases of Meat,” then you need to have someone redesign you’re the way you run your business in concept and on paper.
Profitability
If you enact all of the concepts above, you will be able to actually have more time to develop new Marketing or Advertising Programs to build Sales, evaluate your expenses to make strategic cuts or menu improvements, or join some Community or Business Organizations to help build your Brand image and reputation.
Yes, our Passion is creating great Food & Drink and service to others. These are truly lofty gifts that few on this earth possess and have the privilege and responsibility to share. But not at the expense of happiness, family, romance, love, faith and time for these gifts.
It’s time to quit making excuses. Teach others what you know. Adopt management procedures and systems that anyone can run. Get Security & POS systems that are your eyes and ears. Get control of what’s important to the business and identify those employees that will help you be profitable, not waste your time. Then go out there with confidence, at least two days per week and chase life, not your own waitresses! They’ve had enough…they told me to tell you!
Go to our “Time Management” section to read and learn more about this.
-
“To Cater, or not to Cater; that is the question?”
“Whether ‘tis nobler in the minds of Restauranteurs to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous economic misfortune or take arms with Catered Events against this sea of in-house Sales Volume troubles and by opposing, end them.”
“To Die, to close—to do business no more—and by closing, we definitely end the heartache of Sagging Sales and the thousand natural Bill Collectors that operating our Restaurants make us heir to. ‘Tis a consumption devoutly to be avoided!”
“To Close, to shut your doors…or to just leave them open long enough to dream of saving your business by adding New revenue from Catering; ay there’s the rub! For in that short time of staying open, what dreams and successes may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil; this fear of Catering…. it must give us pause…”
All right…enough of old Chef Willie…but I got a call this week from a dear old friend in Phoenix that wanted me to analyze his menu, give him ideas of how to better compete with several new lower price point Restaurants in his area. He already has a fabulous Menu that gives his customers lots of Choices. He has had write-ups in Gourmet Magazine and been rated one of the top ten Restaurants in Phoenix for the past five years.
I gave him new Recipe & Menu ideas that lower costs while maintaining his reputation & identity, but I told him, absolutely, the first thing he should do is start Catering!
My friend told me horror stories of past attempts to Cater and he has notions that it’s such a labor-intensive nightmare that he’s terrified of reconsidering it…and he’s not alone!
The problem is, most Non- Catering Restauranteurs try to duplicate their entire operation at an offsite location instead of understanding that there are many forms of Catering that they can do before they get into Full offsite cooking and serving, that really can impact their bottom line successfully.
Without a doubt, Full Service offsite catering not only takes substantial equipment investment, but also extra staff and a sales person to go on and off-site to book clients. But the key is a “Ramrod” Chef who can solve any problem when off-site situations beyond their control threaten to foil things awry. The benefit is, two good 200-person Events (reasonable sized weddings) can probably recover a Restaurant’s start-up costs.
However, Set up and Go Catering allows every level of Restaurant to have success at much lower equipment investment as well as usually only needing one person to do the delivery, set-up and recovery. You may have to have your prep cooks get there an hour earlier if you have a reasonable sized order or two, but you usually know your orders the prior day and most BOH staff love any extra hours you can give them. You can give extra hours to your FOH staff to be the delivery/set up person; the tips are great! The benefit here is that four 30-person lunches will probably cover start-up costs
Then of course there is Packaged Catering or more traditionally, straight Delivery. You can use disposable (but recyclable) aluminum or heavy plastic Packaging for bulk orders of Pastas, Meats, Soups, Stews and Side dishes or simply get upscale designer plastic dinner containers and only offer single dish “off the menu” orders for delivery. You need to be prepared to take and deliver orders within 30 minutes and typically employees use their own cars unless you want to use your own vehicles with adverting on them to spread the word. It would certainly be lower outlay via employee vehicle until you knew it was a revenue stream you were going to continue. Here, your first ten 5-person orders will cover your start-up costs, unless you charge a delivery fee, which would cut that in half.
Remember though, NONE OF THIS WILL WORK WITHOUT A SUPPORT MARKETING & ADVERTISING PLAN!!!!! Starting with getting a Catering Menu printed. Next, develop a good Community Marketing plan. We’d recommend our own, low cost proprietary plan, of course. Print and media advertising are expensive and may not hit your core market. However you plan to proceed, on your Own or with the help of a good Consultant, Catering is really a great way to boost sales in these rugged times.
“Yes, all the Restaurant world is a stage and all the Revenue Streams merely players; They all have their entrances and their exits and one Owner in his time must play many parts…”
The Culinary Bard
Go to our New Revenues Title Section on the Website to Read more about adding Catering and doing the Support Marketing to really implement a great new program to increase Sales & Profits for your Business or give us a call at (925) 846 - CHEF today!
-
Make Money by giving stuff away? Building business through Charity? Absolutely! This is what Community Marketing is all about and it’s one of the truly low-cost, incredibly productive ways for Independent Owner Operators to beat the Big Chains for market share in today’s economic environment. Even here in the Bay area, where the Independent Restaurant is king, the Media barrage of Corporate Chains are hard to overcome.
It isn’t just about having great or “real” food anymore. Upscale Chains like P.F. Chang’s, Morton’s, Fleming’s or Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Roy’s Pacific Fusion are doing food that have created their own cuisine niche and impressed enough of the buying public that they are indeed destination Restaurants gobbling up huge chunks of Fine Dining Market share. Then if you step down to mid-priced Casual Dining Chains like The Cheesecake Factory, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Stuart Anderson’s, the dollars they command in that niche’s available money pool is scary for neighborhood dinner houses. What’s even scarier is the dollars they commit to their advertising budgets. And don’t get me started about the Chili’s, Appleby’s and TGI Friday’s of the world…it's enough to make the neighborhood Bar & Grill owner want to go into Insurance for a living!
The obstacle for these Chains, regardless of price point market niche, is that these places are considered “Companies” by the public, not friends and neighbors whom they go to visit. Generally, like the theme song of Cheer’s says, “people want to go where everyone knows your name…”
Community Marketing Programs that involve Business Associations, Civic Organizations, Church and Charitable Giving Groups are really the key to establishing your name and commitment to the community your business serves. But Independent businesses in today’s environment have to be smart and target their time and more importantly, dollars, to make sure their giving will produce predictable targeted results.
I belong to The Catholic Community of Pleasanton here in the Bay area and am a tenor in their Music Ministry Choir. Pleasanton is a town of about 60,000 people over the hills and southwest of Oakland, right next to the Livermore Valley wine country. It features an Historic Downtown tourist and local event area that has about 25 mostly independently owned Restaurants. I approached one of them to donate a dinner for a Luau Fundraiser Auction our church was doing to support our choir in making our trip to Rome in 2010 to sing at St. Peter’s Basilica, Assisi, and the Vatican to sing for the Pope!
The owner of “The Mahalo Grille” a local Hawaiian cuisine Multi-Award winning Seafood Restaurant was originally put off by my request in this time of economic downturn. After spending time with him and being able to assure him that he would be the only Restaurant represented at a 400 person Luau (Hawaiian theme) made up of all Pleasanton Residents and his name would be mentioned in several P.A. announcements and offered to everyone purchasing Raffle tickets to specifically choose his gift to be eligible for winning, he acquiesced and even upped his donation. As it turned out, his cup was filled with more tickets than any other gift that was offered in the Raffle.
But after my conversation with him, I got to thinking...as I sometimes do...ah, whose kidding who...I really only think occasionally...anyway, I knew I was also going to be putting on eight Food T.V. style cooking show demonstrations over the next 12 months, also to help raise money for the Church Choir. The evenings are called “Teach n’ Taste” where I’ll demonstrate 3 or 4 recipes and pass out 2 or 3 bite samplings of each dish for the 50 audience members to enjoy.
Then I got the idea to ask Guest Chefs from local Restaurants to come and demonstrate one of their dishes to perhaps help promote their Restaurant to targeted Residents who are “Foodies.” The first place I called was “Mahalo” and they’ll be appearing at our first installment in October, “The Holidays are coming – Gourmet Party Appetizers made easy!”
These are two examples of finely directed and targeted Community Marketing that no amount of money that the Big Chains spend on Media advertising can buy them. The Restaurant & Chef gets known Iconically to their community. The attendees now have someone at the Restaurant they can say, “they know personally!” They pass out their Menus to everyone. Plus having their Restaurant Logo printed in the Church bulletin laying around in the homes and cars of 5000 families in their town doesn’t hurt either…all for about $75.00 in food cost! You simply can’t buy more cost effective, targeted, valuable advertising for a Restaurant!
Independent Restaurants MUST HAVE a Community Marketing plan in their Marketing and Advertising budget. As a matter of fact, for places that can't afford Print, Cable TV, Major Internet or Radio Advertising, it's about the only way they can promote their place to the customers they serve. But remember you can't give money to every request, no matter how much you may want to. You need to make sure that the groups you give to aren't just stockpiling donors so there's no real benefit to your donation.
We all have charities we respect, feel kindred spirits to and will give to regardless of the return to us, personally or professionally. However, when you decide to re-direct your Marketing dollars into this arena, you need to make sure the organization you choose to market through, offers a real opportunity and likelihood that your gift is presented to "probable" customers that will convert into "spending" customers and eventually new friends and "regular" customers.
See Our Marketing & Advertising title section in the site to read more about Community Marketing Programs we can organize for you. -
According to some fans, our Major League Sports today are all tainted because of performance enhancing drugs, cheating and ignorance of fans needs and choices. Now, this week’s Blog isn’t about my beloved Sports that I’m such a Fan of, but rather I’m offering it as a prime example of the worst Public Relations Disaster any industry has perpetrated on itself, that should have been avoided, but Ownership and Industry Leadership’s pure stubbornness, arrogance and narcissism hasn’t only killed the golden goose, it’s chopped it up beyond recognition and its about ready to Flambé.
Today’s youth would rather watch and participate in Extreme Sports like Skate & Snow boarding than go to a Stadium Team Sporting Event. Some say Ten to Twenty years from now, some of our Big League sports will be bankrupt and not exist. Not so crazy, perhaps. Not so long ago, we were told some businesses were too big to fail…yeah right.
Statement: If as an industry, we don’t get on the right side of this nutritional information issue and start willfully giving customers what they want and get ahead of this issue, we will have it forced down our throats and cost our industry Billions of dollars.
Why are our Industry Political Action Organizations fighting Congress on this? Do we want to appear before congress on TV like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa? Do we want the President of the National Restaurant Association to get grilled by Nancy Pelosi and her over officious band of Washington cronies about why we aren’t good stewards of the National trust? These are people who never met a regulation they didn’t like, regardless of the cost to small business. She wouldn’t lift a finger to help homeowners over the last two years, until her man got elected, but by God Baseball steroid use was all over TV in government hearings (sorry, that’s for another Blog.) That is absolutely coming if we don’t change our tact.
We are inviting trouble if we don’t recognize that food consumption is being linked to most healthcare issues in today’s society. It’s in all the medical Journals! We not only have a moral responsibility to make sure the public is educated about what we serve but it’s potentially one of the greatest Public Relations and Marketing opportunities ever laid at an Industry’s door! Golden Goose Eggs are Falling from Heaven!
Independent Restaurants don’t have to give up their gooey delicious Menus, they just need to come up with reasonable facsimiles of Calorie, Fat and Sodium Counts and have them available for every dish for those who want to know. Certain common allergies like Nuts, Seafood, Lactose, Wheat and Gluten are Yes/No issues that could also be included, easily. This isn’t rocket science; it’s just simple math people!
You figure the Food Cost of every ingredient of every dish “to the Penny” before you put it on the menu don’t you? If you don’t then there’s another reason to call my Consulting Company…but really, the math is just about equivalent in figuring nutritional values of all ingredients!
If 25% of all Independent Restaurants, nationwide, had this available on a separate card or in a framed Poster by the Door by year’s end, this whole forced regulatory issue would go away because we could go to Congress as the County’s most pro-active Industry to consumer education and health awareness. What a Concept?!!!
Imagine if we all added 5 Dinners and/or Lunches to a “Healthy Dining” Menu section that came in at 750 calories or less with less than 25% calories from fat (or less) and cooked them fresh with minimal salt. I used to produce 7 different dishes like this weekly for my Private Clients. It’s not that tough and it becomes a fun challenge for Chefs to really produce outstanding cuisine with fresh healthy ingredients. Soup or Salad plus Entrée with Protein, Starch and Vegetable…portions become smaller and guess what…food cost goes down so they can even be price point profit producers!
As health and wellness issues grow, so will the need for information and education from food producers. This is us Restaurateurs and Caterers! The Public will demand it and the government will force us to use their version of it if we don’t get out ahead of it. Plus don’t you want your name to be the one locals think of first when the question comes up, “Yeah I want to go out, but I’m trying to watch what I eat. Where can we go that isn’t just fattening city?”
At Mass every Sunday our Priest often uses the saying “When God closes one door, he opens another…” Being out front of this Nutritional Reporting issue seems to me to be the natural extension of what Slow Food, Organic and Green Restaurant is all about. Serving the Public with the best the earth has to offer so we can enhance, entertain and educate the lives of those we serve. We don’t seem to have trouble adding those ingredient descriptions to our Menus, do we?
Get on top of this. Have your Menu Nutritionally worked up, add healthy eating recipes and do it now! Then, Email it to your Congressman. And don’t worry, regardless of what the Nutritional Numbers for Pizza turns out to be, people aren’t going to stop ordering it anytime soon!
If you need help with Nutritional Menu anylization, Creation of healthy Recipes, Marketing these new ideas or any other Restaurant Consulting needs, contact Chef Steven at www.Consultthechef.com or call him at (925) 846 – CHEF for more information.
-
Hi again everyone....I'm reading all over the Industry pages..."Emerill is Opening New Burger Concept," "Tropical Smothie Cafe debuts New cost effective Menu,""Bugaboo Creek revamps menu, Charlie Browns may soon follow..." And so it goes, on and on in the Corporate Restaurant world. Independent Restaurants can face these challenges too. Sales are dipping, customer counts are down and once fairly active menu items seem to really be lagging in sales and popularity.
This is a very common issue as we go through the ebbs and tides of the Food & Beverage service industry. But instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, it's actually time to do more indepth investigation of exactly what the problem is. Completely Revamping and Reengineering a Menu may be a horribly incorrect action in response to the wrong problem. Remember, even if sales are down 30%, if the remaining 70% who do still like what you do can't get their "usual" food fix from you anymore, they will all leave too! Then whatcha gonna do?
Lifeless Menus may come from tired or complacent employees who are bored with their jobs and just aren't paying as close attention to recipes and details as they have in the past. Flavor slips, customers find themselves saying, "This isn't as good as it used to be," and sales dop. This can happen if you've had the same employees for 5 or 10 years in the same positions. Maybe by challenging your Chefs & Cooks to produce nightly specials, they'll find some new excitiement and creativity to reinvigorate their passion for cooking. If it doesn't change things, your food waste, portion sizes and food costs could also be taking a massive hit, so keep a close eye on your production and sales numbers.
Your Costs & Flavors may be in line, but when was the last time you did some Marketing or Advertising? When was the last time you checked your neighborhood to see who's serving your style food at lower price points? Or maybe with more gourmet "sounding" sauces? The issue maybe that YOU got lazy believing you're an invincible "Community Icon!" Get out there and see what's new, what is bringing in customers to other "Hot" places and adapt your Menu slightly with a few New Appetizer items or maybe a "Health Conscious" menu section that puts your menu back in shape. Then, don't forget to tell people about it via a good supporting Community Marketing Plan!
You can also revamp sagging Menus by changing Preparation techniques using basically the same ingredients, say plus an item or two. My favorite example is something we did at Michael's in Hollywood almost 25 years ago... We wanted to create an after 9:00pm discount Steak Dinner Menu and Chef didn't want to drop his Choice meat grade to save money. So I suggested we take the Top Sirloin Steak dinner and trim the slab and cut more like London broil, and present the plate as sliced Top Sirloin with light au jus gravy and mashed potatoes instead of the traditional 7 oz petite Top Sirloin Steak dinner with Baked Potato. We got almost 3 more dinners per 5 lbs of meat and the Mashed potato was half the cost of a baker when we took away the potato volume and dressings. Plus, the late diners seemed to spend some time in the Bar after dinner to listen to the music and buy drinks.
Complete Menu blow-ups are rare and really should only be considered if you are in two situations:
1. You find that the existing Lead Cook or Head Chef has created a "culture" of sloppiness, wastefulness and gross mismanagement...or
2. You find 85% of your sales are coming from 3 or 4 items, exclusively. Its one thing to be known for something...its completely something else to be outright wasting time, product and money on dishes that aren't moving.
Unless you are suffering from one of these back breaking and bone chilling situations, simply making a few additions and subtractions here and there will help you far more than a full Makeover and not cost you the Customers who still enjoy what you serve.
I've always felt a good Menu should offer some great Traditional Favorites & expected staples, some "Name Making" memorable Signature Specialties and some experimental fusions where the Chef can really let it out creativity wise. The most Important thing to remember is that Menus are like wine, living, breathing, growing things that change seasonally. I always treated my Menus like fugitives on the run...always moving ...never staying too long in one place...keeping one step ahead of justice!
If you need help re-imaging, re-designing or re-creating your Menu, contact us and we'll be happy to help you with Recipe and Menu Reviews and Profitable Consulting Solutions.
-
Hey Chef, How can I produce a fun website that will encourage people to order online or Call us to set Party Reservations? We don't have anything but our menu up there now and some basic information about Location, Hours, etc. What keys can you suggest to get people to call for Parties and to get folks to order pick-up orders on line?
-
This is really a Professional Consultation Issue that some designers charge Thousands of Dollars for. We offer these services as well for far less and can recommend good hosting sites that will allow you to process orders via credit card as well as provide instant notifications via Print or Phone when an order is made. Its great if people order, but you need a system in which that order goes to Someone so the order gets prepared and is ready for pick-up on time!. As far as visual Design, you need to create Multiple Pages with obvious titles that make it easy for someone to instantly recognize where to go for Menu Viewing, Pick-up Ordering and Party Catering. In addition, you need to have quality Photographs that grab eyes and the site must be written to capture the local audience and Food Niche Customers you perceive are you potential market. "Optimization & Positioning" are key so you appear on the first pages when someone does their Google, Yahoo, Ask or Bing Search. For neighborhood place this can sometimes be a challenge especially if they're in Pizza or Asian Delivery Markets because the Big Chains monopolize the Web pages. In this case you need to look at a Community Marketing based plan to get your name out there in the community. If, like your name suggests, you are a Mid level Gourmet Bistro featuring many different Cuinise styles and fusions, you can probably position yourself well by focusing on location, market niche and menu specialties, i.e. Soups, Salads, Gourmet Sandwiches, or if you offer great Vegetarian Options. Remember though Chef, A good website can generate thousands in revenue in just 6 months, but nothing beats a great Community Marketing Program for Independent Restaurants like Yours. In tandem they'll have you rockin' Parties & To-Go Sales within 2 or 3 months...Hope this Helps! If you want to read more on these Items go to our Marketing Heading Section in the site, or Give Us a call at (925) 846-CHEF and we'll be happy to bid a Consulting Project for you to review. Chef Steven
-
I read a recent article in NRN about how major upscale chains have been experiencing a big downturn in sales. The Article by Al Liddle chronicled how Ruth's Chris', Morton's, McCormick & Schmick's, Oceanaire Inc., have all experienced double digit Losses for each of the last 3 quarters, closed multiple units or in Oceanaire's case, filed for Chapter 11. It struck me how corporate structure in some ways is beneficial, but in more ways, is an impenetrable barrier. When it comes to having the ability to shift concept course, make menu changes, re-focus vendor spending or trying new revenue producing ideas, their image and structure absolutely hamstrings them from correcting bad courses of action.
Many Independent owners have gone to midweek "Family Style" Combo Meals with low food cost dinner options being offered for tables of 3 or more. Restaurants normally with $25.00 per person price points, are packaging Soup, Entree & Dessert for $15 per person. We have recommended our Steak & Chop Houses go to Fresh Carving Sandwich Bars for Lunch. We've helped our Ethnic Restaurants create Recipes for Lunch & Dinner that their staff promotes and Message Boards feature without compromising their food cost/profit margin structure even though prices are 2/3 of everything else on the menu. We are suggesting to other venues, pairing Wines and Family Meal Packages to create elegant "feeling" options to families who have had to cut back on their dining out budgets.
Can you imagine Ruth's Chris with a Banner out front Championing a New $8.99 Grilled Sandwich & Bottled Water Menu for Lunch?
But its just that kind of creative Cheffing and Management that Independent Reastaurnts are using to stay afloat during the current decline. New expensive "sounding" Marinades and Sauces can dress up a Chicken Breast, Pork Loin or Eggplant Slice and...Vioala! You're still hitting your Food Cost Goals and now you have a new "Healthy" and "Low Cost" Specials Section to your Menu. (Consider that FREE Consulting!) .
Some Restaurants have gotten very Creative. Here in Pleasanton, a couple Moderately priced Bistro's have added Magic Shows or Comedy Entertainment one or two nights a week to try and spark new business into small town nightlife. Others have added live music or even classic singers. We've counseled some places to try Cooking Classes and Wine Tastings.
Oh my, I can hear it now...Comedian Gallagher appearing tonight at McCormick & Schmick's demonstrating his smashed Watermelon Salad!!!!
But seriously, all this goes to show the advantages in creativity and flow that independent Restaurants have in a difficult market. Indies can make changes, try new tact, implement changes and have many more options to challenge the obstacles that present themselves in today's market. All you independent Owners and Chef's say prayers of thanks tonight that you're still open and running, unlike several of your Large Chain bretheren.
If you want ideas and help in battling your Menu, Food Cost & Profit Challenges then visit www.ConsulttheChef.com or call (925) 846 - CHEF for more information.
To Ask a Question or Respond to a Post, Please fill out the Following Fields to add your comments.
Headquartered in
SF Bay Area,
Serving
Nationwide
925-846-CHEF
or toll free
866-740-CHEF