Independant Restaurants VS. the Soulless Chain's

What does a Soulless company chain have over an independent restaurant as far as quality?
Nothing, as they produce very little fresh and instead rely on massive amounts of
pre-prepared frozen food, laden with salt and sugar while marketing to the masses and somehow convincing them there food is good.
While employing low skilled low paid employee’s that receive very little actual culinary knowledge or training besides how to use a microwave.
They also tend to re-heat pre-cooked food that was prepared at a central commissary kitchen, sometimes states away. then shipped to that location.

As an independent restaurant partner/chef I will know my purveyors and maybe even the farm the food came from. We are part of the community and actually take pride in the fact we employ culinarian's instead of just people wanting a job to execute food we actually cook from scratch every day.

What does a Soulless company chain have over an independent restaurant as far as consistency?
A lot unfortunately as most Americans will visit an “Olive Garden” before the little Italian restaurant on the corner that painstakingly makes there pasta and sauces from scratch sometime using age old recipes.

Why?.. Mainly because the food in the chain is the exact same as they ate before & before that as well ! Not because it’s “better food” but because they are used to it and the prices seem reasonable. As Americans we have been dumbied down into thinking that food needs to be in large portions to be considered good for our buck. What they don't mention to customers is the insane amounts of sugar and sodium that is some cases is used to mask the taste of otherwise bland overproduced food.

I have to admit it’s tough getting people away from these chains as well as even my own Mother simply adores Red Lobster and at 73 y/o that is unlikely to change despite them doing so little from scratch.

How do I combat this way of thinking? Quality and exceptional customer service to start with as well as the ability to change. What was that I said, ability to change? See what most customers don’t realize is as an independent making adjustments to my menu based on factors such as seasonality, adverse market demand, food cost and food trends is relatively easy compared to that of a corporate chain. My food is consistent, just not the same day in and day out, instead it’s just consistently delicious and hopefully that still means something in today's market.

In the corporate setting food chains employ food scientists and mass marketing giants to get you in their door. They will spend thousands of dollars on advertising to convince you they are “fresh” while bringing in 90% + frozen food. They continually “roll-out” the great new menu items with fantastic fan fare & flare while all the while it’s just a sauce added to another bland severely overcooked chicken breast of with a pre-frozen side dish, reheated for your enjoyment! but hey…..it’s new right ;-)

What does a Soulless company chain have over an independent restaurant as far as retention of employee’s?
Very little. An independent restaurant for the employee’s as well as owners becomes an extension of our immediate family. You go through countless hours of prep, sides the weeds and two hour waits only to clean it all up and do it again the next day! This leads to a bond most outside the restaurant industry will never understand.

One striking difference between a professional wait staff and what I politely call a "corporate clone" is easy to spot…just ask for your food a little different from what the menu states and you will see the clone’s eye’s flutter as he/she scurries to find a manager or Kitchen Manager for permission to change an item while leaving the guest to guess as to weather there wish will be granted.

Ask the same thing of a professional waiter/waitress in an independent restaurant and you won’t see them flinch while they relay you’re request to the Chef. What does this have to do with retention? Through this the waiter feels “empowered to take care of the guest” and if you let them they often times do just that! Yet when an employee has to ask permission to take care of the guest the guest tends to suffer as well as their tip.

What I do for the FOH I do for the BOH as well in cross training at every position which leads to empowerment for them as well. This is done through daily specials coming from different line cooks as well as family meals where the employees are asked to contribute family recipes or just something they would like to try. In example I also take my time and explain to new cooks why we are sauteing the fish for this menu item instead of frying it. This teaches as well as reinforces my vision to the cook for that item.

In closing these are just some of the ideas I have of how to compete with chains and if you have some ideas of our own please let me know I would enjoy hearing from you.

Taking the Mystery out of Making Money in My Restaurant

If you're like me in that most of your adult life you have been working in the restaurant industry, you may have been told ,and just accepted as fact some co-called "standards" about how certain things ought to be done in this business.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
John C. Maxwell

One of the practices in my restaurant will focus on is handling costs by implementing standard operating procedures & formula's from the beginning to maximize profits. In my case it means doing things a little different than others do it. As a person with A.D.D. I find these formulas help me stay on track and focused on what matters most when running a restaurant. I will attempt to show what I have learned from my past mistakes and success to take the mystery out of making money in the food industry.

Making Money in a Restaurant...How to Take the Mystery out of it!

Initially I was taught the "formula" or "percentage" method of pricing. The idea is that the primary determinant of price is the cost of the ingredients required to prepare a menu item.For example, let's say a restaurant wants to put a new appetizer on the menu: Duck egg rolls. Based on the recipe, cost of ingredients and portion sizes, the raw food cost of making one order of duck egg rolls is $1.25. What I used to do with a food cost target of, say, 30 percent I would take the $1.25 cost and, using the formula method, do a little arithmetic and come up with a sales price of around $4.15.

While this method in fact helped me initially achieve my most basic food cost objectives, I started to ask myself, what is it I am ignoring? I am ignoring the fact that my customers may be very willing to pay more, possibly much more than $4.15 for a specialty appetizer like Duck egg rolls.

This is what I call "Perceived value pricing".

While calculating the cost of producing a menu item should be one aspect of the pricing process, it isn't the most important component. The critical component for me is determining the "perceived value" of an item in the eyes of your guests and how much they will likely be willing to pay for it.

My restaurant's are in the tourist heavy market of Las Vegas Strip where specialty appetizers typically sell elsewhere for $7.95, $8.95 and even more so if I don't pay attention to trends in my sales I could be losing close to a dollar or more profit per item if the menu costs are not priced based on perceived value.

These are the 13 steps I am implementing to realize a profit in our restaurant:

First, "Consider our competition!"

At least once a year or even seasonally it's good to see what local competitors are up to and this includes, but not limited to, analyzing the price points in each section of their menus as well as where they cross utilize food items. One thing I look for is how does my restaurant stack up in the pricing continuum of similar restaurants in my area? This provides me with at least some guidelines of what types of prices our market will bear.

Second, "Consider our customers."

What are the characteristics of my customer base? Because visitors to Las Vegas are a broad mix of income levels, ethnicity, nationality and characteristics catering to just one type of guest is the kiss of death here. We get everyone from the super rich with full comp privileges to the family on the tightest of budgets looking for a deal and everyone in between! While it may be hard to generalize, I have a keen sense of the price sensitivity of the people who should be attracted to my restaurant. For The Cup (QSR) the guests will be looking for something fresh but fast while being reasonably priced. Volume is the key to success there. For The World News Kaffe (FSR) perceived value of all our items from the fine coffee to our full bistro menu will come from our presentation as well as our ability to sell the food through our wait staff and menu placement. Paying attention to the weekly, monthly as well as quarterly sales reports will dictate which items I can realize a profit with and those that are potential loss leaders.

Third, "what's selling at our existing price points?”

By comparing the popularity of our menu items in each section of your menu in light of each item's price we will get a better understanding of which menu items to raise and to what extent my market will bear that raise. The objective is to get a sense of how price sensitive my customers are based on what they're buying

(or avoiding) and this also gives me a chance as the chef to either adjust the menu item to better suit my customers or get rid of it altogether.

Forth, “Involve our staff.”

After opening a restaurant I like to engage my servers in the pricing process. Just think for a minute about the people working in my restaurants and who is closest to our customers?

Chances are it isn't me or my managers; they're our servers, Batista's, bartenders and counter people. They will have hundreds and even thousands of interactions with my guests while their buying decisions are being considered and made and believe me when I say this, they do influence what is sold. Not all, but some of our employees will develop a keen sense of our customers' buying habits and sensitivity to prices. Based on my experience in most restaurants, who are the last people to find out about menu changes or new prices? Right, it's usually servers, bartenders and counter person! By making a point of including our service staff in the pricing process, when new menu items are evaluated, the service staff is shown the plate presentation; they sample the product and then indicate on a comment card the price they believe they could sell that item for.

This goes far beyond just including you're wait staff...it empowers them to sell what they feel they helped create! Involving our service staff in the pricing process will be a real double-win because not only are I and my management team getting valuable pricing information to help with our pricing decision but we are training future managers and star performers! They'll feel more involved in your restaurant, knowing their opinions and insights matter. It should be a genuine morale booster for our people as well.

Fifth, "Keeping Food Cost Low Means Larger Profit Margins"

This is where I expect I will get some both positive and negative feedback from chefs and F&B managers I have worked for in the past! Having a higher food cost percentage isn't always a bad thing, nor does it always indicate a food cost problem of some kind.

If we can calculate the very best food cost our restaurant could have during the busiest period assuming there is no waste, spoilage, perfect portioning and no other food cost problems. This is often referred to as "theoretical" or "ideal" food cost and in this case it's 29 percent.Now let's change just one factor: the sales mix. If my restaurant instead sold 750 bagels & pastries and 2,000 sandwiches per week, the ideal food cost goes from 29 percent to 36 percent. If this was your restaurant, which would you prefer, a food cost of 29 percent or 36 percent? Compare the two scenarios.I've seen this example before and when I implemented it in the last place I worked got a few knee-jerk "29 percent" responses. However, by selling sandwiches this restaurant would be making nearly $1,000 more in gross profit despite having a much higher food cost of 36 percent.

This is also the case with many operators. When they see an increase in their food cost percent, it's automatically assumed that they have a food cost problem. Maybe, maybe not.For example I will use The Cup's Menu: My bagels & pastries ,while they require little prep, are relatively low in initial food cost because I buy them par-baked and frozen therefore avoiding costly prep/labor to make them yet I make them in bulk and what is not used that day part will be thrown out. The sandwiches have a food cost that is initially higher yet priced at what the market will hold and with that realizing a higher profit margin for us. That's why it's smart to look at the change in gross profit dollars before going any further. It's very possible that when food cost are higher, along with gross profit, the restaurant had a shift in sales mix and sold a larger number of menu items having a high-percentage food cost but that also generated more gross profit dollars.

Sixth, "Buying Larger Quantities to Get Volume Discounts Saves Money"

It's common for ALL suppliers to quote products at one price for a small amount of a product and a lower price per unit for purchasing a larger amount. After doing the math it may appear to be an easy way to save some money but if it leads to purchasing more food and more products than are needed, this practice can easily lead to higher food cost and less profit.

Carrying an excessive amount of inventory often leads to the following problems:

1. Having excess inventory ties up our valuable cash. Every dollar of product on our storage shelf is a dollar we don't have in the bank or that can't be used for other purposes.

2. having excess inventory leads to over portioning. When storage shelves are stocked with more than enough product, employees tend to be less careful in how they use and handle our valuable inventory. ...incurring my wrath in the process!

Now take that mind-set into our kitchen, with hourly employees who are among the lowest-paid people on our staff. Do you think that if our storage rooms are always filled with product and we rarely, if ever, need to be concerned with running low of anything, do you think they will use more products? Guaranteed. Do you think they will be less careful with the products they handle? Guaranteed, again.

I recently read about a very successful operator with annual sales in excess of $10 million in one restaurant who said, "If you buy salad dressing in 5-gallon containers instead of 1-gallon containers, employees don't measure as strictly." He's convinced that the way to save money with his food is to buy only what he needs and then make the most of it, not buy more than he needs to get a quantity discount.

3. Having excess inventory encourages theft. ...Imagine your employee goes into the walk-in and he notices 12-15 boxes of New York Strips. He knows that's enough steaks for the next 2 1/2 weeks and that one or two boxes would probably not be missed so he sees no reason not to take one case out with him while presumably taking out the "trash" this happen more than you think and I find it's a costly mistake chefs and managers alike make when they are new to the industry so teaching my management staff what to look for helps my bottom line. But what if there were only four boxes on hand, just enough to get through to the next delivery, the day after tomorrow.

4. Having excess inventory results in more waste and spoilage. A good many products in a restaurant have a limited shelf life. If the products are not used within a certain time frame, the products become unsafe for consumption and must be thrown out. The more products a restaurant keeps on hand, the greater the risk of more products exceeding their safety date.

There aren't many absolutes in this business but if there is one this is it: Consistently, ordering more products than you really need will cost you money. In fact it's one of the most expensive things you can do in this business. And a mistake that takes restaurants out of business quickly! A good rule of thumb: Buy just want you need and make the most of it.

Seventh, "An Ongoing Competitive Bidding Program Will Get Us the Lowest Prices"

I recall several times being told by people "who knew the score" that to get the best prices and keep suppliers honest it was imperative that you bid out your food, beverage and supply products on a regular, ongoing basis. If you neglected to do this, your suppliers would take advantage of your inattention and ratchet up your prices. Now there may be some truth to this but I've found that some of the most successful independent operators don't engage in ongoing competitive bidding on the majority of their products. Instead they purchase most of their food and supplies from one, prime supplier or vendor.

Their reasoning is that by consolidating the bulk of their purchases with one supplier they can get lower "overall' prices for a lot less time and effort. They get lower prices because the supplier is willing to lower the "margin" they charge to get a larger share of their business and have the opportunity make more gross profit dollars on their account.

Also, there are some economies of scale, particularly in terms of delivery costs. Drop costs for a supplier are primarily fixed. So it costs about the same to deliver five cases to a restaurant as it does 50 or 100 cases.

That savings along with other supply chain efficiencies and the chance to secure more sales is a strong motivation for suppliers to lower their margins to become a restaurant's prime vendor.

Prime vendor arrangements are often structured like this: The supplier will agree to provide certain products at their cost plus a fixed markup or margin, which is expressed as a percent of cost or a fixed dollar amount per box or case. The operator generally has the right to audit invoices of the supplier to verify the supplier's cost. The prime vendor agreement, which spells out the markups and other conditions, often runs for a period of one year.While prime vendor arrangements are not a panacea, many independent operators cite numerous advantages over ongoing competitive bidding. Lower "overall" prices, less time spent in purchasing activities, few supplier and sales people to deal with, and better service and more attention from their prime vendor are a few pluses that are commonly heard. Instead what I have found at times in these agreements is a drop in overall product quality and a lack of attention to detail once these agreements are signed. Sometimes the prime vendor will continually push an item or items they have too much of trying to get rid of their excess inventory while increasing mine!

Note : I am not in business to keep my vendors inventories low, I am in business to make a profit for my investors and my restaurant.

Eight, "Paying Higher Wages Increases Labor Costs"

Early in my cooking career I was involved with a restaurant franchisee that owned a popular restaurant chain with three locations in Miami Beach. On our busiest nights, typically Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, it was customary to schedule three line cooks for much of or the entire shift doing as many as 250-400 covers a night......we worked our ass off! When one of the line cooks gave notice that he was leaving, the remaining two of us and asked if we could be given a chance to handle the line ourselves, just the two of us even on the busy nights, a gutsy move. If we could do it, we wanted to be paid a little more because we'd be saving the restaurant that third position therefore making them more money.Management was intrigued and gave us a week to prove it and prove it we did. Shortly thereafter, we became the highest-paid line cooks in the franchise. We were thrilled to be making that kind of money and remained loyal employees for quite awhile.

The truth is every restaurant has its superstars. These are the employees who, for whatever reason, are more capable and have a greater capacity to get things done than your average workers. I will identify our superstars, pay them more but also expect them to do more work.

Paying our superstars more, if done right, can result in having fewer, more productive employees who stay with us longer because they're making more money at our restaurant than they can anywhere else. It can also reduce our overall labor cost by less turnover and fewer hours spent "Training the new guy."

Nine, "Paying Overtime is a Sign of Bad Management or Poor Scheduling"

Not necessarily. Overtime may also be a sign that a well-conceived, tight schedule was prepared and the restaurant was busier than expected. The absence of any overtime can be indicative of padded schedules and having more employees than needed.Many restaurants have a policy that either prohibits or discourages management from scheduling any hourly employees more than 40 hours per week. The goal, of course, is to keep from paying the 50 percent premium on overtime wages.While this may appear to be a good business move at first, it can be shortsighted after considering what can happen when a few hours of overtime are regularly scheduled for certain, key employees.The key employees are usually kitchen workers who don't have the opportunity to earn tips and have been known to switch employers to make 25 cents more per hour or sometime less.Scheduling a few hours of overtime for certain back-of-the-house employees will keep us from hiring additional people and give them a reason to stay at our restaurant.

In a time when good workers are hard to find and expensive to replace, anything we can do to reduce turnover and improve employee retention is worth considering.

Ten, "Teaching our Staff Suggestive Selling Techniques and Having Sales Contests are Effective Ways to Increase Sales and Profit"

The National Restaurant Association says that 60 percent of sales in fine dining restaurants and more than 80 percent of sales in casual restaurants come from repeat customers. Clearly, the success of most restaurants depends on creating a large number of happy, loyal, returning guests.

While suggestive selling and sales contests can be an effective way to boost check averages I believe that just because we've always done something a certain way doesn't make it right or best. One thing I've learned about the restaurant business is whenever you think you've got it figured out someone will show you something new or different that tests your conventional thinking. Maybe that's why some of us should be in this business and others can't handle the constant pressure. It keeps us humble and open to new ideas when they present themselves.By pushing only check averages and sales in the short term, over time these tactics can have a detrimental effect on guest satisfaction and frequency.

Making them resentful they came to your restaurant is not a way to stay in business. Guest's today are not stupid. They can tell when they're being hustled to spend more money as opposed to being genuinely served and taken care of.It's often a matter of training and emphasis the restaurant places on the servers to either "sell" or "serve." If job one is creating more loyal, returning guests, then the emphasis will clearly be on "serving," not "selling."I fully realize that servers need to be knowledgeable about the menu and be able to guide guests in making menu decisions yet often it's just a matter of how it's done and the motive behind it.

One successful operator I know doesn't care about how much his guests spend and he doesn't pressure his servers to sell. He simply tells them to do whatever it takes to show them a marvelous time so they keep coming back again and again. If we provide our guest with a great experience for their first impression they are more than likely to return again as well as tell their friends. If we do not make a good impression we can be assured they will not return and will tell seven people not to bother coming to my restaurant because it sucks.

Eleven, "It Is Better to Have Cash Overages Than Cash Shortages"

When our servers, bartenders and cashier’s check out at the close of their shift, I want their actual cash deposit to be within $1 of what the register says they owe. While neither an overage nor shortage is good news, a cash overage is our worst nightmare because it signals the possibility of unrecorded sales.

Unrecorded sales often become an issue when employees who handle cash try to steal. One of the most common ways of pulling this off is to come up with a system of selling something but not recording it as a sale.For an employee who handles cash it's often a simple process of placing all the cash they receive exactly where it's supposed to go: in their cash drawer. But, every fifth soft drink or small order of fries isn't rung up or an item is recorded at a lower price. The customer, however, is still charged full price for everything.This means more cash is going into the cash drawer than the amount of sales getting rung up on the register.

The dishonest employee will have some type of counting scheme to keep track of how much unrecorded money has accumulated. Then, at an opportune time (when no one is looking) they will pull the excess cash out of the drawer and pocket it. Here's a way to tell if one of our cashiers or bartenders is failing to ring up all their sales I, on a surprise basis, occasionally will pull a cashier's or bartender's cash drawer(swap it out with a different one). I then read the register receipts to tell me how much cash "should" be in the drawer. Then I count the "actual" cash in the drawer (less the beginning bank) and if I come up with a cash "overage," we either have a problem with serious incompetence or someone's stealing. It's usually the latter I am afraid.The threat or possibility of a surprise cash count can be a very effective way of keeping people honest and minimizing unrecorded sales. I have even done this to managers on occasion just to keep them honest.

Twelve: "Using Trash Cans in the Kitchen is a Good Way to Dispose of Trim and Waste"

NOT IN MY KITCHEN! I am reminded of one of my favorite culinary instructors from New England Culinary Institute, Chef Bob Long, he said kitchen trash cans have are referred to in the industry as "black holes of profitability" and for good reason. Any restaurant, including ours, is at risk for losing good, usable food products to the kitchen trash cans. If there's training gap or people are careless when slicing, dicing or prepping anything in our kitchen, good, usable (and expensive) products can and WILL end up in the dumpster. If we are losing money in our kitchen first go to the prep trash can at 10am on a Friday morning and you will find the money!

Say a prep cook is preparing a piece of fish or meat and inadvertently makes a slice in the wrong place. Might then he be tempted to hide their mistake in the trash instead of bringing it to me or my sous chefs attention? You bet! It could be happening all the time unless we are doing something to control it. So I do.I know of chefs who have removed all the trash cans in their kitchens and replaced them with clear plastic food boxes. They start by assigning a food box to each prep cook with their name on it. The prep cooks are then instructed to place all of their scraps, trimmings and waste into their own food box.At the end of each shift, a chef or sous chef briefly inspects the contents of each employee's food box. If good, usable product is discovered, it's immediately brought to the employee's attention and, if necessary, they receive some on-the-spot training.

I always say, "don't expect what you don't inspect." Ditching our kitchen garbage cans for plastic food boxes, even for a just week or two, will give us the perfect opportunity to find out exactly what's leaving our kitchen and ending up in the dumpster.

Thirteen, "Only an Owner, Manager or Chef Should Check In Deliveries"

Although receiving is an extremely important activity, let's face it, it's basically a recurring, almost clerical-type function. It should be done the same methodical way over and over again.Under normal circumstances it doesn't make much sense to have our decision-makers and highest-paid people performing repetitive functions when you've got capable staff members who could get the job done just as well and probably even better.Here's why. Who are the two or three people in any restaurant who usually have the least amount of time? Who are the ones constantly putting out the fires, dealing with problems and are frequently interrupted by someone? Invariably, it's the people in our management positions.

Often, when a manager checks in a delivery, they begin the process but are interrupted or diverted to something else before every product is properly inspected, counted and put away. Just think about how difficult it is for a manager or sous chef to have more than about 30 seconds of uninterrupted time, especially prior to opening, when most deliveries come in. As a result, managers don't always do a very thorough, complete job of the receiving functions every time.

Some restaurants have I worked in train a good hourly employee to perform the receiving functions during certain hours of the day as I saw done at Mon Ami Gabi in Las Vegas. The person they select is a solid performer and is thoroughly trained to do the job. I have found that it's much easier for an hourly employee to have the 10-20 minutes of uninterrupted time so they do a more complete and thorough job of receiving than their managers can.

Another reason to have an hourly person double as the receiving clerk is that often our managers and sous chefs do the purchasing. Unless it's unavoidable, you never want the same person to do your purchasing "and" receiving. There are just too many games someone can play and ways to obscure their tracks when they do both.In most restaurants a good, well-trained hourly employee can usually do a consistently better job of your receiving functions than your managers and it frees your managers to do the things only they can do.

Just because we've always done something a certain way doesn't make it right or best. One thing I've learned about the restaurant business is whenever you think you've got it figured out someone will show you something new or different that tests your conventional thinking. It keeps us humble and open to new ideas.

As always I value your opinion...

Our "Mission Statement" for The Cup

Tamara Browning our General Manager and a member of our "core management team" came up with what I believe is a solid Mission Statement for THE CUP our QSR opening December,4th.

"THE CUP" Mission Statement

It's our mission to assist our customers in living responsibly by reducing our carbon footprint in the world.

We serve the highest quality ,natural fresh food and beverages as well as providing healthy,sustainable fair trade coffee's & teas from around the world.

We use green,natural products and promote recycling whenever possible. We want to give you our guest the best service in order to build a strong relationship among our community.

Through this global approach may we all live healthy and prosperous lives while creating a better environment for us all.

What do you think? Is this mission statement too short? Too long? Corny? I would love to hear from you.

Kitchen Design Consultants and why as a Chef you need one.

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." --Theodore Roosevelt

When this project was looked at initially I brought to our team an above average understanding of commercial food service equipment as well as a rudimentary knowledge of overall kitchen design. I soon realized this was not enough! In the beginning we had a world class “Interior Designer” in Thomas Shoos out of Hollywood, California who designed "TAO" in NYC as well as a list of award winning designed hotels & restaurants around the world. His FOH designs where “off the chart and eye popping” yet his concept of a working kitchen was quite small for what I needed. It was at this point I brought in what I considered the best "Man" for the job and in this case it was a woman named Jennifer Safran, project designer, JEM Consulting Group in Las Vegas, NV. Jennifer initiated a meeting between her team the interior design team & me to coordinate what needed to happen between the two to get this project not only to function correctly but to pass all the applicable codes as well. A smartly designed restaurant is very important to how people react to your restaurant and if they are uncomfortable or you convey the "wrong message" you, you’re design as well as restaurant could be out of business quickly! What makes this complicated however is that to a Chef the "heart" of a restaurant is the kitchen.

After much wrangling we managed to carve out a kitchen that I believe will work.What we needed to accomplish in the FOH and BOH was a merging of flow and function in the layout design and the use of recycled materials to create a creative, interactive, contemporary and invigorating environment. While we hope for the accolades from the FOH we still had to consider the approaches needed to incorporate solutions in the BOH necessary to stick with City Center's "Green Build” and maintain their LEED status.

City Center is making some pretty big efforts to tout itself as a model of sustainability. Green building practices like recycling construction waste, using Eco-friendly materials, boosting natural lighting, and incorporating an on site co-generation power plant are just a few of the ways that the project is earning its Eco-credentials. Materials from the imploded Boardwalk Hotel (cleared for the site of City Center) are being recycled into the project, crushed to be recycled into material going into the project, and bathroom fixtures are being shipped to other countries wrapped in the old drapes and carpeting from the original hotel to be used again.

From the start our Architect & Designers kept the focus on staying as green as possible from the products used in construction to even the actual equipment in my kitchen IE: using Manitowoc Ice machines instead of HOSHIZAKI because they use far less water and run much cleaner with less mold which means less hours committed with our dollars to cleaning & maintaining them

We are also using filtration instead of a "RO" or reverse osmosis system which dumps 5 gallons of water for every gallon used and being that we live in a desert that does not help anyone. These recommendations not only help save the environment they help lower our utility costs as well.

Commercial kitchens are one of the highest energy consumers in buildings—using approximately 250,000 Btu/sq.ft, approximately 2.5 times more energy per square foot than commercial buildings without kitchen. One of the things we looked for is an Energy Star rating on all our kitchen equipment as that helps show us we are going in the right direction.

What I did not know in the beginning was how detailed the kitchen drawing needed to be and how many times we would have to rethink a spot because of codes, menu changes and flow of the kitchen. The scope of our project took a turn when we added "The Cup" to the mix as it was a much smaller space requiring some unique placement of equipment to make it work.From the very start I had a key role in how my kitchen in "The World News Kaffee"was to be designed.

After asking for my input on the equipment I liked to work with & with the draft menu I gave them JEM showed us what we needed to get the job done ,within budget of course. Jennifer and her staff, mainly Jason Geckler, set to work designing a very efficient kitchen that can accomplish what I needed no matter which day part we are cooking. They met with our Architect, walked the plans through the health department for both locations and even helped when the city "Changed their mind" on some existing codes a month after being already submitted.

Overall our experience with a kitchen design team has been very positive and I would recommend it to anyone involved with a start-up as well as if you are redesigning a kitchen.

The Executive Chef

What I do as the Executive Chef

This industry has changed so much from when I started as a dishwasher back in the day. Celebrity chefs where not that common then as today and to tell you the truth I had no idea at that time I would someday become a chef. Working in commercial kitchens was, up until about 12 years ago, "just a job" that I was working until I found a respectful career that my father would be proud of....lol! I laugh now however it took many years of frustration to realize the one job I was always good at was the job I should turn into a career! I had the passion for food since I was a child just not the direction I needed. That was until an older Sous Chef pulled to the side after a particular crazy Saturday night at Mistrals in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and asked me if I ever thought of making this my career, a career...ha? I almost laughed at him but he insisted I just sit and listen too him..."I should take my culinary experience and career seriously or nobody else ever will" and with that I started my journey to where I am today.

Definition of the word "Chef”: A chief of head person. The head cook
of large establishment, as a club, restaurant, hotel or eating establishment etc.
Also the same as Chief.

Anyone who has been "lucky" enough to be involved in opening a restaurant understands that it takes plenty of skilled people, with specific roles and responsibilities to get the job done correctly and as the Executive Chef my roll is constantly changing. The to-do list is daunting, from accounting to interior design, key personnel hiring to menu placement, recipe testing, recipe cards....not to mention the HR paperwork just to start!
The Executive Chef's role in all this organized mess is as important as any one's in an executive management position in any type of company, maybe more so.
Every restaurant relies on good food but that's just the start of it....many restaurants fail with just wonderful food....first and foremost it's a BUSINESS! It makes its money & profit from selling great service, food & drink.
The profit-and-loss statement relies on consistent food/labor cost, and that same statement often shows how important the Chef is to the operation through correct product usage, daily inventory pars and the ability to adapt to a changing market with menu innovations & specials to name just a few!
The food-beverage ratio tells much of the story in a successful restaurant as well. It's not unusual for %60 to %70 of total sales to be made up of food, and the remainder in beverage. In non-liquor food establishments, the split is even more one-sided.
With so much volume coming from food, it's important that I be very involved with not only running the restaurant kitchen, but in opening as well.

As the chef I am the restaurant's boni-fide food expert. I do take advice from my guests, staff and cooks when it comes to my food because at the end of the day it does not matter what "I like" it's what the guest will purchase and thats what keeps the lights on.

It took many years to learn how to properly train, mentor, interview and especially learn proper hiring and firing practices. One of the best F&B people I ever met was Angela Todero and I owe a debt of gratitude to her for showing me the HR ropes and how to apply tact in the kitchen which until that time I did not possess much of!
As the chef I also need to be well versed in ordering, inventory, and storage of the restaurant's most important asset: perishable food. I am also in charge of recipes or at least making sure that they are correctly executed. This is where a Sous Chef comes into play! A Sous is the "Assistant Chef" and in order to run an efficient kitchen a good sous chef is always a first priority! The Sous is basically my eye's ears and hands when I am not on property and trusting them with the keys to my kitchen. Every restaurant is at its best when the management team works together to ensure decisions are made without ego getting in the way and by sharing the workload by including FOH managers in on BOH line checks as well as IE: the Sous Chef helping with liquor inventory are keys in my restaurant.

Equipment and kitchen layout decisions are made through me for a reason. This process is painstaking but well worth it! I remember once as executive chef of a steakhouse, I was able to get my opinion heard just in time to change a two-door, under-counter reach-in located in the pantry area to a freezer. We had plenty of cold storage space in garde manger, but nowhere to keep ice cream, or other "at hand" frozen items. Had I not gotten my two cents in, other equipment layout mistakes would have had to be worked around, and not by the people with the notepads who made them. I learned my lesson at that place and now I am present for every equipment decision that is made for the BOH and FOH. What is important to note is every person who is hired into a key position needs to be involved in decisions that will affect his/her job. It doesn't make much sense to order all the kitchen small wares, pots and pans and specialty equipment until I sign off on it because how would anyone else know how I cook? Each chef is a bit different and we tend to like or prefer certain brands based on experience, ease of use and even if I broke it once. I also bring into the decision FOH managers & bartenders for any glassware, plate and silverware decisions. I have a running theory that if I give 10 chefs a bag of the same groceries and turn them loose to cook, I would get 10 different menus. The same thought process applies to how chefs view prep and production. The same menu could be given to the same 10 chefs and each will create a different list of "equipment needed" to fulfill that task and for that reason alone I list equipment needed on my recipe cards to clear any argument on how it should be prepped.

I actually "shaped" my equipment and small wares "buy" around my menu...makes sense right...you'd be surprised how many chefs and managers don't do that. I worked within a budget the owner and I established to fill our kitchen(s) with the items I know are going to get the job done for the best price.
For example one item I always get is what we like to call a (burr mixer) or large hand immersion hand-blender for batching soups, sauces among other things without it my kitchen tends to bog down which drive me crazy. One would be amazed how one piece of equipment can transform long prep times.
So many decisions made in a preplanned a restaurant affect the kitchen and the chef's crew, from china choices to where the ice machine should be located, even walk-in's yet in my kitchen we have no walk-In's only several reach-ins that provide a "finite" amount of cold storage so ordering food daily will be a task! On the other hand the food will always be fresh.

One of my tasks is to implement "Family Meal" where the entire staff, BOH & FOH, sit down for a meal between shifts usually 3pm. This is primarily to foster teamwork and share any important information management needs to share with the staff and vice versa. This is also a great time to try family recipe's and product usage as well.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have become an integral part in myself and my owners dream and passion for this restaurant to be a successful business and that is such a great feeling however it does not mean it's easy. With this responsibility comes a ton of day to day pressure I have already mentioned. I wont go into the negative side of running a restaurant because if you have read this far you know all about them, just be aware this is not for the light hearted or thin skinned type of person!



As I write this I realize I have a Combi oven to test next week for our pastries, bagels and croissants in our coffee shop.... :-) Oh and the fun never stops does it!
This restaurant will be a success and I look forward to getting back where I belong...in the kitchen!

I, as always, welcome you're comments