This Foodie Friday, I’m inspired by the memory of a long-closed (by the Health Department as it turns out) restaurant called South Seas. It served very large “exotic” drinks – Zombies, Scorpion Bowls, the full range of tiki bar delights – and the first pu-pu platter I’d ever encountered.
My high school friends and I would often meet up at South Seas to gather in front of a glowing pu-pu platter. The center was a grill, fueled by Sterno I think, on which we could cook something from the mound of delights surrounding it. Of course, everything had been fried and I was never quite sure why one would want to further cook an egg roll, but it was very foreign and wonderful. Of course, since they would serve both the food and the drinks to anyone (the drinking age was 18 but our 18th birthdays were a few years away – sorry Mom), I might be misrecalling how good the food was, but I really loved it.
It’s the pu-pu platter that triggered the business thought. While most of us had after-school or weekend jobs of some sort, none of us really had a ton of disposable income for food. The Pu-pu platter solved that problem by being a cost-effective alternative to having to order several different plates. We could graze as we saw fit without having to commit to one dish. As I think about it now, many other types of cuisine offer their version of a pu-pu plater: the mixed antipasto (hot or cold) most Italian places serve, the popularity of tapas places (you’re sort of constructing your own pu-pu platter as your order many different little plates), heck, even the canape platters they pass around a cocktail parties are pu-pu platters in my mind. And I think there’s something your business can take away from that.
The pu-pu platter or antipasto plate lets the customer sample multiple facets of your kitchen. It lets them understand the quality and variety of what you offer without their having to make a major commitment. That’s not a bad idea for any business. Free consultations and low- or no-cost trial periods are one way to deliver this. Offering a little bit of everything, much like a country store does, might be another. I hasten to add that anything you do offer needs to be of the same high-quality as your main product or service offerings.
When I see a pu-pu platter on a menu these days, I’m still tempted to order one so I can have a little taste of everything. Keeping a pu-pu platter mindset might just be a way to grow your business, don’t you think?
Consult Keith 