Tag Archives: Food industry

October 9, 2015 · 9:07 am

A Bowl Of Learning

This week’s Foodie Friday Fun was inspired by a salad I had for lunch yesterday. Business thinking from a salad? You bet! As I keep reminding you, we can learn from everything. So what was so special and businesslike about this particular bowl of greens?

Salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt a...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The salad in question was a chef’s salad of sorts, even though it went by another name. It was basically a pile of greens – some frisée, some watercress, a couple of various lettuces – topped by turkey, various salumi, chopped bacon, and a hard boiled egg. Not exactly the sort of thing that a cook would have to spend years in culinary school to develop. There was a dressing on the salad too – a white balsamic dressing that was a simple vinaigrette made with white balsamic. So what can we learn from this?

The salad was delicious. Every element was carefully chosen. The mortadella was not too fatty to throw off the balance, the bacon was nicely cooked, slightly smoky and not greasy. The egg was hard-boiled perfectly – not overly cooked so the white was rubbery. Even the salami and turkey were cut into perfectly bite-sized pieces, and they were terrific on their own. So where is the business lesson in all this goodness?

Even the simplest product or service can be great if it’s executed properly with the highest-quality materials. A kid could put this salad together (although you might want to cut the meats up for them) but an expert had to choose each ingredient. The cooked elements – again, very simple – were done to perfection. There wasn’t too much dressing and the salad had been carefully tossed to coat the greens without a pool of vinaigrette in the bottom of the plate.

We have a tendency in business to forget how important the ingredients are. Those are the people we hire, the simple but clear plans and presentations we deliver, and the objectivity we bring to every business decision. Every one of those ingredients needs to be the best quality we can find, since inferior ingredients mean an inferior product, even if the execution is perfect. On the other hand, imperfect execution can ruin even the best ingredients.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.  This salad reminded me of that. You?

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September 11, 2015 · 11:02 am

Disparaging Non-disparagement

More silliness from the restaurant world this Foodie Friday.  Today we have the tale of Grill 225 in Charleston, which is a well-reviewed steak and seafood place.  They do many things right.  According to most of what I can find,  the food is delicious and the service is attentive.  They are the #8 restaurant in Charleston, according to Trip Advisor, which is no small feat in a very competitive restaurant town.

In addition to being good at what they do in the restaurant, the management appears to be very good at social and other media.  Many of the Trip Advisor comments have a reply from the restaurant in the thread.  Not only does the writer thank the customer but they manage to turn each of their posts into a subtle commercial for some aspect of the restaurant (our USDA Prime steaks, so glad you enjoyed your famous Nitrotini).  Smart!  Which is why I was surprised to read about them doing something seriously dumb that has blown up and is instructive to the rest of us.

Like many popular places, Grill 225 asks for a credit card when you make a reservation.  If you are making a reservation for a party of 5 or more, they send you a “dining contract” which notifies you that should you cancel all or some of the requested seats within 24 hours of the party’s arrival, they will hit you with a $50 per seat fee.  If someone gets sick and doesn’t show, the same fee applies (so if your party of 8 becomes a party of 7 because your pal got hung up at the office, you’re out $50).  Many restaurants have a similar policy, although most will tell you they never actually charge the fee.

Where Grill 225 failed is what else they added to the agreement.  As the local paper reported it:

The terms set out by Grill 225 aren’t unusual. To curb the costs associated with empty tables, an increasing number of restaurants are threatening to charge miscreants. But Grill 225’s contract includes an additional clause: “By agreeing to these terms and conditions, the guest(s) and their party agree that they may be held legally liable for generating any potential negative, verbal or written defamation against Grill 225.” In other words, if someone in your group kvetches online about the restaurant enforcing its stated rules, a lawsuit may follow.

 

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August 21, 2015 · 9:02 am

Becoming A Steakhouse

It’s Foodie Friday, and my mind is turning to steak. While I enjoy grilling steaks as much as the next person, most of our efforts here at Rancho Deluxe can’t compare to the product put out by a good steakhouse. It got me thinking about why that is, and it turns out there are some really good business points one can take away.

Steak at Peter Luger's

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At first I attributed the biggest difference to the meat itself. After all, high-end steak places serve nothing but prime meat, and generally, it’s been aged. As with any business, NOTHING can take the place of top-shelf raw materials. You can’t make a great product out of inferior ingredients. So on a special occasion, I splurged on an aged piece of Prime porterhouse thinking I now had the ability to replicate that great steak at home. While it was very good, it was definitely NOT the same.

Then there is the cooking method. Top steak places might use a broiler that is heated to 1,000 degrees or more. While I do have a high-end broiler in my oven, I don’t think it gets quite that hot. A charcoal grill can get quite hot using lump (not briquette) charcoal, but it’s a different experience than most steakhouses. Still, it came close in terms of providing enough heat to do the job.

So now I had the equivalent ingredients and a similar cooking tool but it just wasn’t the same. Putting aside that I was doing the cooking and not just being served, I realized that there was one more huge difference: practice. Steakhouses cook 1,000 steaks a week or more. If I do 24 in a year it’s a lot. But it’s a good business point.

There is no substitute for practice, and the more times we do things – presentations, analyses, whatever – the better we become at them. That’s noticeable to the recipient.  Having great raw materials – that includes people – and a great methodology coupled with the right tools to do the job and a LOT of practice can produce a great steak.  That formula’s also capable of producing greatness in your business if you’ll let it.  Will you?

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