Restaurants To Add Simplicity to Quality - Eating In, Out.

Continuing our focus on the simple pleasures of life, we’re going to take a deeper look this week at what the industry has recently termed haute/casual.

Though we’ve shown a moderate gain in revenues these past few months (at least 10% higher than last year at the same time) the one trend that hasn’t recovered has been decadent dining. Diners are still avoiding upscale restaurants in favor of a more simple, independent, one-of-kind-type eateries. And, for once, the industry is changing to suit them.
 

Focusing on simple and recognizable dishes puts customers at ease, according to Lesley Chesterman of the Montreal Gazette. Finding inspiration in street food, bbq pits, sugar shacks (think of Michel Picard’s new Cabane à Sucre) and unpretentious bistros, dozens of Montreal chefs are putting out large portions that focus on the scrumptious over the luxurious. It was a hot button topic at the American NRA conference in May as well… Restaurants that specialize in Fast Casual  (Au Bon Pain, Panera etc.), restaurants that have always capitalized on a growing desire for simple foods led seminars on how to set yourself apart through a concentration on using ingredients of exceptional quality in uncomplicated combinations.

The same trend has slid in to the bar scene as well. Canadian restaurants are moving bar food up a notch with the same attitude; mac n’ cheese, fish and chips and sliders are all getting ritzy re-visits. Furthermore, these same chefs have also coped to exploiting their staff when it comes to up-tweaking older, workhorse-esque, dishes. Ask your employees what they enjoy eating when dining out or eating in and you’ll discover a wealth of information you probably haven’t ever before considered.

Across the water, Greece has embraced a tradition that had been sadly ignored for the past few decades, the time-honored taverna. For Greeks, dining has always been discourse’s sad cousin; so the reason d’être for a taverna was to provide the comforts of home while one was, well, not at home. The recession has reminded people of the joys of eating in, so it makes sense that entrepreneurs are finding success with homey dishes.

Best of all? The critics (in addition to the customers) are licking it up and asking for more; Food and Wine Magazine, for the very first time in its entire history, actually chose the owner/operator of a food truck for one of its Best New Chefs 2010!

Going With The Grain - Harvesting Local Wheat

Against most culinary adages, I'm going to recommend that you begin cutting with the grain. Not meat of course! But locally harvested, indigenous, grains. Last week's article was about salt; this week, we're talking about 'the salt of the earth’.

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There is next to nothing that we consider as simply satisfying and as fundamentally necessary as bread. When we're doing well, we're the breadwinners and the upper crust, when we're being punished; we eat nothing but bread and water. In recent years we've seen the locavore movement devour vegetables, fish and grass-fed meat, so grains must be the next great frontier.

These grain pioneers were out in force, earlier this month, at the fourth annual Kneading Conference! Skowhegan, Maine, hosted this year’s celebration of artisanal baking with locally sourced beans and grains. Farmers, millers, bakers, oven builders and random curious visitors brushed shoulders with Jeffery Hamelman, Bakery Director of King Arthur Flour as well as Fred Kirschenman, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, previously a member of the USDA's National Organic Standards Board, and many others. Demand for this kind of local northeastern grain is being fueled on both sides of the fence; consumers crave the nuttier, richer flavor, while bakers are excited by the challenge as well as comforted by the decrease in ecological impact. According to many of the conference’s key organizers, one of the greatest aims of the conference is to let people know they are not alone.

And they’re not. From bakeries in Massachusetts to flour mills in Pennsylvania to farms in Vermont, everyone is investigating local wheats. Cayuga Pure Organics is the first vendor to sell locally grown grains, beans and flours in Manhattan, while Island Grains, a grain-heavy Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) co-op in Vancouver, celebrates its second birthday this year. Even Californians are moving away from a total reliance on midwestern wheat. Everyone is excited about the benefits: from the obvious (reducing your eco footprint and contributing to your local economy) to the more obscure (heirloom wheat varieties, which offer exceptional tastes and unique textures, are in danger of being completely forgotten).

Of course there are still issues to be confronted. Frank discussions at the Kneading Conference highlighted the lack of info-structure (the mills and processing facilities) for this largely fragmented movement. There’s an increased cost to consider, as well, according to Cayuga Pure Organics’ liaison, Tycho Dan. If you bought Cayuga's local grains by the container full, you would be paying at least thirty percent more than traditional varieties. Additionally, like all “natural” things, consistency can be a problem. But bakers call it a joyous challenge, rightly claiming that an anonymous commodity isn’t nearly as appetizing!

So let’s face up to facts. The honest truth is that transporting supplies via road or rail is becoming less and less sustainable. We have to start investigating alternative options now, before we’re out of goods…and ideas.

In other words, completely abandon those old half-baked schemes and let’s get this local grain movement on a roll!

*Don’t forget! Bread isn’t the only great use for local grains; think about quenching your thirst with a locally sourced wheat beer.

Working with Low Sodium - Shaking Out That Salt.

Despite all that the Food Network, Morgan Spurlock, and the Slow Food movement, has done to improve our understanding of the food/body equation, North Americans are no closer to being healthy. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that nearly 25 percent of American teens have abnormal 'blood lipid' levels - this includes high levels of LDL (the bad) cholesterol and low levels of HDL (the good) cholesterol, along with high levels of trigylcerides which can clog arteries - and that more than 1 billion adults overweight or obese globally. Surprisingly, much of the blame is being laid on those advocating a supposedly 'healthy' diet: Jonny Bowden, PhD, C.N.S, and weight-loss expert claims that it's the low-fat craze that's caused most our 'big' problems. Trying to eliminate edible fats brought on high-fructose corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oils, leaving consumers with even greater physical fats than ever before.

These days, most people are catching wise to the hype, realizing that it's the false focus on starches and fats that are actually causing the problem and realigning their focus on a more insidious danger...Salt. According to EatRight Ontario, the Government of Ontario's attempt to connect their residents to registered dietitians and better resources for healthy eating, sodium's main purpose is to regulate the water balance and blood pressure in your body. Good in small doses, but eat too much and you dissipate all the water, leaving nothing behind but a sky-high blood pressure. 

The food industry has already started to step away from the ubiquitous shaker. Three years ago, ED Foods introduced Luda H, soup bases and gravies with 78 percent less salt, while at the beginning of this year, New York City unveiled a broad new health initiative encouraging food manufacturers and restaurants to curtail their salt use, and just a few months ago, Subways, Starbucks, Mars Food US and even Unilever agreed to cut the salt in their products by 10 percent over the next two years. 

Still, many restauranteurs have expressed concern over any possible mandatory regulation as it's very difficult to adjust the sodium content without losing flavor and/or general appeal. Sodium reduction has to be done on an ingredient by ingredient basis otherwise you risk an unpalatable product. Best to start voluntarily expanding your seasoning horizons... Lest all governments actually start enforcing a 1000$ penalty such as the one that New York State is considering.

But don't waste your salt on tears! Here's a list of great ways to avoid sodium based on food style and type. Although it's phrased to apply to the consumer, it could also be a great idea source when you sit down to write your menu. 

The Bottled Water Dilemma - Tap Water Still Runs Deep.

"Good Evening, may I interest you in a bottle of water?..."

It's the classic server push...and responsible for quite the added bit of income for any restaurant. Working as a server in my younger days, managers always made it a point to remind us to sell the bottled water. A glass cylinder of Voss (supposedly taken from an aquifer "shielded for centuries under ice and rock in the untouched wilderness of Central Norway") can be sold at the table for around eight to twelve dollars, while a case of twenty-four will usually only set the house back by about thirty; Nearly 90% of that Voss becomes pure profit, which can be awfully easy for a restauranteur to swallow. 

On the other hand, that sip might just choke you when you realize, asides from lucrative, bottled water may also be the most quintessential of all environmentally unsustainable choices. Seventeen million barrels of oil are required just to produce the containers that hold the 53 billion gallons of bottled water consumed annually (enough oil to fuel one million cars for the same period of time). And that's not even including the costs involved in shipping these bottle-shaped environmental bombs from Fiji or Évian-Les-Bains. In early March, the United Nations admitted that bottled water wasn't sustainable, right on the heels of Inside The Bottle's release of the animated film "The Story of Bottled Water", sparking international debate. 

So, despite the lost revenue, many restaurants are choosing to either restrict bottled water options or to eliminate the option entirely. In return, these restaurants get to ride the crest of public opinion (Giles Coren, restaurant reviewer for the London Times, claims that he will only give top marks to establishments serving a locally bottled water or none at all), they get to act in the best interests of environmental stewardship, and they get to, just generally, sleep well at night. But the money aspect is certainly not a wash; restaurants operate on such a fine financial line! So how to resign yourself to this lost income?

Well, firstly, you can write it off your budget for advertising: sites like Canada's Green Table, the U.S's Responsible Purchasing Network and Corporate Accountability International, make it their business to proudly proclaim which restaurants have made the blue-green leap of faith. Local news sources will also probably jump at the chance to do a piece on your ban (like ABC's coverage of the bottled water debate, for example).


Secondly, if you'd like to put a bit more muscle behind it, you can invest in a filtration system or a CO2 injector and offer home-filtered water or house-made sparkling at a premium, alongside the option of tap like Alice Waters does at Chez Panisse. Rather than making the lack of bottled water a liability, make it a stance, and people will drink it up. Pun definitely intended. 

(For more ideas, keep your eyes on Montreal come september. Ed's hometown is hosting this year's International Water Association's World Water Congress and Exhibition). 

Teaching A Class On What You Know Best - Marketing By Putting Money Where Your Mouth Is.

A heated debate in the food service industry concerns an old adage: Catch a man a fish and he'll eat for a day...but if you teach a man to fish, will he still continue to eat at your restaurant?

Capitalizing on the popularity of the Food Network's how-to shows and the continued celebrocracy of gourmet dining, high-end restaurants have been proving that this summer, those who can do can teach as well. Lately, many restaurants have been offering special evenings where the Chef, Sommelier, or equally qualified employee, shares some cherished know-how, as well as select drinks and delectables, to a room full of eager patrons/students.

La Marea in Miami organized a two-hour interactive BBQ how-to as part of their Father's Day offerings this year, the foodie-tchotchkes shop Good Egg, located in Toronto's Kensington Market, offered classes on home-preserving and knife skills that drew the likes of movie star Rachel McAdams, while Roberta's Restaurant in Brooklyn, NY, led a dramatically well-attended seminar on Rabbit Butchering a few weeks ago.

According to the Toronto Star, Food Network Canada has grown 20% in viewership in the past year, proving that people are becoming even more motivated to watch what they eat. Or well, watch what they'll eat be made. It's not necessarily a new idea, (Seattle-area restaurants have been nourishing their bottom line by having customers put money to the Chef's mouth for several years now) but it's a great one, especially since, despite political promises to the contrary, these past months have not produced any significant economic stimulation. Offering an evening of this sort can help throw your name out as a doubly enjoyable experience; dinner and a show!

And hosting a lecture or seminar at your establishment can also help produce guests on what otherwise might be your slower nights; L'Espalier Boston, for example, offers a special wine-themed dinner on Mondays, the very popular Cheese Tuesdays (featuring captain seating, a themed lecture and a 'cheesy' parody sing-along), and they've just added a 'Mixology n' Cocktails' night most Thursdays. Front of the house staff there once confided that these events hoist numbers by a good fifty or sixty heads, an added revenue that comes without significant costs, well above traditional weeknight bookings.

Additionally, remember that encouraging your staff to contribute ideas and participate in these evenings can help motivate them through what might otherwise be a lackluster summer while also demonstrating how you value and appreciate their unique expertise.

Ultimately, proving to the public that you are worth your salt (or possibly, know it) will highlight the reasons patrons ought to be visiting your restaurant on all the other nights of the week as well. And that's definitely something worth teaching.

Avoiding the Lost Revenue From No-Shows – Some Reservations on Reservations.

It probably goes without saying that most restaurants choose to offer reservations. Although there are certain downsides to offering pre-arranged times and tables, in the long run, many restaurateurs feel that the gains outweigh the disadvantages. A well managed reservation schedule, especially on busier nights, helps move customers from peak to off-peak periods so as to better match the flow of customers with that restaurant’s staff and capacity. This means that your team has enough time and space to offer the best service to every patron: only one of reservations’ multiple benefits. 

Sadly, many diners take advantage of this practice to guarantee tables at several different restaurants, ultimately abandoning all but one depending on their mood, while some just plain abuse the system by failing to show for no reason at all. No-show rates can be as high as 10 to 20 percent for typical evenings. Two commonly applied solutions for no-shows in the past have been to overbook and/or to call each diner to confirm. Unfortunately, both of these still offer negative consequences. Overbooking risks a foyer full of annoyed guests waiting for their tables while confirmations require manpower yet can carry similar fail rates.

As I’ve written previously, I really believe that the restaurant industry should take more cues from the other hospitality fields. Hotels, airlines, doctors…all of these have penalties for the no-show. Assuming that the charge is not astronomical, most diners find it very acceptable for a smaller scale business to charge a no-show fee. Although, don’t make your charge too negligible as restaurants in San Francisco found that patrons ignored everything until they raised the fee to 100$. Several years ago, as the direct result of negotiations with the hospitality industry, American Express began to accept dining credit charges without signatures, precisely to support this type of fee. A year after the strategy was implemented; restaurants actually reported a significant decrease in no-call no-shows! To this day, AmEx cardholders are subject to this policy.

Obviously, as a concerned proprietor, you’ll still want to be sensitive to extreme circumstances, most likely waiving the fee if a guest calls to inform you of their absence and especially if you end up filling the table. Check out the National Restaurant Association’s great series on how to handle the situation once you’re actually faced with a no-show.

Of course, you could also choose to completely chuck the old ways, and invent something new! Like Grant Achtaz’s stadium-style ticket seating or Bram Cohen’s variation on dutch auctions.

The Where and Why of Purchasing Ethical Meat - Conscientious Omnivorism as the New Black.

In view of the current Gulf Coast situation (which, by the way, still seems to have no solid solution) it seems like a good time to discuss some sources of protein other than fish.

Once upon a time, not eating meat was the easiest and most obvious way to make a moral food choice: Factory farms are among the most pollutant and inhumane of animal producers. However, as professionals, we can’t possibly eliminate such a profitable, and delicious, item from the menu. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make ethical choices. Thanks to some conscientious and purposeful purveyors*, green sources for pork, beef, eggs and veal have become increasingly available. Proponents of these farmers argue convincingly that the methods employed do not have the same environmental interactions as industrial production. In addition, not only are these animals being raised humanely with a minimum of methane production, but they are also being raised in a more traditional manner (i.e. grazing on a free-range grassy pasture), resulting in a more complex and exceptionally tasty meat.

Admittedly, these steaks can take a cut out of your budget, but customers are also willing to pay more for moral menu items. San Francisco-based Context Marketing released a study a few months ago demonstrating that nearly 70 percent of U.S. food shoppers are willing to pay more for food that is produced to higher ethical standards. The study also asked respondents to identify which qualities and claims about moral foods were most likely to encourage their being purchased. Over half agreed that humanely raised meat with no supplemental hormones and no antibiotics were very important. In the past, abstaining may have been only way to be sure of making an appropriate dining choice but now even staunch vegetarians are choosing to eat meat in order to help promote ecologically sustainable and humanely-raised choices.

As some of the world’s largest consumers of meat and meat by-products, we food professionals have a strong hand in guiding available options. Support ranchers and farmers who are making wholesome decisions and we can make eating meat the easiest and most obvious way to make a moral choice. Long live the conscientious omnivore!

* Azaluna Brands, currently producing heirloom eggs and mother’s-milk-fed veal, originated as a project for students at Tuft’s University School of Veterinary Science and thanks to Dr. George Saperstein, professor and department chair, has blossomed into a fantastic resource for ethical animal husbandry. Here’s a great interview with the Doctor where he shares his thoughts on meat and morals.

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EDITED TO ADD:  Still no signs of improvement on the Gulf Coast.