sustainable seafood

You’re the Boss: Taking the Bait: On Prix Fixe, Sustainable Seafood and Restaurant Economics

Here are some comments from all over the country and all over the culinary map. I am grateful for the responses to the posts about prix fixe policy, the talkative owner and the restaurant itself. It may be impossible to please all the people all the time, but all the people who take the time to write please me all the time. Thank you.

“Sustainable seafood” (an oxymoron) with a side of foie gras (torture). This place has a bizarre notion of ethical eating. The Berkeley restaurant Gather does a much better job of living up to ethical ideals. Top quality vegetable preparations (not seafood from our decimated oceans or force-fed duck) should be the cornerstone of any sustainable menu. – Shannon, Oregon

Shannon,
For the record, Gather serves smelt, yellowtail tuna, albacore, anchovies, lamb sausage, young chickens, and Prather Ranch beef burgers. All of which are sustainable or organic. (Yellowtail is not actually tuna, but in the jack family, which is sustainable.)

Restaurateurs like this ought to think about sustaining a decent degree of gastronomy. They’re living off of naïve, inexperienced and uninformed customers who let them tolerate being, in essence, force fed and kept in a culinary straitjacket. –Robert Brown, New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Brown,
The sophisticated, well-traveled and well-heeled guests who frequent Southfork Kitchen would be very surprised to hear that they are, in fact, unbeknown to them, uninformed, force fed and straightjacketed.

We had the Prix Fixe a few weeks ago and LOVED it. We thought the food was exquisite, on par or better than any restaurant in a 50 mile radius. But it was not a cheap date our bill with tax, tip, and one of the least expensive bottles of wine was over $200 for two people … the restaurant fills a real fine dining niche that is not being served out here, and I think they will do very well in the summer months. — Joe T, Sag Harbor, N.Y.

Joe T.
So glad you enjoyed yourself. Thanks for sharing.

Add me to the tally of people who will not set foot in the door in the first place if my only options are a large (and not inexpensive) meal in the dining room, or a few food choices in the bar. — MHM, N.Y.

MHM,
The food served at the bar is from the same chef and served in the same ambience with the same service. The bar menu includes appetizers, entrees and desserts. Or the prix fixe.

Thank you very much for not adding the supplemental items. I find that extremely tacky. If I’m paying $n, I don’t want to have to spend an extra $10-$x dollars on the supposed best item on the menu. The amuses/petit fours make the meal that much more special, more enjoyable. — D. Whitman, New York, N.Y.

Dear D.W.,
You are very welcome.

I was skeptical of your 100 rules at first, but maybe there’s something to be said for #7 (No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.), #8 (Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason.) and 69 (If someone wants to know your life story, keep it short.) – Michael, Washington, D.C.

Michael,
The rules were for servers, not owners. Part of my job is allow the servers to do their jobs by fielding questions and explaining our philosophy to inquisitive guests.

It’s interesting that you are directly quoting a conversation that took place when you weren’t actually present. – ruth, providence

ruth,
Many a fine history book has dialogue written by people who were not actually in the room or on the battlefield to hear those conversations. My source, however, is pretty reliable — my wife, Dr. B, is a psychologist with a knack for listening and remembering conversations verbatim. Especially when they took place only two hours before telling me about them.

Most Americans are unhappy if they don’t get a gut-rupturing amount of food. A fixed-price menu gives them an excuse to order an appetizer AND dessert. – Joanne Aberdeen, Md.

Joanne,
If you are saying that prix fixe is a public service, thank you.

Keep in mind that an average is just that: an average, nothing more. You can raise an average check by reducing the below-average instances, or by raising the above-average instances; pursuing the latter would seem better for business in most cases. Training staff to sell more bottles of wine, perhaps? – MrB, Chicago

Mr. B,
Training a staff to sell more bottles of wine is exactly what we do not want to do at Southfork Kitchen. Up-selling is a downer.

Bravo, Bruce, I’m proud of you– a real post with real information and I didn’t feel like I had to read through a French novel to find it — mhf, Houston, Tex.

mhf,
Merci. Je pense.

I am afraid you are risking losing good repeat business that comes in every week for a soup and a drink to be replaced by more fickle higher ticket diners… I am especially concerned in the Hamptons. Many customers might want something lighter. Maybe go prefix on weekends only. – BD, New York

Dearest BD,
It is nice to have someone worry about us. We have discussed doing the prix fixe on weekends only in the off-season, but we are going to run with this for the summer and see where it takes us.

1. It’s not rocket science. 2. Is this a new industry inventing the concept of dining? 3. Prix Fixe only? 4. For “ages” the concept was a Prix Fixe offering as ONE element of a creative menu… 5.He who focuses only on the average ends up delivering just that…an “average” product or experience. – BQ, Philadelphia

BQ,
You really equate focusing on the average check to creating an average meal? This may not be rocket science, but your thinking is decidedly astral.

Bruce, I think what you’re doing is smart. You’ve recognized you have a dollar amount you need to make per seat to cover costs (and try to make a profit)… The fact that you created a bar menu for patrons who want a lighter bite gives everyone an option. – Kris, PDX

Kris PDX,
Thank you, Kris. (Do you live in the Portland Airport?)

In France, cheese is usually an option for dessert, and i am a fiend for cheese. I don’t eat pastries for dessert … and so it is an imposition to expect me to pay for a creme brulee, or whatever. – anne, Washington, D.C.

Bonjour anne,
We have a cheese plate — five cheeses from Mecox Bay Dairy — served with local honey and fruit preserves. You are welcome to have that first or last or in-between.

This is an interesting piece on restaurant economics, something that many diners — including myself — know nothing about. In short, it would be nice to know whether the sustainable seafood/local food ideas are worth the extra cost and whether diners really appreciate the effort. – PorscheGuy, East Coast

PorscheGuy,
It is an interesting question and one that deserves a full post. In short, yes, local organic produce costs more and tastes better and supports our neighbors and is healthier and well worth the effort and the cost.

When my wife and I consider dining, we expect to spend some money, and we might be limited in this respect so we choose restaurants carefully. You wouldn’t see us often, Bruce, but if the experience were to be as good as it promises you would have received extremely grateful customers, your staff would be complimented and handsomely tipped, and we would heartily recommend your place to everyone we know. — Fideles, new york, ny

Fideles,
You sound like great guests. We look forward to serving you. Semper Fi.

Bruce, this may be the best move you have made so far. I applaud it for one basic reason; it shows that you are concerned with the economics of the restaurant. You don’t have to be all things to all people. If some find it too expensive, so be it. People will always want a bargain…If $55 covers your costs and you keep having a full house go ahead and raise it to $65, $75 or $100. Find what the market will bear. Maybe you would rather be 80% booked so you have room for walk-ins? — Shylock, Virginia

Shylock,
What a great idea! Thanks. Right after Memorial Day, we’ll raise the prix fixe to $68.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2a5e7a154b591f8d25c57daf96093121

You’re the Boss: The Hardest Part of Running a Restaurant

Chris KoszykSouthfork staffers: Eliot Wandel, Roxanne Lelchuck, Javie Smith.

Rafael thanked me for offering him a dream job. A fisherman since childhood, a painter of fish by day and a server at night, he had been waiting for a sustainable seafood place in which to work. He was well-spoken and mannerly, a good listener. We talked for an hour, going over his experience, his ambitions, how he stretched his canvases. He wanted to start work immediately. We agreed he would start the next day, at noon, train and taste and get familiar with our steps of service. That was a month ago. We have not heard from Rafael since.

The hardest part of running a fish restaurant in the Hamptons is not getting the wreckfish from the bottom of the sea to the kitchen. It is not getting the permits from the health department or the liquor license from the state. It is not finding a chef or guests or organic mesclun. The hardest part of running a fish restaurant in the Hamptons is getting the fish from the kitchen to the table.

That’s it. Kitchen to table. What a concept! I kid you not: getting the food from the chef to the guest in a timely and polite fashion by a timely and polite staff is the great white whale. Those last 50 feet may as well be an ocean.

Doris was a genteel and educated person, and a pretty fair server. Unbeknownst to me, she dabbled in real estate during the day; sometimes it seems as if everyone in the Hamptons dabbles in real estate. One night, a client to whom she was trying to sell a multimillion-dollar house came into Southfork Kitchen for dinner, and Doris was so flustered, so conflicted about her dual professions, that she resigned the next day. She had had an epiphany: never let servings interfere with closings.

Everyone warned me. Managers and owners of other restaurants told me about the impossibility of hiring a staff in the off-season. Even my wife warned me, and she is the first to admit that she knows precious little about restaurants. But she knows a few things about the Hamptons and empty roads and closed taverns and snow drifts and the eccentricities of members of a nomadic professional tribe. She knows that servers, like farmers and tennis pros and sane people of privilege, head south or west when the Earth freezes and the population of humans on the East End of Long Island drops below the population of geese.

One server who worked with us was a very smart fellow. Read books like other people read traffic signs. He didn’t read traffic signs. He didn’t own a car — or a scooter or a bicycle. He hitched to work or bummed a ride or resorted to buses when the first two modes failed. He walked into the restaurant most afternoons with stories of what books he had just read, who gave him a ride, and how he had converted the previous night’s tips into some sort of powder or pill and got hammered. Knowing every taxi company’s phone number, and not owning a driver’s license, seemed to give him license to drink all night at any bar without worrying about waking up in jail or purgatory. He was almost as good at math as English. He kept count of the beers he consumed each night. Reaching double digits was not uncommon. He was a nice guy and a good server and lasted a couple months before entering Alcoholics Anonymous and leaving us.

I just didn’t believe that one restaurant would struggle to find three excellent servers year round and three more in the summer. That’s all it takes to cater to 100 guests. With a backstaff to match. I still don’t believe it’s impossible even though I have lived through the drought, the turnover, the unanswered advertisements, the ongoing frustration, the searching, the sudden abandonments — of runners and bartenders and hostesses as well as servers.

A French server had worked at a half-dozen local restaurants and sought us out because he missed “zee fine dining of Parees and Provence.” His first words to us were, “My costumeers love me. They wheel follow me to here.” The first night, he accidentally forgot to charge one table for an expensive bottle of wine. They loved him all right. The second night, he started to complain about pooling his tips with “zee amma-tours.” The third night he had to work at his previous job. The fourth day, he took me outside and said, “Pooling teeps is crazee. I run the circles around theeze pathetique keeds. I make you more money, I serve more peep-hole. I know ‘alf your costumeers from other jobs. Pooling teeps, it is crazee, yes?” Non.

The Frenchman was in it for the money and made no bones about it. And no one blamed him. He had the years behind him, a mortgage ahead of him, and the ability to work almost any place. He was a free agent, an independent contractor. We wanted team players, staffers who would pick up each other’s slack, share the challenges as well as the tips. So we shied away from seasoned pros — in any season — and started hiring the nicest, smartest people we could find, people with little or no experience who bought into our game plan, who wanted to be part of our culture.

We hired a new floor manager to be mother hen. The chef was already a four-star general in the kitchen. The head of the wine program concentrated on wine. All three spent afternoons training the staff and hosting guest speakers: the owner of Paumanok Vineyards held a wine tasting for the staff; a representative from Blue Ocean Institute talked about fish; the cheesemaker from Mecox Bay Dairy passed around his creations and answered questions. We asked everyone to memorize our “100 Rules.”

Steven was excellent. He had been out of the business (and clean and sober) for 10 years, but his other profession, masseussing, was not going well, and he wanted to earn enough money in the spring and summer to take him through the manipulative winter. He started on a Friday, training and trailing. He was so good, so natural, that by the end of the night, he had a couple of tables of his own. Around midnight, the restaurant all but empty, we talked about how well he fit in. He too was pleased. Then the front door opened and Steven’s career walked out. An old friend, a server with whom he had worked in the city many years ago, came into Southfork for a drink after his shift around the corner. He was happy to see Steven and they embraced. The friend was slurring words and struggling to keep his balance. Steven took it all in and turned to me and said, “I have to leave now. I am sorry, but my past life just came rushing back and it scares me and I have to leave. Sorry.” He took off his black Bragard jacket, said good night to his old friend and was gone.

I know what you are thinking: this is the guy with the 100 Rules for Servers? No wonder he can’t find a waitstaff. It’s payback, dude. It’s called instant karma in some circles. A guy slams servers in the e-paper of record and now he wants them to work for him? No wonder they’re making his life miserable; servers have memories like elephants.

Servers remember guests by face and name and vodka preference. They remember orders and seat positions and the good tippers from bad. They remember the specials of the day and the ingredients of every dish and the ice cream flavors du jour and what ticks off the chef, the manager, the owner, the hostess. Many a Wall Street banker has hired a server for the floor of the stock exchange because servers think fast, pay attention to detail, move quickly on their feet, and possess pachydermal retentiveness.

Servers are a breed apart. Don’t even think about pushing them around. And whatever you do, don’t write 100 Rules for them.

Bruce Buschel owns Southfork Kitchen, a restaurant in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=cb799e4bc0c24cbc700402d80afef96f

You’re the Boss: Taking the Bait: On Prix Fixe, Sustainable Seafood and Restaurant Economics

You’re the Boss: The Hardest Part of Running a Restaurant

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