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Friday, March 22, 2002
How can a restaurant push a particular dish? Vinci has a brilliant idea. Every 10,000th person to order the Polenta con Fungi wins a trip to Italy. If a trip costs $1,500, this means Vinci needs to tuck away a mere 15 cents from each Polenta order, a small price to pay for the fun such a contest would yield. (So far they have given away five trips.)
Where could we give trips to? How about a 30-day CTA pass to every 1,000th person to order from our Chicago-themed menu?
posted by Luke Seemann at 12:14 AM | 1 comment
Thursday, March 21, 2002
For every 100 dreamers, there is a doer. Jeff is a doer, and his blog about culinary school proves it. "We are supposed to be making a business plan for this class, which we'll be presenting at the end. We're in small 3- or 4-person teams, coming up with an original concept, working out the P&L, creating a menu (and two original recipes), planning the building construction, marketing, purchasing, menu, uniforms, etc. ... I'd rather be learning how to butcher."
posted by Luke Seemann at 7:21 PM | Comment?
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
Eric sends us this Reuters story on the rise of "fast casual" and how the $8 meal at places like Panera and Baja Fresh is the hot market right now. Coincidentally, my hometown newspaper reports on Measure F, a ban on "formula restaurants."
This statistic on families "outsourcing" their cooking is amazing: "A $10 basket of groceries a decade ago would cost a consumer $19 on average if prepared in a restaurant. Now the same basket of supermarket food would only cost $12.50 at a restaurant." When one considers all the groceries that go to waste in a typical refrigerator, going to a restaurant is almost a wash financially and saves money once one factors in labor and time.
But I am torn on the issue of "fast casual." Clearly it would make sense for us to appeal to the diners who would like to be in and out in 30 minutes or less. But I can't deny that I see the restaurant business as a good outlet for improving society. We can serve our customers better food, but can we not make them better people, too? I know I'm sounding like the Snob Who Just Got Back From Europe, but I'm convinced that long, relaxed meals feed the soul. This is what I loved about La Cumbamba: the chance to lose an evening in a sea of good food, great conversation and cheap sangria.
So, do we want to cater to people who don't want to linger more than a half-hour? The pragmatist in me says yes. The Stalinist in me says no.
posted by Luke Seemann at 11:37 AM | 4 comments
Sunday, March 17, 2002
We will not serve green eggs and ham,
nor green bagels, topped with green jam.
We will not serve a beer tinted green.
How disgusting. How horrid. How downright mean.
Who would eat a green foot long?
And smothered in green ketchup? So wrong.
It seems such a silly thing to do --
giving our food a greenish hue.
So if we encounter, on St. Paddy's Day,
a customer who has the nerve to say,
"Gimme a burger, extra green food dye!",
we will smile, and politely reply:
"I'm sorry, Sam, we can't deliver.
Perhaps you'd prefer a swim in the river?"
posted by sandor weisz at 6:09 PM | 3 comments
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