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Tuesday, July 30, 2002
As hard as we work to construct our menu, we must be wary of the person who would deconstruct our menu. To such a meddler, we must be sure to serve Foucault slaw and Baudrillard-ichoke dip.
posted by Luke at 8:18 AM | 1 comment
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
While strolling the streets of a recent Chicago neighborhood fair in search of some interesting food, I came across a brilliant step forward in marketing. A Slavic restaurant was selling something called cevapcici -- a pita stuffed with beef, lamb, pork, onions, and topped with salt and pepper. It's a complicated thing, not familiar to your average pedestrian. So, how to advertise this in the most simple, yet eye-catching way? This is what they came up with:
Let's face it -- menu designs are typically so boring. Entree name, description underneath, price to the right. Why not mix it up a bit? We could follow the lead of these folks, and put all of our dishes in rebus form. It'd alleviate the trouble of being able to picture what a dish consists of, and it'd give the menu a little more color and shape.
An aside: on a recent trip to my local butcher, I noticed an advertisement for cevapcici on the wall. Next time, I'll have to get it.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 1:54 PM | Comment?
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Joe writes in with a comment about our trivia discount idea:
While on vacation in Florida this spring, we went to a dive seafood place. It had old trivial pursuit cards in a little dish on each table. We asked each other the questions while waiting for the beer and food to arrive. It was a blast. Do with it what you will.
A bar near my apartment employs the same technique. It's a great idea, one that I wouldn't have any problem enacting at our place. But if we're going to offer conversation defibrillators, why stop at Trivial Pursuit? Let's also offer up cards extracted from Balderdash, Pictionary and Taboo boxes. If all that doesn't give our customers enough to talk about, then I'm afraid they don't deserve to be talking to each other anyway.
(Hmmm, it's apparently game week here at M.O.A.R. Tomorrow: rebuses!)
posted by Sandor Weisz at 11:25 AM | Comment?
Monday, July 22, 2002
No, why didn't I think of that?
posted by Sandor Weisz at 9:51 AM | 3 comments
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
"Employees Must Contain All Rage Against Cleaning Bathrooms For A Living Until They Return Home And Turn it Against Their Families"
posted by Luke at 8:04 AM | 1 comment
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Sandy has noted the need for T-shirts for promotional purposes. Last night we witnessed another good reason to have them: At the Chief O'Neil's Pub Quiz, a waitress spilled a pint of beer on a contestant, leaving her soggy down the back and hot under the collar. The quick-thinking waitress ushered the woman to the ladies' room, and minutes later she re-emerged sporting a complimentary Chief O'Neil's T-shirt. Voila! Problems solved.
Surely out wait staff will have better balance, but it would be good to have T-shirts on hand just in case. Should we consider promotional pants, too?
posted by Luke at 6:13 PM | 1 comment
Friday, July 12, 2002
As I've said before, in this world there be dreamers and there be doers. Here's another doer: A guy at work is leaving this week to go be a chef. I'm not sure where, but, hey, that's neat! I understand through the grapevine that he's been taking classes, apprenticing with a caterer (catering seems to be a common route to chefdom) and moonlighting at Fox & Obel.
posted by Luke at 7:59 AM | 1 comment
Thursday, July 11, 2002
According to the Tribune (login: fuck_registration; password: gocubs), toques are out and hats are in. Even more popular than the hat, the story says, is the doctor's scrub cap. (When I take the El home late at night after work, it's often just me and a few chefs, recognizable in their chef's pants and baseball caps bearing logos for whatever River North chain they work for.)
The traditionalist in me would like to see a return to the toque, but I say we let our chefs wear whatever they're most comfortable in.
posted by Luke at 2:24 PM | Comment?
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Kristen wonders what we think about a tipless restaurant. (That's t-i-p-l-e-s-s.)
I'm not sure who would benefit in a tipless restaurant. Would the wait staff appreciate the added security of getting paid, say, $15 an hour instead of $2 plus tips? In order to do so, we'd have to add a dollar or two to each entree and somehow do it without scaring away diners. We'd have to make clear to diners that tipping was discouraged, but would they appreciate being saved the hassle of doing gratuity math?
What about the waiters' incentive for quick, polite work? Perhaps there's a middle ground: Pay them a higher wage -- $6? $8? -- but then give them a cut of all dessert purchases. If a waiter has done a poor job, the customer will be less inclined to stay for our killer creme brulee, right?
Tipping, for all its vagaries, seems too ingrained in our culture to monkey with. Gratuities are included in the check in Germany, for instance, but when I was there I still felt compelled to leave a few euro on the table. I couldn't help myself. (Now that I think on it, service was pretty spotty, especially this guy.)
I don't know. I'm all for paying our wait staff as much as possible, but going tipless -- t-i-p-l-e-s-s -- just seems unamerican. Start paying them a decent wage on a Monday and by Tuesday they'll be demanding health care, 8 weeks of vacation and daily backrubs like those malingerers in France. Oui!
Do they tip in Cuba? In Beijing? In Toronto?
posted by Luke at 6:48 PM | 20 comments
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
J. Thomas wrote in to point us to an article on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal on the struggle of independent restaurants in the face of the expanding girth of chain restaurants. (Paid registration is required; read a reproduction here for free.)
This problem of homogenization is exactly why some of us live in the city in the first place, instead of the 'burbs, and now that it's taking over our restaurants, too, I'm seriously discouraged. The reasons to frequent your local, independent restaurant/bookstore/whatever are plentiful, but I happen to feel most strongly about the one that's also mentioned in the article:
But how does a small business onwer convince customers that it's in their best interest to shop locally? Not sure it's possible, especially without an advertising budget on par with the chains'. The best tactic may be to draw them in under the "if you can't beat them, join them, sort of" philosophy. From the article:
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:43 AM | Comment?
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
"Female servers who draw a happy face on the back of the check boost their tips, but male servers who do the same decrease their take." Also: "Servers who squat down at the table to look customers in the eye get about $1 more."
posted by Luke at 2:06 PM | 16 comments
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