October 18, 2024 • 39 mins
A restaurant’s menu shouldn’t stay the same forever. Updating your menu can breathe new life into your business, attract new customers, and keep your regulars coming back for more! But how do you know when it’s time to make a change? And how do you go about it without losing what made your restaurant popular in the first place?
Tune in to today’s episode of the Restaurant Roundtable to discover insights on the hidden strategies behind menus and how to apply them to your restaurant.
Together, we’ll delve into the personal highs and lows of five esteemed restaurant owners who gather around a table to share their stories. As a group, they craft a master recipe for success by blending their experiences, guest appearances, and their own deep understanding of the industry.
Each host has their own challenges, aspirations, and strategies for how they manage their menus and continue to evolve their business. Tune in for a highly impactful episode.
ABOUT THE PODCAST: Kraft Heinz Away From Home presents The Restaurant Roundtable Being successful in the world of restaurants is incredibly hard. But what if it could be easier? The Restaurant Roundtable features accomplished restaurant owners along with special guests where we explore ways to build better businesses, healthier lifestyles and stronger communities.
MEET OUR HOSTS:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We just hired a full time grocery shopper because it's
because if you look, I mean, if you look at
you the our menus, it's the crazy thing is when
we go to the international market. The test of a
truly international restaurant is when the person they're entrant is like,
what are you buying? Like why do you have like
fufu and you also have like crimpases? None of this
doesn't make any sense, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
It's good time.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome everyone to the Restaurant Round Table.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Where's the part group for restaurant owners.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Buy Restaurant Owners, brought to you by Craft Times All
see them all. We discussed the challenges, opportunities, the good taste.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
And the bad taste within the industry, and we're your hosts.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
I'm dj I'm Ska, I'm Jamar, I'm Kate, I'm Abashar.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So if you're a chef, an owner or sprying to be.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
One, you're gonna want to pull up a chair to
this round table.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Round Table, brought to you
by Craft Times, a podcast Buy Chefs for Chefs, where
we talk about all the fun things in the restaurant industry.
Today's episode is a really fun one. It is about
menus and when to change them, how to change them,
all the things surrounding our food and our drink offerings.
(01:08):
Before we jumped into that, we wanted to introduce a
segment called catch Up of the Day. We've been joking
about how we can incorporate craft times in a little
bit more and we haven't really seen each other that often,
so we want all catch up. How are you part
of the episode? So, Jamar, what do you have to
catch us up on?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I like to give a special mention to Avery Frost
because she provided funding through Freedom Equity to help us
grow our business when we had problems are raising money,
so I wanted to give a special shout out to
her and go see her if you need funding for
any of your ventures, Avery Frosts, Avery Frost, I'll catch
(01:52):
up for today.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So it's football season and that means that I am
My business is picking up because I make cakes for
the club and sweet level the local football team.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Who is a local football team?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Congratulations, I'm sure what's your catch up in the day.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
Well, we are not as exciting as the Buckeyes, which
I am an alumni of Oh there we go. However,
I guess we decided to finally after per year launch
oar Patio Man. We've been struggling for a while on
how to do it with our tasting Menustyle restaurant, and
we came to a conclusion that we wanted to try
(02:31):
something new. Like we call it a random innu because
in the Engladesh we have.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Veranda, so you don't know patios. We have arandas, so
we also didn't know the word for up versus lower patio,
so branda seemed right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
How's it going.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
It's fun. It's uh, it feels like I think one
of the things about the season about on specifically in
the Midwest is people just want to be outside. So
it's just nice. People feel more natural outside. It's no
matter what you do, whenever you're outside, you feel it's
a little bit different.
Speaker 6 (02:58):
It's not one hundred degrees out of more. It's our season, Shanikia.
What's your catchup of the day.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
So we just completed our third home game at the
Ohio State Stadiums Little Buck Eye, so we'll we have
three more, three down, three more to go.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Well, they have eight this year, so far five.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Okay, see how much I know about football?
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Mine is like avish are. We launched a new menu.
We've been kind of circling this for a long time.
But at Chapman v Market we launched Chappy Hour, which
is our version of happy hour. So we brought back
our famous burger for one hour.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Do you get it for freety? Our chaps?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I hadn't thought of that. I don't even know that
I know what chaps are.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
No couple, Yes that was oftentimes.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, those are the things that the y M c
A guys, chaps.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
We have two people talking about menus, so let's make
that our whole conversation today. I'd love to talk about
how and when you want to evold your menus. If
we could start by dialing in with how much do
trends affect your menus?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
I feel like for food trends, like social media trends,
stuff like that don't affect us all that much. I
feel like for beverage is really where we see those
trends coming in. People coming in asking for an espresso martini,
for instance, is a big one, or like a spicy
margarita is having a moment right now, and you'll get
(04:36):
people coming in and asking for that by name. I
feel like people understand that food menu is like the
food menu a little bit more. With our team, we
didn't want to just do like a standard espresso martini,
so it was a little bit of a challenge to
the bartenders to be like, do a creative version of this,
so it's ginger Rabbit. For instance, they did one with
(04:56):
tequila that they call the Cafecito that is essentially espress
of our tini build but in our own little way.
So I think that's how we kind of deal with
those specific challenges like from guests to us to stay on.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Trend, and we've experienced We've had a similar experience where
we'll have guests come in and the lemon drop is
very popular, especially amongst females, and it's traditionally made with
a citrus vodka, but the latest trend is tequila. So
(05:31):
if they ask, we can make it, and we haven't
added it to the menu, but we treat it as
like a feature and.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
To the food aspect. Just a cooper sharp back to
that again, as far as the cheese, it's a big
thing in filling now where they added to cheese steak,
so it's a trend and we want to pick up
on it. Actually, it's very tasty, so it's a nice
like American cheese with a taste of proven So are
(06:01):
you replacing what you already have on the menu or
is this something add on? They do it as an
add on.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Don't not till you try it, right, I see you
as maybe not responding to too many trends in your restaurants,
but perhaps setting them.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I disagree with that one hundred percent agree with that.
I do watch a lot of YouTube, I do read
a lot of books. I have cousins, and half our
staff is what is it now, gen z or what
is I'm not sure which one's around right now. So
I'm certainly aware of all those things, and I actually
try to embrace them. But I embrace them as patterns.
If somebody wants to feel something, and you're all going on,
we just talked about football season, like, is it wrong
(06:43):
to suggest that maybe it's time to address some of
the things of fall that can fall in the seasonality
as well too, Because trends can be seasonal, trends can
be paternal, it can be any sort of sequence can
create a trend, so we don't just look at the
specific trend because what we know is if somebody has
already done it, they're pretty good at it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
You listened a few things, but what are some other
trend or what there some other influences that might affect
when you want to change your menu. Do you have
anything that really drives your new menu?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of things. We talked
about it in our very first.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
Episode, but our menu is very inspired by our team,
our staff. So a lot of what we do is
things that people have had in their childhood or through
their travels. But specifically, like the moment that we know
that it's time to change the menu is we cook
very seasonally, so as things go out of season, that's
a big driver of our menu. We know what's kind
(07:34):
of coming up locally and seasonally, so we can be like, Okay,
we're almost into kale season, so what can we do
with kale. That's kind of a bad example because Kale's
kind of always around, but yeah, those are some of
the things that drive the menu. And then also cost
there's certain things that are just out of this world
(07:55):
expensive right now that it's not because the dish isn't good.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
It's not because guests aren't enjoying it. It's just like
I don't feel.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
Comfortable having this particular item on the menu for twenty
five dollars because we can't afford to do it for
any less.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So those are some of the driving factors.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Ask you questions, both of you ask, and maybe it's
release to unicate. When does the ego get involved with
with the menu. As far as I love this dish
that's my creation, it's not doing well, needs to go.
Does ego ever get involved with your menu?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
I think that as much as people try to say,
like kill your ego, it's still there a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And there's certain.
Speaker 6 (08:33):
Ways that I look at our menu as a whole
where it's like every dish has like its own little
like slot on the menu. That's imperfect. That is important
to have variety. You know, we have a small menu.
It's fifteen items, so you don't want two dishes that
are both flounder or something like that. However, if it's
my dish, it's it's sometimes really hard to like let
go of it. And I know for other people, if
they put a dish on the menu and I'm like,
(08:54):
all right, it's time to get rid of the corn
cake or whatever. It's like, I'm so sorry to you
because it's your you know, that's.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Now going away.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
So I think that is a consideration of like who
came up with it, why it's there, And it's almost
like somebody's idea and identity is getting pulled hold out
of our matrix.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
And I know you love the scientifical method about everything,
but does the ego ever get involved.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
With I mean, the ego is always involved to ask
your question, because technically I'm the driver to the restaurant,
so I have to make the executive decision. So if
it's not for me, then who will make the decision?
If I don't make the decision, somebody who may not
be reading the whole book, being a chapter might have
to make a decision. So two different perspectives. We have
two restaurants. One of them is a tasting menu. So
(09:38):
does a menu change me? And you change the entire
menu of fifteen courses doesn't mean you keep something. It's
really hard, Like I don't know the answer to some
of these things we're learning along the way. There's some
stuff that we only find out the experimentation by removing it.
Someone comes and says, hey, if there's no shot on
your menu, we're not coming back. And we believe them
because the way they look at us, like the way
they just like it's terrifying. You don't want, you don't
want that, you don't want. Does somebody like breaking down
(09:58):
your window because you don't have shot on menu? And
that's one of the things that that wasn't our plan,
but it's not how we adapted. That was one of
the dishes that even our manu to begin with, we
didn't know what we're doing. We're just like, well, just
give everyone everything, right, see what sticks, see what doesn't.
And now that we've doubled our courses, it's becoming more
of a factor because our team does contribute to our
menu and might know a different way to do something
(10:18):
that's probably more effective. Yes, but then how are we
learning if I'm not allowing for mistakes on the menu?
Our menu is full of mistakes. It has to be,
because that's something to make it better. And I think
to introduce that is just as audience says, like we
used to get from our guests. Within the first two months,
we said, when do you change your menu, and I
was like, dude, like this is like a seven year
research process to make these items and you want to
change it like that. And my question is do I
(10:40):
reinforce the dish, make it better or do I change
it fully? And it just depends every single time.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
But you need a heat my ego to be successful
even in business period, you have to have an ego.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Seet, what do you think about production production? So like
when you have your men years as your volume is
insane and you offer these select products to so many
people in so many different restaurants, So does your clients
ego overpower your ego or what's like you based off
your technical level, or how do you decide?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There are some items that we just cannot stop making,
and that's just because we have such a high demand.
There is a limit to how much that's possible right
now in our current facilities and with our current staffing.
So I'm really cognizant of our limitations before I start
considering the next product, the next product offering. We do
(11:29):
regularly get requests for specific items. I know everybody locally
wants a local burger bun, and that's just not something
that I think I have the staff that would have
the that I don't even know if interest is the
right word. I could develop a burger bun that would
be great. I don't know if we could meet the
demand in a way that I would be proud of.
(11:51):
I do think that my staff skill level determines also
what I'm willing to offer. There's a limit to how
much I can train on new items while meeting our
existing demand. So for me, it's really a balance of
all of the requests that I'm getting for new product items,
but also what my staff is capable of in our
current production schedule.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
I think that's a really interesting point because we've found
that too, where it's like the R and D process,
which is an important one, and I've worked at restaurants
that don't do R and D at all. It's just
like pure vibes. This is going on today. I hope
it's good, and you know, we count on like our
skill and our guial to make it work. And then
other times in the way that we run Chapman's is
(12:33):
everything is R and D meticulously and it's one of
those things where like I can make ravioli and I
can make this dish really good. It's how can you
train your staff to do it? And it's one of
those things like when I worked at Husk, I felt
like anyone who worked at Husk and didn't walk out
knowing how to butcher, it was like a lost opportunity.
And I feel like every restaurant like has those things
(12:56):
that are big time.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You need to do it like a million times to
get good at it. So for you, it's it's a
very shaped press exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to do it. It gets
messed up a lot. So like how do you balance
like your ideas with the level at which people can
execute your ideas?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
You know, And we don't have a huge ego, I mean,
I'm sorry, a huge menu, but Shaniko, do you think
my ego stop prevents us from adding new things? Sometimes?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Yes, that's why I asked that I'll be on the
couch tonight.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But want to say, are.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
The customers asking for the changes and you don't want
to make them?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Or I believe in my products so strongly that sometimes
my ego gets in the way where I say absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
And then and I would say it would be and.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Only because she's my wife, And yeah, it's repercussions. Do
I listen to her, Yes that I know she's like,
let's try this, and I'll say no, and then I'll
think about it and I'll say, yeah, I want to
get it.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And I also, I think some of my background because
I come from a retail background, so one of the
lessons that I had to learned early on was that
you had to take yourself out of the equation and
just think about the customer, like is this the right
thing for the customer. You personally might not like polyester,
but the customer does. Or you might not like pleats,
(14:26):
but the customers asking for please and it's the right
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So there's a trends sometimes too. We can go full
circle in the beginning and say what is what are
they actually one? Or what has been trained to them?
And they just kind of burned up to respond. That's
really like, that's I just learned so much. It was
just kind of wild. But thinking about that, and I
think we'll probably probably asked next is like what makes
the menu change? I think with this said, what I
(14:51):
realized sparked my menu change is when our staff is
when they've gotten so did at something, it's time that
there's something new with them, and there's always more learning
to do in our job. As having an ego is,
we know we have an ability to say, for instance,
you know, can I turn can I do prim innaise
certainly have to do prim Well.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Let me ask you this though, if you ask something
that's super successful in your menu, at what point do
you know that you probably might have to go away
from or change it or do you just keep it?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I think this is a tough way to describe because
I might have more knowledge of a product. So for instance,
if I've researched something meticulously too, it's from its history
to where it is right now. I could argue that
it's successful and authenticity. But successful, I think is a
combination of is it satisfying or need to create as
a satisfy our guest demand? Is it helping push the
food seem fort in Columbus is a little bit more.
You know, it's got to offer something more. It can't
(15:40):
just be an item like a food item. It's got
to have a story, a history, a pattern or trend.
It's influenced by so much stuff. It's like, you know,
a recipe or a dish is just a frame of
somebody's life. It's not their entire existence.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So arg you with you just a little bit, because
we've had this problem and we've worked together in a kitchen, okay,
when we worked against each other in the same kitchen.
But we had a goal. We needed to increase traffic
to our business. We needed to increase ticket ticket totals.
(16:15):
But our biggest seller was a burger. It was the
most accessible item.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And brisk and that started off as as a as
a kind of a no, I'm not doing that. This
is just going to be some junk I through and
it was like, oh crap, it's getting popular, So you
know it was it was a yeah, yeah, it was
not the burger definitely question, but we.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Definitely struggled with what what we were trying to make.
People wanted to order that burger because it was the
most successible thing on that menu, and we wanted people
to try all of the other options that we had
available and give other things a chance.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
It's a gateway. I think you sometimes you go to
a place and you're like, oh, I want to try that,
but you got to get the foot in the door first.
And I think we can all agree a burger is
a pretty pretty easy thing to do. It's got a
hands and the fries, you know, are super easy to
make fries. That was also part of the equation that
about a lot of labor. But you know, we never
tatted our burger as like.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
This is a real thing about the super easy to
make the fries.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Something to me that are more difficult than any other.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But to the point is, so when do we when
do we say we can something creative? Because if our
answer was if our sandbox was we're going to make
a burger because one one of the owners wants a
burger into I know that people will come in an
order burger. I can say, hey, my go is so good.
I'm not going to serve a burger. I'm better than
a burger. I worked at these Michelin Star restaurants wanting
to super burger. Or I can say, am I going
to make this the best most personal burger I could
ever create? That's very unique to me, isn't we were?
(17:40):
You know, there's a lot that we had to do
to get just a burger on the plate for a
reasonable price. So like I don't like, I don't know why
we'd like why we choose to look down on these
sorts of things. But with an item like that, we
input it our creativity. We messed with the sauce in
the way that we could. We took something familiar, we
made it still a burger. We said, it has to
look feels like a burger, and then let's just make
it ours after that, and that we were very proud
(18:02):
to serve entity bolts. Why not those are changes to
a menu item that never changes an item. But we
kept improving.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
But I think, yeah, I was going to say, I
think to your point of like, when do you know
that it's time to take a dish off, Like there
is such a thing as like a successful dish or
something that becomes so intrinsic to your restaurant. We have
a few of those dishes that it's so interesting, like
the creativity at the beginning of the restaurant ends up
being something that's so indelible to what we do that
(18:28):
we like, can't change this. And for us, it's the
General So's Caullflower, which was one of the world's too
Chef Matt's dishes that we literally did as a vegan
dish so that we had something that that vegans could
could have in our menu at that time and ended
up being our most popular cellar and it still is
to this day our most popular. Well, it's almost like
we can't take it off. I can take it off
(18:49):
if I want to, but like, I feel that there
would be public backlash on that, and I think that
that's a problem with kind of what it is that
we're talking about is like when is it when is
it time to take a dish off the menu? Is
it one word board with it or is it when
the guests are bored with it? Who do we really
work for here? And you know, I think part of
us want to be like it's it's about us, and
(19:10):
it's about our staff. But at the end of the day,
like you said, it's about the customer. The customers are
not sick of that cauliflower yet so much so that
out of our events space, people want us to do
the cauliflower here from Chatman's and it's.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Like we had it. I gotta say no.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think our rule that we made was if we
take this ridiculous amount of time to make this dish,
and we made it a million times and we see
it and really cours as you can, what we would
do is we'd eat the dish, and the day that
it had stopped getting interesting in our mouth, that's when
it comes up. We're like, I don't want eat this anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Stuff this week we would I'm trying to think, like
we did that porkshank for a long time.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Oh got it's hurt when it got exhausted.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Like I was tired of making it, I was tired
of prepping it. But when we would eat it, we'd
be like, Oh, this would be so much better if
we just changed these two components. And so then we
started to do a little bit of creativity within the
bounds of kind of has to look like this in
the end, But what can we do to make it
so that we're not bored with it anymore?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Well?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
How about you, guys, I mean your bread and butter
is cheese steaks. How do you keep that fresh? And
how do you like your core cheese steaks? Do you
change them ever? Will they stay the same? How do
you feel about changing the menu.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I'm thinking about maybe adding some different cheeses cheese steak,
egg rolls. My wife suggested a buffalo chicken that we
had added there. So we have salmon cheese steak. So
we're still adding. It's different versions, you know, different inspirations
that we will have.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
They kind of just hand something off the menu every
time that you put something on.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Or is the men you're just getting larger.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
It's getting it's getting larger.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When is what is the most expensive thing that you're doing?
Like is it the training or is it the reprinting
of menus? Like what would prevent you from continuing to
just add and add so ingredients?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, it would be ingreen in because Ribi.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Is starting to go through, it's starting to be a
shortage on on beef.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
And then like printing is definitely an expense. So at
one location we actually added a digital menu board so
as as we make changes, you know, to transfer.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Out a picture instead of reprinting.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
Instead of reprinting, we also added in magnetic strips so
if we were to change a price, they have special
little stickers that you can just put over top of
the existing price. So that's a cost effective, uh, measure
to the taste cheese steak. But the oxygen that would
(21:43):
now that would require.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That maybe it's a little ox.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Tes oxtyl cheese steaks.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Cooking for lunch.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It used to be, so what do you all think of?
It just came up, I think in the conversation, and
so I just see things are like really exciting, like
the creation points. But we're just talking about what it
means to change the menu, and so many people think like, oh,
I got this idea and it's done. They don't think
about you got to like how does the guest know
(22:19):
you have a new menu? Like how how do you guys?
Like what's the process? Like, yeah, the.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Pointer and then you know when it's time to when
you're making the decisions to change the menu, I think
you have to lay out all of the the all
the components that go into it, because that's a process.
So you know it's like, okay, it's time to change.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Okay, well what do I do first? Yeah? Thank you?
Probably for get next experience. If you have an international
staff and like, hey, tomorrow we're going to start using
Gucci John, You're like, well doesn't carry that, so we
have to go to the Asian work and you have
to go and buy this.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
We go to the international grocery at least twice a week.
There's an ongoing text chain of everything that we need
up until the point that's time to go.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
We just hired a full time grocery shopper because if
you look, I mean if you look at either our menus,
it's the craziest thing is when we go to the
international market. The test of a truly international restaurant is
when the person the rector is like, what are you buying?
Like why do you have like fu fu? And you
also have like crimpascees? None of this it doesn't make
any sense and you're like, yeah, that's cool, it's a
good time, but it's yeah, it's those changes are tough.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Like well with me, I, if I develop a new product,
there's a really long period of time before I'm able
to actually sell it. And I find that incredibly frustrating
and I'm trying to figure out how to make that
work better for me. But for me I because it's
regulated by not the Health Department, but there's labeling components
for some of this, I have to go through about
(23:39):
a three to four week process before I can finish
all of my R and D like I'm absolutely going
to sell this before I can put it in the thing.
It's just so many steps dependent on other people, and
I find that really for keeping an.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Kind of think about the logistics that go in.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It's a little bit stifling, for like this change in
the thing on.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And menu the next day.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That I never even thought it was. You're not governed
and by the local health department.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
You're governed by it's a department.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Agriculture, and there's all different sorts of rules and regulation.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah, so it's just a different experience. I find
it incredibly frustrating in some ways. I feel like it's stifling,
but it ends up making me look for other outlets
that I can start to get immediate feedback and figure
out what I wanted.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
To make back to our point of being resilient.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
But would you say that it also reass your ability
as as a menu changer to say that I can
because as independent restaurants. One of the things that I
wouldn't say by but make independent is like see something
that's being done so much like I don't want to,
you know, like I want I want my own twist
on it. I want to not offer this consistent There's
like a tension between young and like kind of wild
(24:49):
and mature and like stable, right, and you're hitting the
center point where you're saying, I got to do all
these ingredients, I do all these tips, and I have
to create something that by the time it touches all
these hands, is it still the original idea that I had?
And it seems in your case, you're still motivated, So
do you go? Is it right? Like it's like the
ego's got to push through everything, Like it's what keeps
you strong when everything else is against you, because you
(25:10):
can't just serve it.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, I'm absolutely not jumping on trends. That's not something
that's not something I'm doing. But it does push me
to try and figure out what might be, what might
be starting a trend, what might be on the front
end of the pattern you were talking about looking for patterns,
what flavors are interesting? And I don't see them everywhere.
And I'm willing to be able to invest the time
(25:32):
and energy and money because now I'm buying a large
amount of packaging. Now I'm investing a lot before I
sell that first one. And that's a little bit scary
and it's fun and different, but it's not relatable for
this conversation in the same way. Although there is writ
rewriting menus getting them printed, like that's still similar. But
(25:54):
you can't just run a specially.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I can't just run a special.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
But trends are not Trends are not for every one, right,
So I think people if don't feel bad if you
can't go after a certain trend, it might not be
for you.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And that's okay.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
So that's not it's not an indicator that your business
is going to sell because you missed out on this trend.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Well, it's an interesting thing that Davish I just mentioned
about gochu jong. I think like five six years ago,
especially in a place like Columbus, no one would have
heard of gochu jong. It's something we've been cooking with probably.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
For high school.
Speaker 6 (26:29):
Yes, and yeah, exactly we had that in our pantry
when I was a kid. But it's almost like sometimes
trends aren't a bad thing because it brings something that
is a little bit more mainstream into the mainstream. And
the fact that we can put gochu John Fried Chicken
on our menu now and people aren't like, what is
this word is really cool. So it's not necessarily chasing,
(26:50):
like I.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Think you're saying, gochu jong, by the way, not go
chi jing. Thank you for Yes, we have to worry.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
About a Marlow's hot chicken cheese stay.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Chasing.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Then you have chicken trends or anything else.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sounds good to be if you did a bull chop cheese,
I'm on there, so you know.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I mean, it's funny because like whatever, a lot of
these trends, as we say, are like comfort foods to
somewhere where it's like why did this all of a
sudden go like global when it's like, this is the
stuff that I've been eating since I was in elementary.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Generally it's because it's later. There's also a lot of
like algorithm, and algorithm is based on relatable, right, so
it's like it's got to be relatable for everybody's gonna
be Like you had that moment you see this thing,
like you have a young cook, can they give you
this thing? You're like, what are you doing? This is
I saw this on TikTok. I'm not going to eat
this says, and you're like, damn, that's good you. So
you have a moment You're like, I see what you're
talking about, because we have a little bit of that
inside of us too, where it's like stubborn, you know,
(27:48):
we're stubborn. We're all in these days. All right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I love the discussion that we've been having, and we
do have an outside question. I want to post to
everyone what happens when a critic comes in or a
very vocal guest and they don't like the change is
they think that something is missing?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Well?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Speaking of ego, I think that that's probably the most
ego a predicing thing that can happen, is you put
a new dish on and immediately someone's like, I don't
like it for X, Y and Z reason. I feel
like menu change day is always the most nerve wracking one,
like the first dish to go out and waiting for
that feedback.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
But I think I think it happens.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Because people are somewhat afraid of change, and I think
that for restaurants that are really established, if you take
off something that's a fan favorite, you're just going to
piss people off. And we kind of have a rule
that you don't take things off and that's what you're
replacing it with is better.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
But that's objective.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So I feel like.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Everyone's going to be opinionated and you kind of just
need to do your best and roll with it and
not take your personally it happens, I don't know you.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah, we actually want to come in. That was had
a huge following, and he didn't care for the buffalo chicken.
So the first thing I kind of did was look
at ourselves, look with them. Did we do something wrong?
Did we miss something? And came to find out that
our kitchen staff had over drenched the buffalo sauce. So
that was a teaching moment. And so sometimes constructive criticism
(29:16):
where people not liking anything some some things that you
do kind of makes you look in the mirror and
do some self evaluation. So that's a good thing too.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's really important to learn from mistakes.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
And so you take the good with the bed, and
you know you're making the changes for obvious reasons. Uh,
some people are going to be okay with it, and
some people are not going to be okay with it.
So so just finding that balance and learning and make
adjustments when necessary.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So it's great. Some btst from the last just back there. Yes,
I'm an expert of having people crap on stuff that
I make. So it's from you know, child to my
parents and I'm just kidding. Oh, it's uh, it's something
that you kind of grow used to every time, and
then what I try to do is I try to
just reference the point of what was said to where
(30:13):
we were trying to go and see if there's a disconnect. So,
for instance, we wanted to do this for in the
classic example, hey this this beef dish. Now it's I
don't like the way you're serving it. It's too raw,
and you say, well, this is carpaccio. It's supposed to
be right right. So there's there's some of that, but
within that, generally, what you'll find is there's a mix
of objectivity and emotion. Because food is emotional, and the
(30:36):
opinion is what you have you do have to listen
to because it is you do have to validate how
somebody feels, whether it's for good or bad reasons. They
didn't say that, and you can say, okay, cool, I
heard you and I saw the voice too.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
I would much rather someone tell me face to face
than just like wake up to like ga alp review
or something like that. That's like you could have told
us that the pasta was too salty.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It would have fixed it in the moment. What people
taken is some of the.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Things that we do is actually Kate is familiar with
this is when we try to roll out in your menu,
which is it comes we pre planted. It never works
out according to plan, and then we just throw it
at the wall and it comes out. That's kind of
this is the way it works. And is training ever enough? Never,
it's never enough trading because things changed, and they changed
depending on people's responses, like the person outside and said, hey,
the fourth thing wasn't right for me. I have some
(31:22):
dieters come in and I give them a notebook and
I say, just write whatever, and you don't have to
pay for your meal. The most the most valuable thing
I can get out of you is your opinion right now.
And when you put when you put it that way,
people really start to think about what they're saying. Like
they're like, oh, what can I offer to make this better?
Because I'm saying I'm willing to do I'm willing to
hear you and do what you're asking me to do.
But you got to write it down and really good idea.
(31:43):
It's like your ego. Initially, the first couple of times
are you gous, like oh god, you know, like you're like,
that's the book.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's the book.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But after the third or fourth time, you're like, oh,
we can get so much better, so much faster, because
I mean, it's that's what's about, right, It's not about like, hey,
this is like, hey, we wanted to change it because
we want to make it better, not worse. I think,
let's just want to make it better unless we're working
for a terrible business hunter. You know that's as your
own business learner. It's like it's one of those interesting
things that it finds traction in both our community and
(32:08):
like my family, because they love to have an opinion
and you get to give them the platform for that.
It also gives you like a Kate's susband's professor, so
he's got some really nice things to say that can
be his own opinion and some things that probably back
my science. So it's really cool to have that perspective
to decide, hey, this is a change. And I think
earlier you're saying there's so many steps to change. It's
not just like I got an idea, it's on the
menu tomorrow. It used to be when we were younger.
(32:30):
We've done that stuff before. It's like, oh, I made
that once and I re want to make that again.
But now it's like what it's put out, It's been
done probably ten thousand times before, and now it's out
and it's still not right.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It's about to get spicy. It's almost time for our
final course today, which is deserved. But first we're going
to dish out some hot takes. It's time for overdone underdone.
I'm going to just give a few items and I'd
love for you to give me your spiciest take on it,
how you feel about it. So we have q OUR
(33:00):
codes for menus.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I hate them.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Hope we're done.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I've overdone it.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Not that I hate to hate them. How they're executed.
It makes sense to me. But like if you're in
a dark place and you can't like and then my
parents trying to get them to use QR clothes to
order food, like what, yes, they get so mad.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I love when we go out to eat and there's
a menu that I feel like there's this tactile thing
and and maybe sometimes when it's a special event, like
it's a souvenir. Also I'm not stealing menus and taking
it with permission.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
But then, like I think the QR codes make sense, yeah,
because you can order everything once would for like sit
down dinner.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I'm against yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Although I mean I would say the kind of waters
if you're in any time feel like outside of America,
Like in China, you can re chet in order your
entire pickets. They have it dialed in so well that
you would be like, wow, that's awesome. I just think
it's America right now.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
What about separate kid menus we have no feelings?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Underdone them to eat more here?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I have one. What's that restaurant conglomerates overdone? Underdone?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I don't think I can afford having an opinion about that.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
What would you define like as colom records just so
fly to player repends so I can give like if
you give me like an example, are you coming after Absar?
Did you have worse?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Three?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Rest of my groups like fifty sixty seventy.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I think it depends.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
I think if we know what we're getting ourselves into,
and our expectations are on par with what it is
that we're getting, then cool bit of qualities suffers because
you overexpanded.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I would say overdone.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
But like I think maybe a good middle point is
I think people think like you did something really awesome,
mas Jet fifty and they didn't think about what it
takes to get to fifty. Yeah, that's maybe overdone. It's
most like, hey, I have that three for ten years,
and now it's time that you know, we figured it out.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
For restaurant roops that do a great phenomenal job but
still give you quality with each concept.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So, and I'm not sure if I'm asking this as
a restaurant owner or as a potential diner, but what
do you think about restaurant week menus?
Speaker 6 (35:09):
I feel like overdone because I don't want to cheapen
what we do for anybody, but I do understand the
value of bringing in new client tele So I'm like
a soft.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That we're done on that. Yeah, an over easy, Yeah,
an over medium.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
If it's a high end, the high end restaurants, I
would say underdone. The ones that are more like fast casual,
some of the menus, the menu selection for a restaurant week,
you could tell that they're doing it just to draw
traffic and the menu is not compelling, So I would
say overdone.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think that restaurant week potentially brings in diners that
are not your target market.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And so, but is that a good thing or a
bad thing?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Not a good thing. What about you? I thought I
escaped the question. Historically, Yes, I would say over them
because I've never partaken as an owner and somebody that's
ever been a chef, I've never partaken in because I
slidated the staff. And I'm not saying that. I think
it's a bad idea. I think it'd be cool to
(36:15):
have a restaurants input on restaurant week. I think if
the rest we did restaurant relief week, we're after restaurant
week mediam half off to everybody in the street because
they had to put up with the restaurant week, like
giving How about how min this U helping out other
people the industry over are under like your staff, people
that are trying.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
We should do more.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
We got an agreement. Yes, I think we should wrap
it there.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
All right, Oh I'm sorry, Okay, all right, delicious discussion today.
Before we clear the table, it's time for dessert where
everyone gets to share their parting thoughts. Is there one
thing that you're taking away from this meeting? Is there
one thing you're going to take away from this that
(37:02):
you'll incorporate into your own businesses?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I think that being considered considering.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Our guests as well as our staff in those menu
change ideas and taking like our ego out of it
is really my big takeaway from today.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And I feel like.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
Subconsciously we do that, but now having a little bit
more focus on like actually having that as a mission
and menu changes is is something I'm taking away from today.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
I figured out how to get off the sofa. Now
my ego was was had me on the sofa. I
took from this that I need to listen a little
bit and more changes in and NEYU and our suggestions.
So happy wife, Happy life.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I can't wait for our episode about relationships in the
work fine.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
I would say partying thought for me would be to
embrace change. Change is a good thing, it's not necessarily
a bad thing, and just treat it as a learning
and then you can still make changes and stay true
to who you are.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I've learned the opposite of what I thought. Generally, I thought,
I was like, we're refraining from having an ego, but
that we've all sat together and I was like, oh, well,
kind of the only thing that we have left when
everything else is taken is your ego. So you should
take care of yourself, you know, like you should. You know,
it's always going to be your vision, your vision you started.
When all this stuff happens and all these change appens,
you have to be present, like you have to be
(38:37):
it is. You can't lose yourself because then we become
that conglomerate I think you talk about. So maybe a
value value that you go more, not necessarily but to
dominate the conversation, but to be aware that it exists.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Thank you so much as you might expect the opinions
that we express on this podcast or just that opinions
and for entertainment purposes only.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
If you love this podcast, help us out the thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Also, be sure to go to Craft Times Away from
Home dot com and sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
So remember, if you like what you heard today.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Please head over to Krafttimes Away from Home dot com
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Speaker 3 (39:13):
We have got all sorts of exclusives coming with special insights,
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Speaker 4 (39:19):
Of course, subscribe share like all those things. See you
next time.
We just hired a full time grocery shopper because it's
because if you look, I mean, if you look at
you the our menus, it's the crazy thing is when
we go to the international market. The test of a
truly international restaurant is when the person they're entrant is like,
what are you buying? Like why do you have like
fufu and you also have like crimpases? None of this
doesn't make any sense, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
It's good time.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome everyone to the Restaurant Round Table.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Where's the part group for restaurant owners.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Buy Restaurant Owners, brought to you by Craft Times All
see them all. We discussed the challenges, opportunities, the good taste.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
And the bad taste within the industry, and we're your hosts.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
I'm dj I'm Ska, I'm Jamar, I'm Kate, I'm Abashar.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So if you're a chef, an owner or sprying to be.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
One, you're gonna want to pull up a chair to
this round table.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Round Table, brought to you
by Craft Times, a podcast Buy Chefs for Chefs, where
we talk about all the fun things in the restaurant industry.
Today's episode is a really fun one. It is about
menus and when to change them, how to change them,
all the things surrounding our food and our drink offerings.
(01:08):
Before we jumped into that, we wanted to introduce a
segment called catch Up of the Day. We've been joking
about how we can incorporate craft times in a little
bit more and we haven't really seen each other that often,
so we want all catch up. How are you part
of the episode? So, Jamar, what do you have to
catch us up on?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I like to give a special mention to Avery Frost
because she provided funding through Freedom Equity to help us
grow our business when we had problems are raising money,
so I wanted to give a special shout out to
her and go see her if you need funding for
any of your ventures, Avery Frosts, Avery Frost, I'll catch
(01:52):
up for today.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So it's football season and that means that I am
My business is picking up because I make cakes for
the club and sweet level the local football team.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Who is a local football team?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Congratulations, I'm sure what's your catch up in the day.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
Well, we are not as exciting as the Buckeyes, which
I am an alumni of Oh there we go. However,
I guess we decided to finally after per year launch
oar Patio Man. We've been struggling for a while on
how to do it with our tasting Menustyle restaurant, and
we came to a conclusion that we wanted to try
(02:31):
something new. Like we call it a random innu because
in the Engladesh we have.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Veranda, so you don't know patios. We have arandas, so
we also didn't know the word for up versus lower patio,
so branda seemed right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
How's it going.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
It's fun. It's uh, it feels like I think one
of the things about the season about on specifically in
the Midwest is people just want to be outside. So
it's just nice. People feel more natural outside. It's no
matter what you do, whenever you're outside, you feel it's
a little bit different.
Speaker 6 (02:58):
It's not one hundred degrees out of more. It's our season, Shanikia.
What's your catchup of the day.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
So we just completed our third home game at the
Ohio State Stadiums Little Buck Eye, so we'll we have
three more, three down, three more to go.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Well, they have eight this year, so far five.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Okay, see how much I know about football?
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Mine is like avish are. We launched a new menu.
We've been kind of circling this for a long time.
But at Chapman v Market we launched Chappy Hour, which
is our version of happy hour. So we brought back
our famous burger for one hour.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Do you get it for freety? Our chaps?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I hadn't thought of that. I don't even know that
I know what chaps are.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
No couple, Yes that was oftentimes.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, those are the things that the y M c
A guys, chaps.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
We have two people talking about menus, so let's make
that our whole conversation today. I'd love to talk about
how and when you want to evold your menus. If
we could start by dialing in with how much do
trends affect your menus?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
I feel like for food trends, like social media trends,
stuff like that don't affect us all that much. I
feel like for beverage is really where we see those
trends coming in. People coming in asking for an espresso martini,
for instance, is a big one, or like a spicy
margarita is having a moment right now, and you'll get
(04:36):
people coming in and asking for that by name. I
feel like people understand that food menu is like the
food menu a little bit more. With our team, we
didn't want to just do like a standard espresso martini,
so it was a little bit of a challenge to
the bartenders to be like, do a creative version of this,
so it's ginger Rabbit. For instance, they did one with
(04:56):
tequila that they call the Cafecito that is essentially espress
of our tini build but in our own little way.
So I think that's how we kind of deal with
those specific challenges like from guests to us to stay on.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Trend, and we've experienced We've had a similar experience where
we'll have guests come in and the lemon drop is
very popular, especially amongst females, and it's traditionally made with
a citrus vodka, but the latest trend is tequila. So
(05:31):
if they ask, we can make it, and we haven't
added it to the menu, but we treat it as
like a feature and.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
To the food aspect. Just a cooper sharp back to
that again, as far as the cheese, it's a big
thing in filling now where they added to cheese steak,
so it's a trend and we want to pick up
on it. Actually, it's very tasty, so it's a nice
like American cheese with a taste of proven So are
(06:01):
you replacing what you already have on the menu or
is this something add on? They do it as an
add on.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Don't not till you try it, right, I see you
as maybe not responding to too many trends in your restaurants,
but perhaps setting them.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I disagree with that one hundred percent agree with that.
I do watch a lot of YouTube, I do read
a lot of books. I have cousins, and half our
staff is what is it now, gen z or what
is I'm not sure which one's around right now. So
I'm certainly aware of all those things, and I actually
try to embrace them. But I embrace them as patterns.
If somebody wants to feel something, and you're all going on,
we just talked about football season, like, is it wrong
(06:43):
to suggest that maybe it's time to address some of
the things of fall that can fall in the seasonality
as well too, Because trends can be seasonal, trends can
be paternal, it can be any sort of sequence can
create a trend, so we don't just look at the
specific trend because what we know is if somebody has
already done it, they're pretty good at it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
You listened a few things, but what are some other
trend or what there some other influences that might affect
when you want to change your menu. Do you have
anything that really drives your new menu?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of things. We talked
about it in our very first.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
Episode, but our menu is very inspired by our team,
our staff. So a lot of what we do is
things that people have had in their childhood or through
their travels. But specifically, like the moment that we know
that it's time to change the menu is we cook
very seasonally, so as things go out of season, that's
a big driver of our menu. We know what's kind
(07:34):
of coming up locally and seasonally, so we can be like, Okay,
we're almost into kale season, so what can we do
with kale. That's kind of a bad example because Kale's
kind of always around, but yeah, those are some of
the things that drive the menu. And then also cost
there's certain things that are just out of this world
(07:55):
expensive right now that it's not because the dish isn't good.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
It's not because guests aren't enjoying it. It's just like
I don't feel.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
Comfortable having this particular item on the menu for twenty
five dollars because we can't afford to do it for
any less.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So those are some of the driving factors.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Ask you questions, both of you ask, and maybe it's
release to unicate. When does the ego get involved with
with the menu. As far as I love this dish
that's my creation, it's not doing well, needs to go.
Does ego ever get involved with your menu?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
I think that as much as people try to say,
like kill your ego, it's still there a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And there's certain.
Speaker 6 (08:33):
Ways that I look at our menu as a whole
where it's like every dish has like its own little
like slot on the menu. That's imperfect. That is important
to have variety. You know, we have a small menu.
It's fifteen items, so you don't want two dishes that
are both flounder or something like that. However, if it's
my dish, it's it's sometimes really hard to like let
go of it. And I know for other people, if
they put a dish on the menu and I'm like,
(08:54):
all right, it's time to get rid of the corn
cake or whatever. It's like, I'm so sorry to you
because it's your you know, that's.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Now going away.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
So I think that is a consideration of like who
came up with it, why it's there, And it's almost
like somebody's idea and identity is getting pulled hold out
of our matrix.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
And I know you love the scientifical method about everything,
but does the ego ever get involved.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
With I mean, the ego is always involved to ask
your question, because technically I'm the driver to the restaurant,
so I have to make the executive decision. So if
it's not for me, then who will make the decision?
If I don't make the decision, somebody who may not
be reading the whole book, being a chapter might have
to make a decision. So two different perspectives. We have
two restaurants. One of them is a tasting menu. So
(09:38):
does a menu change me? And you change the entire
menu of fifteen courses doesn't mean you keep something. It's
really hard, Like I don't know the answer to some
of these things we're learning along the way. There's some
stuff that we only find out the experimentation by removing it.
Someone comes and says, hey, if there's no shot on
your menu, we're not coming back. And we believe them
because the way they look at us, like the way
they just like it's terrifying. You don't want, you don't
want that, you don't want. Does somebody like breaking down
(09:58):
your window because you don't have shot on menu? And
that's one of the things that that wasn't our plan,
but it's not how we adapted. That was one of
the dishes that even our manu to begin with, we
didn't know what we're doing. We're just like, well, just
give everyone everything, right, see what sticks, see what doesn't.
And now that we've doubled our courses, it's becoming more
of a factor because our team does contribute to our
menu and might know a different way to do something
(10:18):
that's probably more effective. Yes, but then how are we
learning if I'm not allowing for mistakes on the menu?
Our menu is full of mistakes. It has to be,
because that's something to make it better. And I think
to introduce that is just as audience says, like we
used to get from our guests. Within the first two months,
we said, when do you change your menu, and I
was like, dude, like this is like a seven year
research process to make these items and you want to
change it like that. And my question is do I
(10:40):
reinforce the dish, make it better or do I change
it fully? And it just depends every single time.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
But you need a heat my ego to be successful
even in business period, you have to have an ego.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Seet, what do you think about production production? So like
when you have your men years as your volume is
insane and you offer these select products to so many
people in so many different restaurants, So does your clients
ego overpower your ego or what's like you based off
your technical level, or how do you decide?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There are some items that we just cannot stop making,
and that's just because we have such a high demand.
There is a limit to how much that's possible right
now in our current facilities and with our current staffing.
So I'm really cognizant of our limitations before I start
considering the next product, the next product offering. We do
(11:29):
regularly get requests for specific items. I know everybody locally
wants a local burger bun, and that's just not something
that I think I have the staff that would have
the that I don't even know if interest is the
right word. I could develop a burger bun that would
be great. I don't know if we could meet the
demand in a way that I would be proud of.
(11:51):
I do think that my staff skill level determines also
what I'm willing to offer. There's a limit to how
much I can train on new items while meeting our
existing demand. So for me, it's really a balance of
all of the requests that I'm getting for new product items,
but also what my staff is capable of in our
current production schedule.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
I think that's a really interesting point because we've found
that too, where it's like the R and D process,
which is an important one, and I've worked at restaurants
that don't do R and D at all. It's just
like pure vibes. This is going on today. I hope
it's good, and you know, we count on like our
skill and our guial to make it work. And then
other times in the way that we run Chapman's is
(12:33):
everything is R and D meticulously and it's one of
those things where like I can make ravioli and I
can make this dish really good. It's how can you
train your staff to do it? And it's one of
those things like when I worked at Husk, I felt
like anyone who worked at Husk and didn't walk out
knowing how to butcher, it was like a lost opportunity.
And I feel like every restaurant like has those things
(12:56):
that are big time.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You need to do it like a million times to
get good at it. So for you, it's it's a
very shaped press exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to do it. It gets
messed up a lot. So like how do you balance
like your ideas with the level at which people can
execute your ideas?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
You know, And we don't have a huge ego, I mean,
I'm sorry, a huge menu, but Shaniko, do you think
my ego stop prevents us from adding new things? Sometimes?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Yes, that's why I asked that I'll be on the
couch tonight.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But want to say, are.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
The customers asking for the changes and you don't want
to make them?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Or I believe in my products so strongly that sometimes
my ego gets in the way where I say absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
And then and I would say it would be and.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Only because she's my wife, And yeah, it's repercussions. Do
I listen to her, Yes that I know she's like,
let's try this, and I'll say no, and then I'll
think about it and I'll say, yeah, I want to
get it.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And I also, I think some of my background because
I come from a retail background, so one of the
lessons that I had to learned early on was that
you had to take yourself out of the equation and
just think about the customer, like is this the right
thing for the customer. You personally might not like polyester,
but the customer does. Or you might not like pleats,
(14:26):
but the customers asking for please and it's the right
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So there's a trends sometimes too. We can go full
circle in the beginning and say what is what are
they actually one? Or what has been trained to them?
And they just kind of burned up to respond. That's
really like, that's I just learned so much. It was
just kind of wild. But thinking about that, and I
think we'll probably probably asked next is like what makes
the menu change? I think with this said, what I
(14:51):
realized sparked my menu change is when our staff is
when they've gotten so did at something, it's time that
there's something new with them, and there's always more learning
to do in our job. As having an ego is,
we know we have an ability to say, for instance,
you know, can I turn can I do prim innaise
certainly have to do prim Well.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Let me ask you this though, if you ask something
that's super successful in your menu, at what point do
you know that you probably might have to go away
from or change it or do you just keep it?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I think this is a tough way to describe because
I might have more knowledge of a product. So for instance,
if I've researched something meticulously too, it's from its history
to where it is right now. I could argue that
it's successful and authenticity. But successful, I think is a
combination of is it satisfying or need to create as
a satisfy our guest demand? Is it helping push the
food seem fort in Columbus is a little bit more.
You know, it's got to offer something more. It can't
(15:40):
just be an item like a food item. It's got
to have a story, a history, a pattern or trend.
It's influenced by so much stuff. It's like, you know,
a recipe or a dish is just a frame of
somebody's life. It's not their entire existence.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So arg you with you just a little bit, because
we've had this problem and we've worked together in a kitchen, okay,
when we worked against each other in the same kitchen.
But we had a goal. We needed to increase traffic
to our business. We needed to increase ticket ticket totals.
(16:15):
But our biggest seller was a burger. It was the
most accessible item.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And brisk and that started off as as a as
a kind of a no, I'm not doing that. This
is just going to be some junk I through and
it was like, oh crap, it's getting popular, So you
know it was it was a yeah, yeah, it was
not the burger definitely question, but we.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Definitely struggled with what what we were trying to make.
People wanted to order that burger because it was the
most successible thing on that menu, and we wanted people
to try all of the other options that we had
available and give other things a chance.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
It's a gateway. I think you sometimes you go to
a place and you're like, oh, I want to try that,
but you got to get the foot in the door first.
And I think we can all agree a burger is
a pretty pretty easy thing to do. It's got a
hands and the fries, you know, are super easy to
make fries. That was also part of the equation that
about a lot of labor. But you know, we never
tatted our burger as like.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
This is a real thing about the super easy to
make the fries.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Something to me that are more difficult than any other.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But to the point is, so when do we when
do we say we can something creative? Because if our
answer was if our sandbox was we're going to make
a burger because one one of the owners wants a
burger into I know that people will come in an
order burger. I can say, hey, my go is so good.
I'm not going to serve a burger. I'm better than
a burger. I worked at these Michelin Star restaurants wanting
to super burger. Or I can say, am I going
to make this the best most personal burger I could
ever create? That's very unique to me, isn't we were?
(17:40):
You know, there's a lot that we had to do
to get just a burger on the plate for a
reasonable price. So like I don't like, I don't know why
we'd like why we choose to look down on these
sorts of things. But with an item like that, we
input it our creativity. We messed with the sauce in
the way that we could. We took something familiar, we
made it still a burger. We said, it has to
look feels like a burger, and then let's just make
it ours after that, and that we were very proud
(18:02):
to serve entity bolts. Why not those are changes to
a menu item that never changes an item. But we
kept improving.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
But I think, yeah, I was going to say, I
think to your point of like, when do you know
that it's time to take a dish off, Like there
is such a thing as like a successful dish or
something that becomes so intrinsic to your restaurant. We have
a few of those dishes that it's so interesting, like
the creativity at the beginning of the restaurant ends up
being something that's so indelible to what we do that
(18:28):
we like, can't change this. And for us, it's the
General So's Caullflower, which was one of the world's too
Chef Matt's dishes that we literally did as a vegan
dish so that we had something that that vegans could
could have in our menu at that time and ended
up being our most popular cellar and it still is
to this day our most popular. Well, it's almost like
we can't take it off. I can take it off
(18:49):
if I want to, but like, I feel that there
would be public backlash on that, and I think that
that's a problem with kind of what it is that
we're talking about is like when is it when is
it time to take a dish off the menu? Is
it one word board with it or is it when
the guests are bored with it? Who do we really
work for here? And you know, I think part of
us want to be like it's it's about us, and
(19:10):
it's about our staff. But at the end of the day,
like you said, it's about the customer. The customers are
not sick of that cauliflower yet so much so that
out of our events space, people want us to do
the cauliflower here from Chatman's and it's.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Like we had it. I gotta say no.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think our rule that we made was if we
take this ridiculous amount of time to make this dish,
and we made it a million times and we see
it and really cours as you can, what we would
do is we'd eat the dish, and the day that
it had stopped getting interesting in our mouth, that's when
it comes up. We're like, I don't want eat this anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Stuff this week we would I'm trying to think, like
we did that porkshank for a long time.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Oh got it's hurt when it got exhausted.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Like I was tired of making it, I was tired
of prepping it. But when we would eat it, we'd
be like, Oh, this would be so much better if
we just changed these two components. And so then we
started to do a little bit of creativity within the
bounds of kind of has to look like this in
the end, But what can we do to make it
so that we're not bored with it anymore?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Well?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
How about you, guys, I mean your bread and butter
is cheese steaks. How do you keep that fresh? And
how do you like your core cheese steaks? Do you
change them ever? Will they stay the same? How do
you feel about changing the menu.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I'm thinking about maybe adding some different cheeses cheese steak,
egg rolls. My wife suggested a buffalo chicken that we
had added there. So we have salmon cheese steak. So
we're still adding. It's different versions, you know, different inspirations
that we will have.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
They kind of just hand something off the menu every
time that you put something on.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Or is the men you're just getting larger.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
It's getting it's getting larger.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When is what is the most expensive thing that you're doing?
Like is it the training or is it the reprinting
of menus? Like what would prevent you from continuing to
just add and add so ingredients?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, it would be ingreen in because Ribi.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Is starting to go through, it's starting to be a
shortage on on beef.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
And then like printing is definitely an expense. So at
one location we actually added a digital menu board so
as as we make changes, you know, to transfer.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Out a picture instead of reprinting.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
Instead of reprinting, we also added in magnetic strips so
if we were to change a price, they have special
little stickers that you can just put over top of
the existing price. So that's a cost effective, uh, measure
to the taste cheese steak. But the oxygen that would
(21:43):
now that would require.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That maybe it's a little ox.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Tes oxtyl cheese steaks.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Cooking for lunch.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It used to be, so what do you all think of?
It just came up, I think in the conversation, and
so I just see things are like really exciting, like
the creation points. But we're just talking about what it
means to change the menu, and so many people think like, oh,
I got this idea and it's done. They don't think
about you got to like how does the guest know
(22:19):
you have a new menu? Like how how do you guys?
Like what's the process? Like, yeah, the.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Pointer and then you know when it's time to when
you're making the decisions to change the menu, I think
you have to lay out all of the the all
the components that go into it, because that's a process.
So you know it's like, okay, it's time to change.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Okay, well what do I do first? Yeah? Thank you?
Probably for get next experience. If you have an international
staff and like, hey, tomorrow we're going to start using
Gucci John, You're like, well doesn't carry that, so we
have to go to the Asian work and you have
to go and buy this.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
We go to the international grocery at least twice a week.
There's an ongoing text chain of everything that we need
up until the point that's time to go.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
We just hired a full time grocery shopper because if
you look, I mean if you look at either our menus,
it's the craziest thing is when we go to the
international market. The test of a truly international restaurant is
when the person the rector is like, what are you buying?
Like why do you have like fu fu? And you
also have like crimpascees? None of this it doesn't make
any sense and you're like, yeah, that's cool, it's a
good time, but it's yeah, it's those changes are tough.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Like well with me, I, if I develop a new product,
there's a really long period of time before I'm able
to actually sell it. And I find that incredibly frustrating
and I'm trying to figure out how to make that
work better for me. But for me I because it's
regulated by not the Health Department, but there's labeling components
for some of this, I have to go through about
(23:39):
a three to four week process before I can finish
all of my R and D like I'm absolutely going
to sell this before I can put it in the thing.
It's just so many steps dependent on other people, and
I find that really for keeping an.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Kind of think about the logistics that go in.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It's a little bit stifling, for like this change in
the thing on.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And menu the next day.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That I never even thought it was. You're not governed
and by the local health department.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
You're governed by it's a department.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Agriculture, and there's all different sorts of rules and regulation.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah, so it's just a different experience. I find
it incredibly frustrating in some ways. I feel like it's stifling,
but it ends up making me look for other outlets
that I can start to get immediate feedback and figure
out what I wanted.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
To make back to our point of being resilient.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
But would you say that it also reass your ability
as as a menu changer to say that I can
because as independent restaurants. One of the things that I
wouldn't say by but make independent is like see something
that's being done so much like I don't want to,
you know, like I want I want my own twist
on it. I want to not offer this consistent There's
like a tension between young and like kind of wild
(24:49):
and mature and like stable, right, and you're hitting the
center point where you're saying, I got to do all
these ingredients, I do all these tips, and I have
to create something that by the time it touches all
these hands, is it still the original idea that I had?
And it seems in your case, you're still motivated, So
do you go? Is it right? Like it's like the
ego's got to push through everything, Like it's what keeps
you strong when everything else is against you, because you
(25:10):
can't just serve it.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, I'm absolutely not jumping on trends. That's not something
that's not something I'm doing. But it does push me
to try and figure out what might be, what might
be starting a trend, what might be on the front
end of the pattern you were talking about looking for patterns,
what flavors are interesting? And I don't see them everywhere.
And I'm willing to be able to invest the time
(25:32):
and energy and money because now I'm buying a large
amount of packaging. Now I'm investing a lot before I
sell that first one. And that's a little bit scary
and it's fun and different, but it's not relatable for
this conversation in the same way. Although there is writ
rewriting menus getting them printed, like that's still similar. But
(25:54):
you can't just run a specially.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I can't just run a special.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
But trends are not Trends are not for every one, right,
So I think people if don't feel bad if you
can't go after a certain trend, it might not be
for you.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And that's okay.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
So that's not it's not an indicator that your business
is going to sell because you missed out on this trend.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Well, it's an interesting thing that Davish I just mentioned
about gochu jong. I think like five six years ago,
especially in a place like Columbus, no one would have
heard of gochu jong. It's something we've been cooking with probably.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
For high school.
Speaker 6 (26:29):
Yes, and yeah, exactly we had that in our pantry
when I was a kid. But it's almost like sometimes
trends aren't a bad thing because it brings something that
is a little bit more mainstream into the mainstream. And
the fact that we can put gochu John Fried Chicken
on our menu now and people aren't like, what is
this word is really cool. So it's not necessarily chasing,
(26:50):
like I.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Think you're saying, gochu jong, by the way, not go
chi jing. Thank you for Yes, we have to worry.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
About a Marlow's hot chicken cheese stay.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Chasing.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Then you have chicken trends or anything else.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sounds good to be if you did a bull chop cheese,
I'm on there, so you know.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I mean, it's funny because like whatever, a lot of
these trends, as we say, are like comfort foods to
somewhere where it's like why did this all of a
sudden go like global when it's like, this is the
stuff that I've been eating since I was in elementary.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Generally it's because it's later. There's also a lot of
like algorithm, and algorithm is based on relatable, right, so
it's like it's got to be relatable for everybody's gonna
be Like you had that moment you see this thing,
like you have a young cook, can they give you
this thing? You're like, what are you doing? This is
I saw this on TikTok. I'm not going to eat
this says, and you're like, damn, that's good you. So
you have a moment You're like, I see what you're
talking about, because we have a little bit of that
inside of us too, where it's like stubborn, you know,
(27:48):
we're stubborn. We're all in these days. All right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I love the discussion that we've been having, and we
do have an outside question. I want to post to
everyone what happens when a critic comes in or a
very vocal guest and they don't like the change is
they think that something is missing?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Well?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Speaking of ego, I think that that's probably the most
ego a predicing thing that can happen, is you put
a new dish on and immediately someone's like, I don't
like it for X, Y and Z reason. I feel
like menu change day is always the most nerve wracking one,
like the first dish to go out and waiting for
that feedback.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
But I think I think it happens.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Because people are somewhat afraid of change, and I think
that for restaurants that are really established, if you take
off something that's a fan favorite, you're just going to
piss people off. And we kind of have a rule
that you don't take things off and that's what you're
replacing it with is better.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
But that's objective.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So I feel like.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Everyone's going to be opinionated and you kind of just
need to do your best and roll with it and
not take your personally it happens, I don't know you.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah, we actually want to come in. That was had
a huge following, and he didn't care for the buffalo chicken.
So the first thing I kind of did was look
at ourselves, look with them. Did we do something wrong?
Did we miss something? And came to find out that
our kitchen staff had over drenched the buffalo sauce. So
that was a teaching moment. And so sometimes constructive criticism
(29:16):
where people not liking anything some some things that you
do kind of makes you look in the mirror and
do some self evaluation. So that's a good thing too.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's really important to learn from mistakes.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
And so you take the good with the bed, and
you know you're making the changes for obvious reasons. Uh,
some people are going to be okay with it, and
some people are not going to be okay with it.
So so just finding that balance and learning and make
adjustments when necessary.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So it's great. Some btst from the last just back there. Yes,
I'm an expert of having people crap on stuff that
I make. So it's from you know, child to my
parents and I'm just kidding. Oh, it's uh, it's something
that you kind of grow used to every time, and
then what I try to do is I try to
just reference the point of what was said to where
(30:13):
we were trying to go and see if there's a disconnect. So,
for instance, we wanted to do this for in the
classic example, hey this this beef dish. Now it's I
don't like the way you're serving it. It's too raw,
and you say, well, this is carpaccio. It's supposed to
be right right. So there's there's some of that, but
within that, generally, what you'll find is there's a mix
of objectivity and emotion. Because food is emotional, and the
(30:36):
opinion is what you have you do have to listen
to because it is you do have to validate how
somebody feels, whether it's for good or bad reasons. They
didn't say that, and you can say, okay, cool, I
heard you and I saw the voice too.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
I would much rather someone tell me face to face
than just like wake up to like ga alp review
or something like that. That's like you could have told
us that the pasta was too salty.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It would have fixed it in the moment. What people
taken is some of the.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Things that we do is actually Kate is familiar with
this is when we try to roll out in your menu,
which is it comes we pre planted. It never works
out according to plan, and then we just throw it
at the wall and it comes out. That's kind of
this is the way it works. And is training ever enough? Never,
it's never enough trading because things changed, and they changed
depending on people's responses, like the person outside and said, hey,
the fourth thing wasn't right for me. I have some
(31:22):
dieters come in and I give them a notebook and
I say, just write whatever, and you don't have to
pay for your meal. The most the most valuable thing
I can get out of you is your opinion right now.
And when you put when you put it that way,
people really start to think about what they're saying. Like
they're like, oh, what can I offer to make this better?
Because I'm saying I'm willing to do I'm willing to
hear you and do what you're asking me to do.
But you got to write it down and really good idea.
(31:43):
It's like your ego. Initially, the first couple of times
are you gous, like oh god, you know, like you're like,
that's the book.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's the book.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But after the third or fourth time, you're like, oh,
we can get so much better, so much faster, because
I mean, it's that's what's about, right, It's not about like, hey,
this is like, hey, we wanted to change it because
we want to make it better, not worse. I think,
let's just want to make it better unless we're working
for a terrible business hunter. You know that's as your
own business learner. It's like it's one of those interesting
things that it finds traction in both our community and
(32:08):
like my family, because they love to have an opinion
and you get to give them the platform for that.
It also gives you like a Kate's susband's professor, so
he's got some really nice things to say that can
be his own opinion and some things that probably back
my science. So it's really cool to have that perspective
to decide, hey, this is a change. And I think
earlier you're saying there's so many steps to change. It's
not just like I got an idea, it's on the
menu tomorrow. It used to be when we were younger.
(32:30):
We've done that stuff before. It's like, oh, I made
that once and I re want to make that again.
But now it's like what it's put out, It's been
done probably ten thousand times before, and now it's out
and it's still not right.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It's about to get spicy. It's almost time for our
final course today, which is deserved. But first we're going
to dish out some hot takes. It's time for overdone underdone.
I'm going to just give a few items and I'd
love for you to give me your spiciest take on it,
how you feel about it. So we have q OUR
(33:00):
codes for menus.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I hate them.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Hope we're done.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I've overdone it.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Not that I hate to hate them. How they're executed.
It makes sense to me. But like if you're in
a dark place and you can't like and then my
parents trying to get them to use QR clothes to
order food, like what, yes, they get so mad.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I love when we go out to eat and there's
a menu that I feel like there's this tactile thing
and and maybe sometimes when it's a special event, like
it's a souvenir. Also I'm not stealing menus and taking
it with permission.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
But then, like I think the QR codes make sense, yeah,
because you can order everything once would for like sit
down dinner.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I'm against yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Although I mean I would say the kind of waters
if you're in any time feel like outside of America,
Like in China, you can re chet in order your
entire pickets. They have it dialed in so well that
you would be like, wow, that's awesome. I just think
it's America right now.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
What about separate kid menus we have no feelings?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Underdone them to eat more here?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I have one. What's that restaurant conglomerates overdone? Underdone?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I don't think I can afford having an opinion about that.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
What would you define like as colom records just so
fly to player repends so I can give like if
you give me like an example, are you coming after Absar?
Did you have worse?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Three?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Rest of my groups like fifty sixty seventy.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I think it depends.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
I think if we know what we're getting ourselves into,
and our expectations are on par with what it is
that we're getting, then cool bit of qualities suffers because
you overexpanded.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I would say overdone.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
But like I think maybe a good middle point is
I think people think like you did something really awesome,
mas Jet fifty and they didn't think about what it
takes to get to fifty. Yeah, that's maybe overdone. It's
most like, hey, I have that three for ten years,
and now it's time that you know, we figured it out.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
For restaurant roops that do a great phenomenal job but
still give you quality with each concept.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So, and I'm not sure if I'm asking this as
a restaurant owner or as a potential diner, but what
do you think about restaurant week menus?
Speaker 6 (35:09):
I feel like overdone because I don't want to cheapen
what we do for anybody, but I do understand the
value of bringing in new client tele So I'm like
a soft.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That we're done on that. Yeah, an over easy, Yeah,
an over medium.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
If it's a high end, the high end restaurants, I
would say underdone. The ones that are more like fast casual,
some of the menus, the menu selection for a restaurant week,
you could tell that they're doing it just to draw
traffic and the menu is not compelling, So I would
say overdone.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think that restaurant week potentially brings in diners that
are not your target market.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And so, but is that a good thing or a
bad thing?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Not a good thing. What about you? I thought I
escaped the question. Historically, Yes, I would say over them
because I've never partaken as an owner and somebody that's
ever been a chef, I've never partaken in because I
slidated the staff. And I'm not saying that. I think
it's a bad idea. I think it'd be cool to
(36:15):
have a restaurants input on restaurant week. I think if
the rest we did restaurant relief week, we're after restaurant
week mediam half off to everybody in the street because
they had to put up with the restaurant week, like
giving How about how min this U helping out other
people the industry over are under like your staff, people
that are trying.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
We should do more.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
We got an agreement. Yes, I think we should wrap
it there.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
All right, Oh I'm sorry, Okay, all right, delicious discussion today.
Before we clear the table, it's time for dessert where
everyone gets to share their parting thoughts. Is there one
thing that you're taking away from this meeting? Is there
one thing you're going to take away from this that
(37:02):
you'll incorporate into your own businesses?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I think that being considered considering.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Our guests as well as our staff in those menu
change ideas and taking like our ego out of it
is really my big takeaway from today.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And I feel like.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
Subconsciously we do that, but now having a little bit
more focus on like actually having that as a mission
and menu changes is is something I'm taking away from today.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
I figured out how to get off the sofa. Now
my ego was was had me on the sofa. I
took from this that I need to listen a little
bit and more changes in and NEYU and our suggestions.
So happy wife, Happy life.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I can't wait for our episode about relationships in the
work fine.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
I would say partying thought for me would be to
embrace change. Change is a good thing, it's not necessarily
a bad thing, and just treat it as a learning
and then you can still make changes and stay true
to who you are.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I've learned the opposite of what I thought. Generally, I thought,
I was like, we're refraining from having an ego, but
that we've all sat together and I was like, oh, well,
kind of the only thing that we have left when
everything else is taken is your ego. So you should
take care of yourself, you know, like you should. You know,
it's always going to be your vision, your vision you started.
When all this stuff happens and all these change appens,
you have to be present, like you have to be
(38:37):
it is. You can't lose yourself because then we become
that conglomerate I think you talk about. So maybe a
value value that you go more, not necessarily but to
dominate the conversation, but to be aware that it exists.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Thank you so much as you might expect the opinions
that we express on this podcast or just that opinions
and for entertainment purposes only.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
If you love this podcast, help us out the thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Also, be sure to go to Craft Times Away from
Home dot com and sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
So remember, if you like what you heard today.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Please head over to Krafttimes Away from Home dot com
and sign up.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
We have got all sorts of exclusives coming with special insights,
access to marketing, and a lot more.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Of course, subscribe share like all those things. See you
next time.
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