Buzzwords for our time: Low sodium; calorie counts; good cholesterol/bad cholesterol; high fructose corn syrup; gluten-free. When did eating right become such a grind? And what’s become of the pleasure of simply enjoying food?

With all the news coverage, government legislation, nutrition watch-dogging and often-conflicting scientific reports, many consumers are confused about what’s healthy—feeling guilty and exhausted by efforts to find a healthy way of life. And many people equate healthy eating with more expense and less flavor. It seems like we’re losing all the fun.

Fortunately, amid the recent rush to add healthier options to menus, some operators have found a way to keep the pleasure principles intact:

• LYFE Kitchen. The meaning of LYFE—Love Your Food Everyday—says it all. Set to open this fall in Palo Alto, the first in a planned new chain of quick-casual restaurants will showcase a menu offering great-tasting food that is convenient, affordable and good for you—and good for the communities it serves. Chefs Art Smith and Tal Ronnen (known for their comfort food and vegetarian cuisine, respectively) have developed a menu that champions flavor, but no item contains more than 600 calories.

• Solbar. Michelin-starred chef Brandon Sharp has nothing against meat; he’d just rather work with all the beautiful fresh produce abounding in the Napa Valley. But it’s entirely your choice: Every menu is divided into “healthy lighter dishes to nourish your soul,” and “hearty cuisine to comfort your body.” All that and local, seasonal ingredients make for what Cooking Light magazine recently called some of the tastiest “light-conscious” food in the country.

• True Food Kitchen. With four locations in Arizona and California, True Food offers a globally inspired menu that’s true to Dr. Andrew Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet & Food Pyramid. By integrating whole foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals with principles of flavor, freshness, variety, quality, nutrition and balance, TFK executive chef Michael Stebner aims for signature menu items that customers can enjoy as well as feel good about eating.

Need help balancing the pleasures of food with consumer demand for healthier offerings? Contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants.

 

Greetings!

You’ve heard the expression “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” but in this issue of our newsletter we’re asking you to do just exactly that. Small stuff, like the phone bill and the contract to restock your first aid kit, can add up to thousands of dollars a year in unnecessary costs, money that could instead be funneled to your bottom line. Sweating these little under-the-radar expenses—a process known as gap management—is the subject of Mark Ladisky’s post this month, and we think you’ll learn some valuable lessons from it. Identifying these hidden costs and negotiating alternatives is an exercise every operator should undertake as often as possible.

To your success,

Dean and Danny

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Gap Management = Buried Treasure

Mark Ladisky, Senior Operations Associate

If I were to ask you your brand’s annual sales, you could probably rattle them off without a pause; the same goes for food and labor costs. But if I asked you the last time someone reviewed your communications expenses, or the fees associated with your website hosting, you probably wouldn’t answer so quickly. In fact, while you diligently bid out your food purchases to save $300 a month, there are untold riches lying undiscovered in your accounts payable and your detailed P&L.

The devil is in the details when it comes to seemingly minor expenses paid in a routine fashion every month, while you spend hours pacing over the cost of cheese. To back up a bit, I will start with the obvious and remind everyone that the bottom line doesn’t lie. Profit is profit, and nothing can change that. However, what happens in the middle of the P&L, specifically with expenses of less than 3%, is something of a blind spot for most operators.

According to Bill Taves, Synergy Restaurant Consultants’ finance and accounting guru, the three areas most overlooked when it comes to the gap between the actual profit a company is making and the potential profit they could earn are:

1. Communication costs. These are often considered necessary evils and paid without a second glance, but has anyone reviewed the service packages since you opened three more stores? Maybe you have long distance packages you don’t need or, worse, you may have staff using the unlocked long distance to rack up your bill calling Santa Claus.

2. Overtime. While it’s tempting to discuss overtime in a colorful way, such as “Overtime is paying premium dollars for tired people,” there is some truth to that. Overtime can be a huge contributor to your payroll expenses and in almost every instance is completely preventable. Yes, there are some occasions where overtime is unpreventable (call outs), but if you routinely see five hours of OT per associate per week and you have 30 staff on payroll, that is 150 OT hours, which costs as much as 225 hours at regular rate. You could hire two more full-time associates and gain 75 hours of productivity, or save $750 a week in payroll simply by reviewing a forecast and actual labor plan.

3. Fixed Price Contracts. Contracts often include a range of services that you routinely pay for and rarely review. These may cover hood cleaning services, trash pick-up, credit card processing fees, first aid kit restocking, knife sharpening, and a never-ending list of other services that are under the radar as individual expenses due to their small percentage of cost. Typically these service providers aren’t calling you to let you know how much leverage you have to renegotiate your pricing since you added more units or increased volume—so pick up the phone and shop it around.

Someone once advised in a productivity book that everyone should earn $100 per hour as often as possible. What that means is that we should spend one hour to find a way to save $100 either per day or per week or however often, but find a way to save that amount with a one-hour investment. If you were to assign your team that project, you might be surprised what they discover.

Take your daily or weekly linen service, for example. They come on-site however often, and routinely take the old and drop the new cloths, aprons, mats and the like. Every so often, your friendly linen company will likely attach some sort of recovery fee to your bill for lost or damaged pieces. That dollar amount may change from time to time or be a static number, but either way you are likely paying too much. While you’re at it, spot-check deliveries of linens at the unit level and validate quantities every so often.

How to properly negotiate a service contract is a subject better left to its own post, so we won’t go into that right now, but suffice to say if you purchase something often enough, you have leverage. How much you have exactly will depend on your purchase levels and your ability to exploit it during negotiations.

Other expenses are on your P&L but could be reduced just through the simple act of taking some initiative. For example, I know it’s convenient to have that first aid kit restocked automatically, but typically those services charge a ‘trip fee’ or ‘service charge’ in addition to the cost of the products stocked. They also have been known to add on ‘inspection fees’ of a couple of dollars here and there. These miscellaneous fees can add as much as 20% to a bill, and should be reviewed at the very least.

Regardless if you are in search of the most humble or most aggressive of profit margins, gap management needs to be on your radar.

As part of a basic operations review, Synergy will often discuss observed opportunities for savings with our clients, but a thorough review of this area is usually recommended. We’re happy to discuss Gap Management opportunities as part of our routine operations assessment or as a specific scope of work, so contact us today to find where your missing P&L treasures are buried.

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One Item Wonders

By Joan Lang

Anyone who’s been paying attention at all recently knows how successful The Meatball Shop has been, packing in customers, inspiring countless press reports and flattery (read: imitators), and allowing for the opening of a second location in the uber-hip Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, across the river from the original.

We’ve been here before, of course, with the single-item specialists like Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s pretzels, to say nothing of pizza, ice cream and fro yo shops. This is a little different, however, in the sense that the new breed of one-item-wonder concepts springing up goes beyond treats and other impulse purchases. And many of them, like The Meatball Shop, are helmed by serious chefs (TMS co-founder Daniel Holzman is CIA-trained, and he and partner Mike Chernow are equally serious about the quality of the ingredients they use). Not surprisingly, too, many of them are located in urban areas and/or near colleges that have the critical mass to support them.

Macaroni and Cheese

Not the first of the mac-and-cheese specialists, by any means, L.A.’s Mac&Cheeza serves a build-your-own version of the iconic comfort food, available in four different sizes with such mix-and-match toppings as collard greens, olives, jalapenos, BBQ Chicken and Chorizo. Meanwhile, Macbar in Manhattan has 12 different formulations, from The Classic, with elbows and American and cheddar cheeses to Mac Quack, made with duck confit, Fontina, caramelized onion, and fines herbes.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Chedds, a grand old survivor in Austin, TX, from 2003, does gourmet grilled cheese. The house proposes more than two dozen combinations (e.g., the “Ultimate” with Gouda and Havarti on multigrain, or the Fish and Peppers with tuna, chipotle cheddar, banana peppers, jalapeno, mayo and relish on rye), or patrons can customize from a list of more than 30 cheeses, eight meats, a dozen veggies, condiments, dressings, and eight kinds of bread.

Rice Balls

Arancini Bros. in Bushwick, NY, specializes in the orange-shaped Sicilian rice balls as a cornerstone to a rotating menu that includes versions made with salmon, broccoli raab and sausage, and a la carbonara. Did they “borrow” the idea from a place with the same name in London? Does it matter?

Lobster Rolls

Three guesses what Maine lobsterman Luke Holden wanted to specialize in when he opened his first restaurant? There are also shrimp, crab and combo rolls, and crab claws, along with chowders. The first one caused a sensation in New York City, and now there are six, including a truck.

Savory Pies

Capitalizing on the Aussie love of pasties, sausage rolls and other savory hand pies, Pacific Pie Co. touts local and humanely raised meats and seasonal produce—this is Portland, OR, after all. Fillings like Beef & Stout, Thai Green Chicken Curry, Spinach, Feta & Tomato and more, plus dessert pies like Shaker Lemon, make this a real, er, upper crust experience.

Word to the wise, however: The New York outpost of Pop-Tarts World, which hawked such menu items as Pop-Tarts Sushi and peanut butter Pop-Tart sandwiches, is no longer in business. After all, how many Pop-Tarts can one person eat?

To find out if you hot new restaurant can work in the real world, contact Synergy.

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Bread: The Staff of Life—and Menus

By Joan Lang

Read on for ideas that take day-old bread beyond the realm of croutons, crumbs and bread pudding:

Crostini and Bruschetta

Throw away the crackers: These grilled or toasted platforms are well-suited to a variety of toppings, and are uber-hot on menus of all kinds.

• The smaller crostini can be used with various composed toppings; served with dips, dunks, fondue, pates, soft cheeses and other spreads; added to a signature bread basket; or used as a garnish for cheese plates, soups, salads and more.
• Generally bigger in size, bruschetta are a well-loved peasant food throughout the Mediterranean (including Greece, where they’re called Dako and are often made with twice-baked rusks, and Spain, where bread is rubbed with olive oil, tomato and sometimes garlic oil to create Pa Amb Tomàquet). Offering a bruschetta or Crostini Trio of the day represents a great way to utilize seasonal ingredients and leftovers.

It goes without saying that you should feel free to experiment with all kinds of different breads: baguette, ciabatta, whole wheat…. And even a base seasoning as simple as olive oil and garlic adds a different dimension.

Panzanella and Other Bread Salads

Leave it to thrifty cooks to re-purpose stale bread in a way that has really caught on as a salad, starter and side dish that goes beyond traditional ethnic menus. In fact, it’s no coincidence that Tuscan bread is made without salt, so that it dries out perfectly, and it is the Tuscans, after all, that are associated with panzanella (bread salad) and bread-enriched soups like Ribollita (see below). The Italians aren’t the only ones who make bread salads with trendy currency, however: Fattoush is a Middle Eastern bread salad made with pita.

Although the better known bread salads depend upon perfect ripe tomatoes for their lusciousness, they’re actually a perfect vehicle all kinds of seasonal ingredients, like winter squash and grapes, or roasted vegetables. More substantial additions, such as cheese or grilled tuna, allow them to be menued as a main course.

Bread Soups

While the Italians are most associated with the idea of using leftover bread to add body and substance to soups (Ribollita, literally “reboiled,” traditionally recycles yesterday’s minestrone as well), bread is used to thicken or add heft to soups all over the world, from the floating cheese raft that makes onion soup en croute in France, to Spanish garlic soup, a simple, egg-enriched soup served over toasted day-old bread.

Take inspiration from the global language of bread soups, which also include the Italian Papa Al Pomodoro (tomato bread soup) and Crema di Zucca Fontina (a creamy squash soup from the Valle d’Aosta which utilizes stale rye bread), Polish Zupa Chlebowa (thick with kielbasa and pumpernickel), and German bread dumpling soup.

Specialty French Toast

As breakfast and brunch become more important sources of profit for operators, so does the popularity of signature morning foods. And given that most people still want something fairly traditional for the first meal of the day, it comes as no surprise that chefs would be riffing on ever-popular French toast. Some thoughts:

• Stuff it, placing a filling between two slices of bread and moving on from there. The filling itself can be sweet (fresh strawberries and chocolate drizzle) or savory (ham and Gruyere—which come to think of it sounds like the traditional Croque Monsieur).
• No longer just a repository for old bread, this indulgent morning specialty can be made with all kinds of different breadstuffs: challah, brioche, croissants, cinnamon raisin bread, There’s a reason folks call it Pain Perdu (“lost bread’), meaning that you can use practically any sort of bread that would be otherwise lost to the dumpster

So here’s a toast to bread and all its myriad uses—and contact Synergy if you want more ideas for your menu.

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Tip of the Month

If we had only one food blog to read, it would be Serious Eats. Though it’s aimed at consumers and foodies, there’s lots to learn from this extensive, well-edited site, from recipes and food trends to information about wine and spirits, food science, travel, media, and more. It’s also the portal for two great microsites: A Burger Today and Slice, a paean to the world of pizza.

Do you ever stop to appreciate the effort it actually takes for that delicious coq au vin dish to arrive on your plate? From the vegetable growers in the fields and to the duck farmers, creating special dishes is an elaborate, methodical process.

We came across a very unique business that promises to bring you closer to the food you eat: Outstanding in the Field, located in Santa Cruz, Ca. mission states, “Our mission is to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”

Outstanding organizes culinary events without walls –literally. All “culinary adventures” are typically located outdoors — be it on a mountain top, on a beach shore or on a farm, with meals cooked and prepared with local food by celebrated local chefs of the region. “Wherever the location, the consistent theme of each dinner is to honor the people whose good work brings nourishment to the table.”

This traveling restaurant is always on the go so be sure to check out their next pit stop here.

Outstanding takes to the road from Outstanding in the Field on Vimeo.

Ten years ago if you’d told uber-chef Thomas Keller he’d be serving fried chicken and West Texas barbecue, he’d probably have laughed in your face—politely, of course. Same with Tom (‘wichcraft) Colicchio and Hubert (Burger Bar) Keller, both of whom have made a lot of bread serving sandwiches and burgers rather than foie gras.

Nancy Silverton was on to the trend early, when she introduced Thursday night grilled cheese sandwiches and tapped into a huge hunger for upgraded comfort food, adult beverages, and a casual, drop-in atmosphere—not to mention approachable prices.

Turns out she was right. As the rest of the industry languishes, fast casual and burgers are two segments that shine.

The favorable image of fast-casual trendsetters like Chipotle and mega-growth success stories like Five Guys have injected a no-shame aura around catering to the mainstream; in fact, they’ve made it rather hip. The guttering economy has made the strategy really smart. The fact that these concepts have expansion possibilities—think Danny Meyer and Shake Shack—is even smarter.

Here are some examples of chefs who have made their names in fine dining and are bringing their rarefied take to the task of redefining fast casual:

 

• After finding widespread popularity with DMK Burger Bar, Michael Kornick, of mk in Chicago, has introduced clam shack chic with his new Fish Bar
• James Beard award winner Rob Evans of Hugo’s, in Portland, ME, is on to something expandable with duckfat, which specializes in panini sandwiches, duckfat fries and housemade sodas and shakes
• Roger Andrews, who made his bones at the upscale Restaurant 821 in Wilmington, DE, is packing them in at El Diablo Burritos , a taqueria where everything is made from scratch

This is definitely a trend we can expect to see more of, as serious chefs plumb the depths of menus specializing not only in burgers and sandwiches, but also ethnic food, pizza and other concepts that lend themselves well to an upgraded fast-casual model.

Fast food without the grease, salt … or guilt?

That’s what the entrepreneurs behind Lyfe Kitchen, a proposed fast-food chain slated to open later this summer, are promising customers.

“It’s going to be great-tasting, satiating, familiar foods,” Read entire full LA Times article.

Our own Dean Small was interviewed for the following article on Del Taco.

Del Taco Joins Redesign Trend, Plans Ad Campaign

By KARI HAMANAKA
Del Taco LLC is the latest restaurant operator here undergoing a brand makeover as it seeks more sales and expands outside of California. Please read the full article here.

Did you get a chance to chat live with Chef Tal Ronnen? Last week, Chef Tal completed LYFE Kitchen Chef’s Tour of San Francisco. Check out all the photos on LYFE’s Facebook Page

Nobody wants to think about the possibility of a double-dip recession, but recent events have raised the specter again, even as many businesses—and consumers—are still recovering from the last one.

After several years learning how to do more with less, it may be time to consider what will happen if the worst does happen. In this uncertain economy, it’s important to keep as many employees in their jobs as possible—otherwise, you’re just part of the problem.

There are ways to cut payroll expenses without cutting jobs. Here are several tactics to consider in order to preserve “human capital”:

Hold the line on wage increases or consider asking everyone to accept lower pay—including yourself.

• Unless local minimum-wage legislation requires it, hold off on raises, even if they’ve been previously promised
• In this business climate, most employees will understand if you can’t give them a raise or even have to cut pay; it’s better than losing a job

Reduce total hours and/or the number of days worked per week.

• Investigate your state’s laws about how many hours a person must work in order to continue to qualify for healthcare insurance and other benefits
• In some cases, employees working reduced hours may be eligible for unemployment benefits to make up for the shortfall in income
• If possible, give your employees the choice whether to work fewer days or shorter hours spread out over the same number of days. This helps them adjust their new schedules to their own personal needs, such as taking care of family or going back to school part-time

Find ways to help employees be more productive when they’re at work.

• Develop sales contests and other promotions that encourage staff to build sales
• Engage employees in every way possible, by sharing information with them—good news and bad—and reiterating your commitment to staff members who are more productive
• Up the ante on customer training, and cross-train. Not only does this make for a better patron experience, but it also better positions staff members if it does become necessary for them to seek another job
• Don’t turn your back on incentive and recognition programs—in fact, they’re more important than ever now

Make a commitment to staff development. It doesn’t have to be expensive, and it will help improve morale.

• Investigate online training or subsidized training opportunities that may be available in your state or town
• Allow employees to learn about your business—it will help them, or you
• Encourage reading, volunteering, attending local conferences and seminars, and anything else that will help your staff grow

For help with any human resources issues, including training, employee culture assessment and more, contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants for a free consultation.

Social media is continually proving its power on consumer choices.

A recent study conducted by Oglivy Public Relations reveals interesting findings on the effects of social media on buying consumer buying behavior.

This study tracked the experiences of 404 people between January and May 2011, relative to the five following brands: McDonald’s, Subway, KFC, Wendy’s and Taco Bell.

Key findings from this study:

• Consumers exposed to social media and news stories were 17 percent more likely to spend more at quick-service restaurants.
• Wendy’s customers who were exposed to social media and TV commercials were twice as likely to increase consumption.
• People who were exposed to social media and billboards were twice more likely to spend more at quick-service restaurants.
• KFC patrons were seven times more likely to spend more money after being exposed to social media.

By Joan Lang

It’s no secret that menus have become more distinctive in recent years. Not the layout or appearance, necessarily: In fact, the increasing number of restaurants that print their own menus from an easily changeable computer document has made the actual appearance of many menus more straightforward.

Instead, it’s the format and concept of the menu itself that’s been changing. It’s almost unusual these days to see a menu itemized by appetizer, entrée, dessert; instead you’ve got categories like “Nibble and Share,” “Big Plates,” and “Sweet Endings.” Some menus don’t even have categories, but rough groups in which the customer can intuit the size and function of each menu item by its description and relative price.

The popularity of small plates and other forms of modular dining has had a lot to do with that. So has casualization. And the fact that operators are looking for every profit opportunity means that many restaurants now have multiple menus even at one daypart, from a bar and cocktail menu to a dessert selection.

Still, every once in a while along comes a new restaurant, and its menu, that yet manages to tilt the whole menu-writing game on its ear.

• iNG, Homaru Cantu’s new restaurant in Chicago, would seem too precious by far if Cantu weren’t such a genius—and if he hadn’t proved himself over and over at Motorino. With the theme of Imagining New Gastronomy, the restaurant concept is notable for a number of reasons, chief among them the fact that very few dishes are priced at over $20, for some seriously imagined food. But check out the menu. Customers can choose tasting menus that are designed and priced by the hour, and the a la carte selection is grouped by such categories as “cooling” (cold and raw items), “boiling” (including noodles in broth); and “sweetening” (that would be dessert to you, Bubba), as well as “sipping,” “brewing,” and “mixing” (wine, beer and cocktails, respectively.

• Where iNG is hyper modernist, José Andrés’s brand-new America Eats Tavern, in Washington, DC, is pretty much menu-as-historical-document. Named after the WPA’s writers project of the 1930s and inspired in part by archival cookbooks, the menu showcases “the fascinating history of our nation one plate at a time, whether it’s the origins of New England clam chowder or the introduction of grapefruit to America.” Thus there are Pickled Oysters from 18th century New York City and Shrimp ‘n’ Anson Mills Grits as an opportunity to point out that it was the Native Americans who first taught the Jamestown colonists to hull corn into hominy, in 1607. That the menu also manages to hit every current food-trend hotspot, from osters to fried chicken, makes it all the more interesting.