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I don't care that much about employee discounts for food because I try and avoid eating where I work as much as possible, but everyone deserves a shift drink, even if it's just limited to whatever the cheapest draft and house wine are. For the bar managers and other people who do product ordering, do most places still make a profit off the happy hour drinks, or is it usually a loss leader hoping people order food or drinks not on the happy hour list?
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Mar 11, 2018 00:05
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Skwirl posted:I don't care that much about employee discounts for food because I try and avoid eating where I work as much as possible, but everyone deserves a shift drink, even if it's just limited to whatever the cheapest draft and house wine are. In Texas, it is illegal to sell alcohol at a loss, give away free drinks, or advertise either (comps are supposed to be rung up, there is a system as long as they are accounted for). There was actually a bar by my old place that put up a sign that said: Free Beer! Topless Bartenders! False Advertising! It lasted all of about 3 days before someone at TABC noticed and suddenly they were giving away free birds instead.
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Mar 11, 2018 00:32
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JacquelineDempsey posted:loving hell, man. I'm regarded as the queen of the fry station, and I don't think I could handle that hot nonsense. We do a full boilout and oil change twice a week, and it should probably be three times, especially when we're open Sundays for football. Also, in practice the menu isn't as hard as it sounds under normal conditions. There are that many options on the menu, but there's a much smaller grouping that gets regularly ordered in practice. I don't know we even keep reuben bites or fiery fingers on the menu at this point for as often as I see them. There's a lot of stuff that can be dropped together like chicken strips with fries, which is especially easy when stuff has the same cook time. On wing nights, you can just keep two baskets full of wings at all times and then have one basket for fries and one that can be used for apps that can basically always be down and you can just pick stuff out when it's cooked and drop in the next thing. Some stuff like cheese balls or shrimp baskets will need their own basket because it's too annoying to pick them out from other stuff, but with stuff like jalapeno/cheese stuffed shrimp, mozz sticks, cordon bleu bites, etc. you can just keep a mixed basket rolling. E: Today was non-stop orders for 6 hours straight, the new oil already looked dark when I left at 5. On the other hand, the tips were solid, so I really can't complain. Oldsrocket_27 fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 01:10
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Sorry I wasn't clear. My bar is in a college town in Appalachia but is presenting itself (and is trying to be from upper management) a professional, upscale bar and restaurant. Problem is I'm trying to get people to move beyond what the other places in our town do just because they're our competition. I'm having a bitch of a time explaining why clear ice is important, for example.
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Mar 11, 2018 01:20
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Penisaurus Sex posted:Sorry I wasn't clear. OK, bounce it off of us: Why is clear ice important?
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Mar 11, 2018 02:24
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If you work for me as a cook and you come in for dinner you get extra courses, wine pairings, bubbles, a rooftop cocktail on a full comp. Just tip your server.
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Mar 11, 2018 04:09
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I only have one fryer but part of closing is draining the oil, and scrubbing/rinsing the inside. If the oil is still clean we strain it through a filter and refill it, oil usually last 2-3 nights. Penisaurus: we just added a new bar consultant and he said something that really hit me: "If you're having to educate your clientele to get them into your product, you aren't selling the right product for the market." If the people in your town don't want or appreciate clear ice, or cocktails with more than 2 ingredients in them, you're just going to drive yourself crazy trying to shove it down their throats. That isn't to say that you can't or shouldn't push limits, but be mindful.
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Mar 11, 2018 04:27
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capitalism: hard things are hard, so just do the easiest thing for you always
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Mar 11, 2018 04:56
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It's more "know your clientele" than doing things an easier way.
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Mar 11, 2018 05:03
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JacquelineDempsey posted:loving hell, man. I'm regarded as the queen of the fry station, and I don't think I could handle that hot nonsense. Our fryer has its own grease filtering system, just push a couple buttons and it filters it and puts it back out through a hose. Soooooo much better than doing it the manual way.
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Mar 11, 2018 06:18
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pile of brown posted:I only have one fryer but part of closing is draining the oil, and scrubbing/rinsing the inside. If the oil is still clean we strain it through a filter and refill it, oil usually last 2-3 nights. Dammit, wish you hadn't said this, it's the conclusion I was trying to lead him to. At the end of the day, when you're trying to improve your bar program (or food program, or service, or decor or anything else - and this is true for any business), the immediate question any owner or manager will have is "How will this affect sales, and will the extra cost be justified?" There may be some presentation benefits to clear ice, but I've never heard any obvious benefits in terms of taste. I've certainly never heard a customer say anything about ice being clear vs. cloudy except for the whiskey bars that do the single giant cube/sphere. In your situation, Penisaurus, I'd be looking at training your bar staff on how to upsell more effectively and appropriately, tweaking your product mix to be more competitive (and combine this with upselling!), the basics. Edit: And it's worth nothing that, in his own words, it's a backwater Appalachian college town - so probably not a very big city. It's a lot easier to push boundaries in Chicago or Dallas than it is in, say, Chattanooga simply by virtue of population size. Shooting Blanks fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 06:33
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I’ve been wanting to implement an ice program where I work for a while, but it’s absolutely near the very bottom of the list of things I want to or need to do. It’s kind of mind-boggling how impressed people are with just a standard big cube, made from those silicone tovolo molds. Top of my list? Training staff. How to, why to, providing product information, instilling a culture of responsibility and creativity, keeping all of the staff engaged and excited to sell my products. We do seasonal menu changes, so making new drinks, maximizing product usage, minimizing waste, all of that is infinitely more important than clear ice. It’s incredibly important to be consistent. One of the first things I did when I took over was standardizing and simplifying our Old Fashioned recipe because bartender A would muddle half an orange and use a half oz of simple, and I would not. (For the record - 3-4 dash ango, 2 dash regans no 6 orange, .25 oz simple, 2 oz whiskey, big cube, orange twist) Find your niche and do it well (or just do it better than your competition). Your #1 priority in anything you do is the guest. If everything is different every time they come in, they’re not gonna keep coming in (to an extent obviously). Your guest needs to be able to come in on a Monday lunch or a Friday night and be able to order the same drink and have it taste the same, and to receive the same high quality of service. For the happy hour question: my restaurant won the local free news magazine’s readers’ choice award for best Happy hour last year, and you bet your rear end I’m hitting my target costs on HH drinks. I wouldn’t have a job if I weren’t.
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Mar 11, 2018 08:04
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Things like that have resonated really well among our clientele. The issue more pointedly is that my staff personally doesn't see a point in going above and beyond. But that's an issue everywhere and is really boring to whine about. Overall it's been a good workplace, especially looking back to the stories that got me into the industry from people like James Woods here.
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Mar 11, 2018 17:58
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empty whippet box posted:Our fryer has its own grease filtering system, just push a couple buttons and it filters it and puts it back out through a hose. Soooooo much better than doing it the manual way. I popped wood over that, and I don't even have a dick. Even though fry is my usual station, I never had to clean it because we used to do it on Monday and Thursday, when the trucks come. Some unlucky schmucks would be scheduled to come in at 4am, and while they were waiting for Sysco and US foods to show up, they'd do the oil. Since we started using the fryer for brunch, now we do it Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, and it's on me. I'm nursing a chemical burn straight out of the hand-kiss+lye scene in Fight Club from getting hot grill/oven cleaner on it, and I don't like this development one bit. 
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Mar 12, 2018 01:58
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The Maestro posted:Find your niche and do it well (or just do it better than your competition). Your #1 priority in anything you do is the guest. If everything is different every time they come in, they’re not gonna keep coming in (to an extent obviously). Your guest needs to be able to come in on a Monday lunch or a Friday night and be able to order the same drink and have it taste the same, and to receive the same high quality of service. i'm glad to find someone stating this standard aloud, because i seldom find a place that lives up to it gotten so used to figuring out when the good bartenders work at all the local places so i know when to bother showing up
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Mar 12, 2018 02:05
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JacquelineDempsey posted:I popped wood over that, and I don't even have a dick. I quit at Shoney's when I came in for my 11-4 shift washing dishes and they were like don't even worry about that, we need you out back. Out back? What the gently caress? Well, when they changed the fryer, for some reason whoever was doing it - on the early morning shift, mind you - dumped it into the dumpster out back. So long story short it's 11:15 am, starting to really get hot(it was summertime), it smells like literal rotten death everywhere to the point that i am choking and they are wanting me to try to scrub this congealing, disgusting gross rear end poo poo that has already been on the pavement outside for like 4.5 loving hours with a bucket of soap and a bristle brush or whatever. I said sorry guys, but gently caress this, this is waaaaaaay too much. I was going back to school in a week anyway(between semester college dishwashing job). Just, nope. Later that day drove by and the restaurant was closed and a bunch of people were out back doing poo poo with a big truck with a tank and a hose and poo poo like that. Yeah, probably should have gone with that in the first place.
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Mar 12, 2018 02:34
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Holy hell. I dunno if I'd quit over that, but I would surely raise a stink to management that would rival that of your dumpster. Our grill guy was uncharacteristically hungover yesterday, to the point of stifling back some gagging while bricking the grill at close. I volunteered to take his grease tray out, because I didn't want 1) to see him suffer any more and 2) to clean up his vomit if he puked all over the place
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Mar 12, 2018 03:03
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Getting a solid whiff of flat top cleaner will make you cough your rear end off and possibly puke. That poo poo is gnarly.
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Mar 12, 2018 05:37
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We just lard the grill up and scrub it.
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Mar 12, 2018 05:54
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Penisaurus Sex posted:I'm having a bitch of a time explaining why clear ice is important, for example. On another note: polish your fryer oil. It doubles the life of the oil. edit- OK, screw the adventure quest. the right answer is a new craft cocktail menu. Make sure you have a contribution margin (the money you get for selling it) that is amazing and you can have whatever kind of ice your heart desires. The problem is cool poo poo like nice ice needs to be part of your concept. It's weird to implement it on your current customer base without another menu change to go with it. All menu changes should be concerned with profitability, first and foremost. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Mar 12, 2018 |
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Mar 12, 2018 09:05
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Babylon Astronaut posted:All menu changes should be concerned with profitability, first and foremost. Well that's certainly one way to look at it.
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Mar 12, 2018 18:06
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Oh boy, NY times has a front page article on tipping 
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Mar 12, 2018 22:26
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Hauki posted:Oh boy, NY times has a front page article on tipping Tipping AND sexual harrasment. It never occured to me to hold a tip ransom for phone numbers and pubic hair info. Perhaps I did this wrong for too many years of thanking the waitstaff and leaving a tip.
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Mar 12, 2018 22:48
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Errant Gin Monks posted:Tipping AND sexual harrasment. Yeah, I was being glib, but there’s a couple companion articles too that are more focused on tipping culture/wages in general, although sexual harassment certainly goes hand-in-hand.
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Mar 12, 2018 22:52
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Thoht posted:Well that's certainly one way to look at it.
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Mar 13, 2018 02:40
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Babylon Astronaut posted:If you want to have any room for culinary creativity, you really need to. You aren't helping anything if you aren't sustainable. You don't have to sacrifice every menu choice to profit to be sustainable. I can tell you that from experience.
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Mar 13, 2018 05:51
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Holy hell. I dunno if I'd quit over that, but I would surely raise a stink to management that would rival that of your dumpster. Yeah, I'd walk over that, and my first job in the industry had me washing Dairy Queen trash cans full of week-old curdled milk in Iowa summers.
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Mar 13, 2018 05:59
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Thoht posted:You don't have to sacrifice every menu choice to profit to be sustainable. I can tell you that from experience. Of course you don't. I think I'm talking over your head. Above all, you need to have whatever it is be profitable. You can even account for good will as an asset, that's perfectly reasonable, but if it's losing you value, it is a non-starter. At the same time, concrete financial information will win any arguement. If you can't even tell me the amount of sales that would cover the cost, there's no there there. Your uncompromising craft cocktail needs to be costed out, and priced appropriately, then, you get the longer leash. profit covers all sins and people loving love to see the numbers. How much value do you get from your ice choice, and how much does it cost? Does it increase volume, ticket average or both? Simple, understandable answers to these questions , backed by data should let you get away with anything you dream of to improve the operation. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 07:29
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fryer drops in the "upscale" places I worked were daily through filters, with using tongs to drop down crusty bits, oil changes once a week. low volume frying though. curious about these magical automatic selfcleaning fryers, google says nothing.
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Mar 13, 2018 09:29
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Pitco and Fryalator? make them. We have pitcos, filtered twice a day in the restaurants, takes like 10mins from start to finish.
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Mar 13, 2018 13:15
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Of course you don't. I think I'm talking over your head. Above all, you need to have whatever it is be profitable. You can even account for good will as an asset, that's perfectly reasonable, but if it's losing you value, it is a non-starter. At the same time, concrete financial information will win any arguement. If you can't even tell me the amount of sales that would cover the cost, there's no there there. Your uncompromising craft cocktail needs to be costed out, and priced appropriately, then, you get the longer leash. profit covers all sins and people loving love to see the numbers. How much value do you get from your ice choice, and how much does it cost? Does it increase volume, ticket average or both? Simple, understandable answers to these questions , backed by data should let you get away with anything you dream of to improve the operation. I'm not disputing that costing is very important and that profitability is always something you have to be mindful of. I was merely taking a shot at your comment that "All menu changes should be concerned with profitability, first and foremost" which I think is really overstating your point.
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Mar 13, 2018 17:07
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Thoht posted:I'm not disputing that costing is very important and that profitability is always something you have to be mindful of. I was merely taking a shot at your comment that "All menu changes should be concerned with profitability, first and foremost" which I think is really overstating your point. It kind of isn't though, there's really no justification for making unprofitable menu changes or decisions when running a business for profit. No matter how good perfect or delicious something is, and no matter how much you want to sell it, if it's not generating profits it will slowly and surely kill your business. It's honestly worse if it's popular and unprofitable. Example: I worked at a resort that started a promotion designed to bring in customers during our slowest happy hour day. Tuesdays from 4 to 6, every appetizer on the menu was half off. It was incredibly popular- to the point where the kitchen staff started talking about "take it in the rear end tuesdays," loading all saute pans into the convection open during prep time to preheat, etc. The problem was, we were selling scallops, abalone, etc. for a loss, and selling $5 happy hour sangria nowhere near made up for selling abalone that costs $75/lb for $11 a plate. The customers loved it, but it was a terrible idea because nobody considered the profitability of it.
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Mar 13, 2018 20:09
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Pitco and Fryalator? make them. We have pitcos, filtered twice a day in the restaurants, takes like 10mins from start to finish. I dunno which one we have, but it really is this easy. When they first showed us the restaurant before we opened it was the very first thing the owner pointed out when we came back to the kitchen for the first time. And all the boh people were like oooooooh gently caress yeah. And even more so now that I've closed a couple times because holy poo poo what a pain it would be if we had to do that too even once a week.
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Mar 13, 2018 20:49
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pile of brown posted:It kind of isn't though, there's really no justification for making unprofitable menu changes or decisions when running a business for profit. No matter how good perfect or delicious something is, and no matter how much you want to sell it, if it's not generating profits it will slowly and surely kill your business. It's honestly worse if it's popular and unprofitable. I totally understand where you're coming from, and Babylon Astronaut too. A business above all needs to be profitable at the end of the day, I'm really just pushing back on the attitude that every choice you make with your food needs to be profit-driven to be able to reach that point (which, to be fair, maybe I'm reading too much into your wording Babylon). I work at a small chef-driven creative restaurant where our menu can change weekly or even daily depending on what's available from the farmers we source from. The chef-owner, who is a good friend of mine, could be making more money if he so chose. Sure, the produce we get is pretty fantastic but we could definitely get away with using cheaper stuff and I believe the majority of our customers wouldn't know the difference. But the chef likes being able to support these folks we're working with. We make enough money from tasting menus and wine pairings that we can afford to do so. He loves what he does, as do the rest of us, and if he wants to run a dish for a short time that's not making us much money but he's just excited about it then we can do so because at the end of the day we'll still be in the black. If he were looking to maximize profit, then yes, many of the decisions he makes would be wrong. He didn't open this restaurant to be a money machine. He's spent a lot of time in places like that before and knows how to play that game well. He opened the restaurant to be a place he could be excited and satisfied to come in to every day and make a lot of people's nights special while still being able to pay his bills and so far we're doing well in spite of those decisions. Thoht fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 21:26
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If your change isn't bringing in more people or more money, you're just masturbating with people's livelihoods. If your poo poo is worth it, go out and get what it's worth. But if you think something isn't good enough to be sold at a sustainable price then you're again, whacking off with people's futures. Yea no, it's the number one concern, above all else. If you have to use less expensive ingredients to stay profitable, then you either do it, or go under. "Uncompromising chef-owner with tenuous understanding of business going belly up because of stupid pride" is a tale as old as time. A chef is a leader above all else, and if you are not insuring the continued existence of your operation, you are failing those who put their trust in you. I had a chef-owner tell me "I don't cook for other people. I cook what I know to be correct." Ok, then stay the gently caress home and stop getting other people wrapped up in it. Cook your food at home, and spare us. Spending money for no measurable competitive advantage is OK if you're just trying to slowly bleed a trust fund or something, but if you have bills to pay, "sorry, we can't afford to keep you, but the ice is clear" is.... cold comfort. Full disclosure: my passion is Japanese fine dining. You'll be hard pressed to find something I would dismiss out of hand for being foo-foo bullshit, but random, uncosted changes can gently caress right off. Hope this is helping you understand how to propose menu changes. This is what I mean when I say the profit gives you the culinary creativity. If you're making big bucks selling something with fancy ice, no one gets an opinion, it works.Thoht posted:Sure, the produce we get is pretty fantastic but we could definitely get away with using cheaper stuff and I believe the majority of our customers wouldn't know the difference. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 22:51
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If my problem was my restaurant was making too much money, I would employ the world's first six-figure limpiador.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:33
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Babylon Astronaut posted:If your change isn't bringing in more people or more money, you're just masturbating with people's livelihoods. If your poo poo is worth it, go out and get what it's worth. But if you think something isn't good enough to be sold at a sustainable price then you're again, whacking off with people's futures. Yea no, it's the number one concern, above all else. quote:If you have to use less expensive ingredients to stay profitable, then you either do it, or go under. quote:"Uncompromising chef-owner with tenuous understanding of business going belly up because of stupid pride" is a tale as old as time. A chef should be a leader above all else, and if you are not insuring the continued existence of your operation, you are failing those who put their trust in you. quote:I had a chef-owner tell me "I don't cook for other people. I cook what I know to be correct." Ok, then stay the gently caress home and stop getting other people wrapped up in it. Cook your food at home, and spare us. quote:Spending money for no measurable competitive advantage is OK if you're just trying to slowly bleed a trust fund or something, but if you have bills to pay, "sorry, we can't afford to keep you, but the ice is clear" is.... cold comfort.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:47
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Babylon Astronaut posted:but if you have bills to pay, "sorry, we can't afford to keep you, but the ice is clear" is.... cold comfort. Fuckin lol this made his whole derail worth it
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Mar 14, 2018 01:31
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Holy poo poo I missed that. Nice one lol
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Mar 14, 2018 01:48
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Thoht posted:Holy poo poo I missed that. Nice one lol This is a hell of a derail because a guy wanted to class up his bar with some clear ice.
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Mar 14, 2018 04:53
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