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What decides whether a restaurant is profitable is not whether it's fully packed on friday/saturday night, it's whether it has a steady supply of regulars keeping it busy the rest of the week.
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Aug 2, 2023 08:53
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This is really interesting. A bit off topic but can you share maybe why you think restaurants in America are open generally all day while many in Europe will only be like 12-14 and 18-22 or whatever. All this penny pinching but it's worth it to keep the restaurant open for the two people who eat lunch at 15:30?
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Aug 2, 2023 12:18
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I think that's just a misconception skewed by chain restaurants and diners being able to stay open so long thanks to effeciencies in menu and economy of scale. You do get a lot more places opening at 5:30pm Tue through Sat these days. Not having to staff 2 lines worth of cooks and 2 serving crews is an easy decision. The mom and pop places that tended to be super consistent are those 7-3 lunch spots... which the Beef was. It was just run by a man that was clearly unwell, which is also kinda par for the course. Covid definitely culled the amount of those spots with remote work.
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Aug 2, 2023 14:37
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kiminewt posted:
Depends on the cost of keeping the doors open compared to revenue, so a place with a ton of staff might be in a net loss for those few hours. A place on the highway with one server and a cook could cover costs with only a few patrons. If a more standard restaurant has a very busy lunch service you are using that lull between lunch and dinner to reset and clean up from lunch and finish prep for bar and kitchen, so if you have all these employees there already you might as well continue taking tables. Many places run a happy hour then and you got me wondering if America invented it, as that's what usually starts running at 15:30. Apparently it was a thing for sailors in the navy in 1915 and was mostly to relieve boredom, so I bet over time this carried over into what we have as happy hour from on-leave military members, and then became what we know today, where you're mostly trying to put asses in seats in thr afternoon lull and if you're lucky they get drunk and need dinner. This might be a factor in why NA restaurants culture doesn't involve closing mid afternoon like some other cultures. Faucet Drinker fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 14:43
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Shabadu posted:I think that's just a misconception skewed by chain restaurants and diners being able to stay open so long thanks to effeciencies in menu and economy of scale. Wasn't there something in Season 1 about how Carmy and Syd tried to expand hours to Supper, and then they had to come up with a Supper Menu because they were getting killed that time frame.
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Aug 2, 2023 17:03
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Orange Crush Rush posted:Wasn't there something in Season 1 about how Carmy and Syd tried to expand hours to Supper, and then they had to come up with a Supper Menu because they were getting killed that time frame. They specifically called out their COGS (cost of goods sold), and that ten dollar sandwiches at dinner were killing them. They needed the dinner menu so they could sell higher-margin dishes to cater to less frequent, longer-staying customers instead of the grab-and-go lunch rush. Although the hours on the door are 3-10pm at one point? Sidney also points out labour costs and opening hours earlier - which doesn't surprise me given the apparent 6am starts even at USA bottom-drawer wage costs. Not a lot of things in the show really add up for an apparently 2 million dollar family-owned building running in a tomato-can based economy but they say enough of the right words to trigger the hospitality book-touchers like myself. Destrado fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Aug 6, 2023 |
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Aug 6, 2023 23:46
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Vegetable posted:My takeaway from all this is I’m ripping off my favorite restaurants when I dine there without buying any drinks As a cook, I have this to say about that: gently caress 'em!
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Aug 7, 2023 00:15
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Orange Crush Rush posted:I just wanna say, I find a lot of the complaints about Claire's character being unrealistic kind of funny, when a twitter search for "carmie the bear" will lead to an endless list of women saying "okay but I can fix him" Speaking of fixing, did it feel weird that Richard, maybe the most broken character in the show, has massive character growth by spending one week interning at a 3* restaurant, seemingly completely 'fixing' him?
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Aug 7, 2023 10:04
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The length of his stay there is definitely abrupt, but I beyond that I don't see why its weird.
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Aug 7, 2023 10:19
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kanonvandekempen posted:Speaking of fixing, did it feel weird that Richard, maybe the most broken character in the show, has massive character growth by spending one week interning at a 3* restaurant, seemingly completely 'fixing' him? I mean he was already moping over Murakami novels at the start of Season 2, he was probably primed to drink the kool-aid enough that a suit jacket and peeling a mushroom was enough to kick him over the line. Which is to say yeah, a bit, but same as Marcus going from going from not knowing what a quenelle is to world-class dessert chef in a week, I'll accept a certain amount of narrative expediency. The disappearing walk-in safety release though, that's inconceivable.
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Aug 7, 2023 10:34
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Adored season one, like others was kind of bummed that they moved on from the main premise of "world class chef tries to run legendary sandwich shop, finds out it's actually really loving difficult, but improves the lives of those who meets even when he can't improve his own" to be about fine dining but I think the quality rocketed up after the Christmas episode. Chicago is my favourite city on the planet and the on-location shooting is like crack cocaine to me. What I find so compelling about the show is it's a great portrayal of one of the most important and painful lessons I had to learn as I made my way into adult life, that a fulfilling life is about finding out what you excel at, where your place in the world is, and then just going out and loving doing it. Watching everyone start to build on their skillsets and become better and better at their stations, under the knowledge that everyone has a part to play to help the organisation achieve what it's trying to achieve, reminds me so much of my own professional journey in my field. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to pick up on what you have to offer and show that they genuinely believe in your potential and want to help you achieve it in order for someone to be better than they ever thought they could be. The only thing that passed me by in that finale is that, as has been discussed in the thread before, it's not 100% clear to me how exactly Ritchie managed to clear the tickets. Thematically I think it tied nicely into S1E7 and the heavy hints that Ritchie might have actually been the person best-placed to steer them out of the situation if only Carm and Sidney would listen to him or at least give him a chance to help, but logically I was lost! Adrianics fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 14:15
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It's not that Ritchie cleared the tickets magically through skill, it's that Carmys role was to lead the kitchen and actually be the brain holding all the moving parts together as Chef. Sydney was on call so it was her job to keep the orders calling and organized and paying attention to ticket times, calling items to Chef who organized the stations. When Carmy got locked in the fridge they were down one of the most important positions, so you have orders rolling in and stations trying to hang on to all their timings without a Chef on expo which is possible in a seasoned veteran line but it was opening night so that was doomed to crash rather quickly. Ritchie stepped in to call tickets and expo to FoH so Sydney could step into Carmys role and expo for BoH. Technically Sydney saved the day, both by having the wherewithal to stick Richie there and to then succeed at running the kitchen that night. I'm sure someone here knows the proper terms in a red seal kitchen, I don't know the proper title for those positions so I'm just calling them expos Faucet Drinker fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 15:16
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TBF I thought the scene itself was loving amazing, a perfect callback to the "just admit you need my help" moment in S1E7; both Sydney and Ritchie have grown since then in different ways, Ritchie won't start loving with something he hasn't been asked to until he's asked to but at the same time is newly confident in his abilities, and Sydney no longer feels like she has to resolve everything herself, and accepts that Ritchie, rather than her, is the best person to get them out of this. I just remembered the little moment with Olivia Coleman's character cleaning the forks; reminded me of every poo poo leader I've ever known, the ones who act like on-the-ground stuff is beneath them, and how the great leaders acknowledge that everything is important by mucking in as and when they need to, even if it's to remind themselves that the little things are important.
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Aug 7, 2023 15:37
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Just finished season two. Didn't like it quite as much as 1, but it still had some amazing episodes, like the family one. Still, the Claire plot felt very forced and out of the blue. Oh, the girl Carmy liked as a teen is back, is a brilliant medical resident, relentlessly pursues Carm even after he tries to ditch her multiple times, and then, as a resident, has the time to be a distraction for him, but then disappears when she hears him rambling through a freezer door.
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Aug 7, 2023 16:21
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MiddleOne posted:What decides whether a restaurant is profitable is not whether it's fully packed on friday/saturday night, it's whether it has a steady supply of regulars keeping it busy the rest of the week. It's both. You need weekend and weekday crowd as they influence each other. Regulars are everything and a lot of them come from people who get good experiences as a weekend/weekday customer and then they become a weekday/weekend customer if that makes sense. The Bear is a bit different since fine dining has set hours and guaranteed bookings, which is why Carmie mentions that as being a big deal when they were trying to figure out how long their cash flow would last. kiminewt posted:This is really interesting. A bit off topic but can you share maybe why you think restaurants in America are open generally all day while many in Europe will only be like 12-14 and 18-22 or whatever. Staff usually goes bare bones during these hours. One or a couple of waiters on, one bartender, one cook. It's not too hard for them to cover everything and flexible scheduling allows people to be called in if the restaurant somehow gets slammed. It's also good to be open at all hours because someone might walk in and become a regular customer which is massive for a business.
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Aug 8, 2023 00:36
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Destrado posted:They specifically called out their COGS (cost of goods sold), and that ten dollar sandwiches at dinner were killing them. They needed the dinner menu so they could sell higher-margin dishes to cater to less frequent, longer-staying customers instead of the grab-and-go lunch rush. Although the hours on the door are 3-10pm at one point? Hah, same. It was weird seeing them running twice as many cooks and even dishwashers for a 20 seat grab and go than a chain is going to run on a weekend dinner rush. The show is fun but it's kind of like the restaurant equivalent of a 90s medical drama where they know the buzzwords but don't quite get the usage right. If you can't make COGs work for a sandwich you sure as poo poo aren't going to improve things with a dinner menu.
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Aug 8, 2023 02:49
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When my brother owned and ran a diner, his staff was 2-3 wait, 2 cooks (1 himself) one swing cook/dishwasher/busser and then a full dishwasher. The Beef wasn't much more staffed than that, but you've got to remember that Mikey really hosed them and the business was failing.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:53
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Yeah I get that, it was a nice bit of show don't tell that Mikey overstaffed because he wanted to help these people out and Carm wasn't willing to go against that by laying anyone off. So he adopts a system that utilizes the staff he has. Probably more a function of fudging the reality a bit to make sure the characters get screen time every episode instead just having a day off now and then. I'm maybe more surprised that the gently caress ups are because the staff is too ambitious and not to doped up to realize what they're doing. I nearly broke my neck 2-3 times because the fry guy forgot to put the cap back on the fryalator before pouring in the new oil.
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Aug 8, 2023 18:26
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Really solid season, the Christmas episode was really next level. The guest stars are incredible in this show, and I always love seeing Oliver Platt do his thing. I do agree that some of the character arcs were a little rushed for how much the characters changed or learned world-class skills in a week or two. But the arcs were mostly good and natural progressions of the characters (other than Marcus, who spent most of the season having a chill time sightseeing and hanging out with Will Poulter). I thought it was funny when Carm asked Tina if she was there while he was trapped in the walk in, and she says, "always." And then she immediately leaves so Claire can hear him venting. And I'm proud of myself for finally learning Carm's name this season. I've been calling him Jeremy Bearimy up until now
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Aug 10, 2023 15:36
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Adrianics posted:I just remembered the little moment with Olivia Coleman's character cleaning the forks; reminded me of every poo poo leader I've ever known, the ones who act like on-the-ground stuff is beneath them, and how the great leaders acknowledge that everything is important by mucking in as and when they need to, even if it's to remind themselves that the little things are important. Oh 100%, when I worked retail we had a gruff manager who didn’t hesitate to hop on a register when we were slammed or haul shopping carts and he was faster & better at it than anyone, made me realize oh he’s in charge because he works harder & doesn’t hide in the office. Compare to being in white collar roles where I’ve had arrogant coworkers brag about not letting their feet touch the ground of our blue collar locations, while they sit in an office mostly gossiping & sometimes administering Myers Briggs tests. For the Bear, I enjoyed this season but like others said the finale was a bit odd and felt like they wanted some things to happen that didn’t fit well. I’ve never worked in a restaurant so I may be missing something but was confused by: -isn’t it a mostly fixed menu for friends and family who arrive at the same time? Why are they in the weeds for bread for tables immediately? -are there like ten times the number of tables we see on screen? Felt like we only saw maybe 50 at most people eating but the kitchen seemed shocked by the high number of tickets. -I know it was played for humor but how did pregnant Sugar get toilet unclogging duty? -not sure if addressed elsewhere but for a show that repeatedly emphasizes the limited financial resources of the leads it is weird they’d close an affordable neighborhood place & try to open a Michelin hopeful instead.
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Aug 19, 2023 16:12
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I wonder how similar this show would’ve lined up with the Chi if the actor playing the chef in S1 didn’t get himself fired for being a sex pest.
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Aug 19, 2023 20:04
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Hyrax Attack! posted:-isn’t it a mostly fixed menu for friends and family who arrive at the same time? Why are they in the weeds for bread for tables immediately? This one got me too, because it specifically gets called out that they're doing a 9 set menu because it's easier. And unless there's a whole wing we don't see there's like, eight four tops, the three booths and a bunch of bar seating. Plus Uncle Jimmy and partner are taking up a whole booth with just two, the guy who Carmy projects Jeff Winger Super Chef onto is only one of two at the booth, there's an empty seat for Donna, etcetera etcetera. It's 50 seated capacity and they've got like, 35 max in there plus the bar seating. Even with staggering the seatings and people eating at different speeds it really didn't make a lot of sense. Even that they were running the individual ticket printer? The last episode really seemed like they were trying to peak the tension without really selling it - but you needed the yelling and the ticket printer go brr because that's the language the show's established at that point I guess.
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Aug 20, 2023 02:17
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I didn’t love the finale (or S2 as a whole, for that matter) as a whole, but the first act of that last episode was so well designed and fun to watch. Popping between FOH and BOH with one seemingly uninterrupted camera was fantastic, as was the sound design and score. The show is so goddamn beautifully shot and cut that it’s extra painful when they take “first idea: best idea” shortcuts in the writing.
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Aug 20, 2023 07:56
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Destrado posted:This one got me too, because it specifically gets called out that they're doing a 9 set menu because it's easier. And unless there's a whole wing we don't see there's like, eight four tops, the three booths and a bunch of bar seating. Yeah exactly plus it’s a dress rehearsal & the guests eating for free know that, the kitchen is taking is seriously but if Sydney needed to step out of the kitchen to let the room know there will be a brief delay because of the ticket printer no one is gonna storm out. The Christmas ep had a lot going on but the storylines & themes came together effectively, but in the finale felt like too much stuff was crammed in that didn’t pay off, like Ebraheim taking online training to work at the window but there is no window service during the dinner? What’s the point? On the plus side amusing to see two Almost Live! alumni show up in the finale, McHale & Curtis (she only had a small guest spot on live! but I’m counting it.)
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Aug 20, 2023 19:18
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I think the idea is more that it’s a test of their ability to work together as a team and problem solve, rather than just keeping the guests that night happy. But I agree it didn’t really come together in a satisfying way at least partially because of the many strange shortcuts or shorthand plot beats that didn’t pass the smell test.
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Aug 20, 2023 19:57
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It's the weakness of the show, really, the season-long plots just don't come together that well. The tomato sauce cans from season 1 were the same thing, it just doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. I wish they'd stick to the working-kitchen stuff from the first season (with these interesting interludes like the Christmas episode or Ritchie and Marcus going on their own little adventures) and not try to do this convoluted stuff that just isn't their strong suit.
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Aug 21, 2023 00:34
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Phenotype posted:It's the weakness of the show, really, the season-long plots just don't come together that well. The tomato sauce cans from season 1 were the same thing, it just doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. Where does it fall down?
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Aug 21, 2023 01:25
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I refuse to believe any habitual drug addict would leave behind hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden in tomato cans and not a wallet with 3 dollars in it
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Aug 21, 2023 01:43
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Why did they need so many loans to start the bear if they found hundreds of thousands in those cans, divvied it up among a staff who's unilaterally dedicated to the business, and then immediately started the remodel
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Aug 21, 2023 02:06
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Destrado posted:This one got me too, because it specifically gets called out that they're doing a 9 set menu because it's easier. And unless there's a whole wing we don't see there's like, eight four tops, the three booths and a bunch of bar seating. The old restaurant is still open, it's the walk in window. So presumably all of their old customers are at the walk-in getting sandwiches. Many of those tickets are sandwiches, they just didn't bother to explain this
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Aug 21, 2023 02:22
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Terror Sweat posted:The old restaurant is still open, it's the walk in window. So presumably all of their old customers are at the walk-in getting sandwiches. Many of those tickets are sandwiches, they just didn't bother to explain this Nah, they're not doing Cannoli and Seven Fishes out the drivethru window. They wanted Ebra on to do "OG during the day" so I'd have guessed that was a whole other service. La Louve Rouge posted:Why did they need so many loans to start the bear if they found hundreds of thousands in those cans, divvied it up among a staff who's unilaterally dedicated to the business, and then immediately started the remodel Something something Danish Teak. Also massive debts I guess. Edit: I don't want to make it sound like I don't love the show, or Richie running expo and the long shots in and out of the kitchen aren't great to watch, but there was a big "Plot has to happen" kind of lurch to the second half of the finale, and all the 'Call Fridge Guy' post-its and fork numbers mentions doesn't actually stop it feeling somewhat contrived. Destrado fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Aug 21, 2023 |
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Aug 21, 2023 02:33
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Terror Sweat posted:The old restaurant is still open, it's the walk in window. So presumably all of their old customers are at the walk-in getting sandwiches. Many of those tickets are sandwiches, they just didn't bother to explain this
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Aug 21, 2023 02:41
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La Louve Rouge posted:Why did they need so many loans to start the bear if they found hundreds of thousands in those cans, divvied it up among a staff who's unilaterally dedicated to the business, and then immediately started the remodel It wasn't enough money. There's a scene in the first episode where they talk about this with Oliver Platt.
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Aug 21, 2023 05:34
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Then another scene that reinforces it with the entire team being really bad at running a business.
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Aug 21, 2023 16:44
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I really remember nothing about the takout window other than it exists. It was probably explained but I don't see how they're supposed to run that on top of the fine dining restaurant when they previously barely managed to make the beef sandwiches.
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Aug 21, 2023 16:51
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Open Source Idiom posted:It wasn't enough money. There's a scene in the first episode where they talk about this with Oliver Platt. This is part of why it makes so little sense. The restaurant is underwater and owes a lot of money to Oliver Platt... but also Mikey's got rolls of extra $20s lying around that he's been secretly hiding in the spaghetti sauce cans, and somehow no one's ever opened one of them to cook with (even though everyone's shocked when Carmy doesn't continue making spaghetti). Then Carmy finally finds the money and says great, let's close the place and remodel the whole thing, even though we're still deep in debt to Oliver Platt and don't actually have enough money in the cans to do the remodel. Writing it out like this, it seems stupid but not unbelievable, but the show presented it as just, idk, the regular course of action? I think I'd be more willing to buy it if there'd been someone like "Carmen, we should just pay off the debts, right? This is a bad decision" but Carmy decided to do it anyway because he's so passionate about the work that he's not seeing things rationally. But they didn't play it like that at all.
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Aug 21, 2023 17:21
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Honestly I would have liked the tomato money to lead to a more conventional/threatening mafia element in the show because Cicero just feels like their real father
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Aug 21, 2023 18:48
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On top of this, one good review and a third-party tablet left on an extra hour results in a massive stream of orders they are under stocked for (in season 1), so by that logic if you had just dumped the money back into the current operation you could meet supply for the demand and turn a dime that way. That's still a noodle scratcher for me. I get it was because of a review of the risotto but the orders coming in were for traditional Beed sandwiches so clearly the market was there. Why not operate under that til you're out of the red? Doesn't prevent me from enjoying the show though so whatever
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Aug 21, 2023 19:00
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I always felt like having a small sandwich operation run by a legendary chef gives you an angle that being a fancy restaurant in a city full of em really doesn't. I think it's supposed to read as a little dumb and risky but it really does read a bafflingly dumb considering the hole they're in
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Aug 21, 2023 20:20
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I really think that for the story to go anywhere that makes sense they have to pivot away from the traditional fine dining approach from season 2.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:27
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