Restauranting

When I tell people that I would love to own a restaurant one day, they freak out and tell me how stupid I am. This usually irritates me because I heard the same thing when I went to college and I heard the same thing when I chose engineering.

I took my first job out of military school as a warhead engineer, designing and testing warheads.

Usually, people don't aspire to follow in my footsteps, but if they did, it'd be great poetic justice for me to say the same thing. OH, IT'S WAY TOO HARD! NEVER DO IT!

Bitterness from such shortsighted comments aside, I know owning an operating a restaurant would be a 24hour a day job and according to my research would likely not be profitable for 3 years. This is prohibitive to a large portion of the population for financial reasons alone. Personally, I'm not ready to take that gamble yet either, but it doesn't stop me from dreaming about it.

Yes, I dream about owning a restaurant one day. Hardcore, Disney movie style with sparkling stuff and everything.

My dream restaurant very closely resembles (or could be) Edo's Squid in Richmond, VA and The Library in Myrtle Beach, N.C. They are definitely different from each other, but what I love about them is the intimacy and the craft. These are small places, close to 20 tables each. They are comfortable. Their staff are informed humans. Their food is fresh... I wrote reviews of each of these places on Yelp under Ron V if you're interested:

Edo's Squid: http://www.yelp.com/biz/edos-squid-richmond#hrid:SNYct8rLCig7Biok2bvisw/src:self

The Library - I thought I wrote a review. I guess I haven't. I'll have to do that....

Anyway, there's a lot of things that these places do right that are unremarkable until you see something done wrong. While I may be an amateur at being even a future restaurateur, I consider myself to be very highly experienced restaurant diner. And not just because I like to eat and be served. My wife and I, in a slow start to build up what we hope will one day be that dream restaurant, cater parties regularly. We will cater semi-formal parties up to 50 people and have a good idea what it takes to plate and rotate dishes. However, we just enjoy going. It's like a hobby for us. We love food, we love trying new food, and we love seeing what some of the buzz is about. Sometimes it's not so good though.

In his book, Turning Tables, Steven Shaw, a restaurant critic, mentioned how damaging a negative review could be to a restaurant, particularly when heavy descriptors are used for the sake of art. He gave me the idea that to criticize something like a restaurant, a business with so many moving parts, should be done responsibly. I can tell you, that's all you're going to get from me.

"Pizza is like sex. When it's bad, it's still good."

I can't for the life of me figure out who said that. I thought it was Joe DiMaggio (replacing Pizza for baseball) but I just can't figure it out right now. Point is, this is how I'm going to go into restaurants. This is how you enjoy yourself. The restaurant is a team with a lot of players and it's a shame that one person screwing up could ruin the whole game. Solution: don't let it.

Life's short my friends - if you're super picky about your steak is done, don't order steak. Order fish, order veal. If you don't like those things, order pasta. If you don't like that, you probably picked the wrong restaurant and set yourself up to be unhappy. If you order one of those things and were disappointed, but still want to like the restaurant go back and get something out of that family. Most of the time, the cream rises to the top. That goes for restaurants and their offerings so ask what's popular. If you're pissed because you spent money on things you didn't like, you shouldn't have gone out.

Going to a restaurant is a luxury. A friend of mine constantly tells me I need to open a restaurant because "People need to eat." - people need to eat, but they don't need to eat at a restaurant. Also, I'm going to be posting plenty of recipes and hopefully videos here for you.

When I go to a restaurant, I feel like I'm paying to experience someone's art. The Chef's version of a classic, something new that he made, some exotic thing he got his hands on. But part of everything the Chef is doing is compounded by the atmosphere of the place. The paintings on the wall, the tables, right down to the waiters' uniforms. These types of things really build ambiance and can set the tone for a whole evening. However sometimes they don't go together. A waiter in a tuxedo serving French Fries - well, they're French...

Here's a list of what I consider rookie mistakes for a high-middle end restaurant that takes itself seriously and what I would absolutely drill into my staff in my hopefully future restaurant. In order of importance:

1. First drink.

This is the most important "chumpy" thing to me. When you seat a patron, get their drink order IMMEDIATELY! I don't mean take the order immediately because that should be understood. I mean if they order a martini, a beer, ANYTHING, there should be nothing in between getting to the bar and getting back to that table. Someone without something in front of them looks bad, but it also kind of awkward for them. This is a simple thing that can influence an entire night. A drink can stimulate conversation, give something for people to put their hands on - these things sound silly but they're a very real part of the psychology behind the whole thing.

2. Mispronouncing words

It's cute if a kid can't say "spaghetti" - it's damn ridiculous if the waiter in an expensive restaurant can't say it. If you want to be an Italian restaurant, but your waiter says "Mozzerelli"...

Bam! Judged! Hire literate help. This is one of the few that doesn't apply the chain restaurants except in cases of extreme abuse.

3. Mystery Wine Lists

Not as exciting as it sounds, and this is a 2 part one:

Part 1 - People like me will go to a restaurant with a huge wine list to trying something new. If you have a huge wine list, have someone in the building that is reasonably accessible to speak intelligibly about what you have to offer. As a an educated individual, I can tell when you have no idea. As a wine enthusiast, I can tell when you're totally full of it.

Part 2 - If you have an extensive wine list, that again, people like me will specifically visit your establishment for, know what you're out of, and have some way of making it known.
If I spend a few minutes to pick out a bottle, then you leave to get it, come back and tell me you don't have it, I'm going to be super irritated if you also don't have the second bottle I pick. I'm not talking $10 bottles here, folks.

4. If someone orders a bottle of wine for their entree, bring it out with or before the entree. If you order a beautiful Northern Italian Pinot Grigio to go with your sea bass, you damn well want it out there for it. Not 10 minutes after your entree gets to your table.

5. Coffee/Espresso (not eXpresso, see #2) should be free. WHAT? WHY? $3-$1.50 for a cup of coffee? Please. You're not making money off of it, it's essentially free to make and having people stay in the seats longer for coffee will most likely prompt them to order something else, like desert or a cordial. I also think it's a class move to indicate that you want your patrons to have experience a full set of courses.

Now, 5 I'm not too serious about, but in my dream restaurant, you can bet it would be there. The thing about it is a lot of restaurants want to turn tables, they want that turnover because it's more money. If you make reservations at the Library, you have the table all night. How can they do this? Well, their prices are high, but it allows their quality to soar. It allows their ambiance, their whole creation to really shine. It allows such a personal, intimate atmosphere that you can't help feeling comfortable, and it's worth every penny. Edo's Squid is essentially the opposite in that regard. It's loud and packed depending on when you go, but this isn't a restaurant review. I'm taking all the best things that I learned from my favorite restaurants and packing them into my dream restaurant.

Admittedly, I'm coming off a little harsh here, but I'm fresh out of a restaurant where my wife and I dined for our 3rd Anniversary. It was supposed to be the best in the area and they made these small mistakes that were very irritating. That's not to say they didn't do a lot right, but when you want an evening to be perfect, these things can be disappointing.

My list obviously doesn't apply to some restaurants. In my favorite raw bar in North Myrtle Beach though you can interchange the wine for hot sauce and the coffee for beer. Ha! Okay, the only chain restaurant I visit anymore is Buffalo Wild Wings but what I noticed is that it's still the same situation, the difference is you have a lot of college students who are scared to think out of the box for weird orders. I have a rule about weird orders in restaurants like that anyway, but this always gives people the "Dumb waiter" feeling - it's not that, at least I don't want to believe in it. It's the same work bureaucracy some of us deal with but on a restaurant level and right at the table. These people are inexperienced and young and this is how it will always be.

What I'm trying to say in the last paragraph is every restaurant is unique and don't go into a raw bar and a wing joint expecting a wine list. If you can extrapolate from there, I think you're in good shape.

Anyway, just some thoughts...