News Flash: sliders to the rescue
Restaurateurs are thinking hard about what makes sense on the menu in the new economy: Goodbye filet mignon, hello hangar steak. Scallops? Hey, it’s been fun.
I hear from the reports of a recent R & D conference that sliders are going to save us all. With rising commodity costs and wary customers, corporate chefs are looking to innovate on a microcosmic scale, and hoping the results will attract the budget-conscious who are willing to squint at their food. I suppose this is the new molecular gastronomy: Ferran Adrià meets White Castle.
And the weight loss continues in areas beyond just the weight of a burger: hours, staff, bonuses, inventory. I recently suggested that scallops be dropped from a daily menu—at 10-something a pound, there was no way to charge enough on Tuesday to make it worth its space in the cooler. And at the FSN Restaurant Business Conference in late September, Scott Foster said his Nova Restaurant group was “getting out of the filet mignon business.”
Oh, what a change from the boom-boom eighties, when we first learned what tax cuts and national debt can do for consumer spending. What a culture! Lines out the door, frying eggs in clarified butter, big portions, regulars who came in five days a week. I spent the first six years of the decade in San Francisco, learning what it’s like to be a cook in a society of food fanatics. My wife and I were at a dinner party once where introductions went around the table—Hi, I’m So-and-So, and I’m a programmer, lawyer, engineer. They stopped when it got to me—“cook”—because everyone wanted to know where to find the best zabaglione and if Jacky Robert was as good as the Chronicle said.
We also got to watch little eating cults rise and fall as cash-flush foodies ventured further and further into the culinary jungles in search of new sensations. I benefited directly from one of these strange communities. Even though I had a small reputation as a “conservative” chef—have I ever mentioned what was going on out there at the time? Lobster with watermelon-pickle sauce? Abalone wrapped around goat cheese to make a quesadilla? Anyway, my restaurant was known by a small group of eaters of innards as a place to get a good plate of sweetbreads. I realized that we were on the radar of an oddball bunch when one guy eating sweetbreads noticed another at the next table, and they started comparing their lists of places to go for pancreas, thymus, brains and so forth. I listened pretty carefully; most of the restaurants were on my spare parts list, too.
Nowadays, there would be a virtual community for the eaters of offal—organgrinders.com, or some such; and every chef’s offerings would be inspected and dissected and virtual tissue samples would fly through cyberspace. Instant fame would reward a decently-done black-butter-and-brains, and chowhounds would drive through the night for a perfect tripe taco.
I suppose this is a cautionary note for those who are modifying their menus. Remember that every menu item has its own business plan, whether it’s sensible or not, intentional or not, and whether it works or not. Some items may have built their own reputations unbeknownst to you, and may have a small devoted following who will immediately rise in flash-mob rebellion if you cut them off the menu. So do some research. Find out what people are saying about your menu, and take what you read from bloggers both generous and scurrilous, from people who post at restaurant guides, and from reviews formal and informal, and see what you learn. Do it tough-mindedly, postulating that there may be some truth even in the deranged ravings of an ex-employee, and applying it to what you’ve seen yourself. Then when you make your menu changes, you can do them in a way that not only controls labor and food cost, but controls the subsequent conversation. Even the humble slider can generate buzz, if it’s decently dressed and given a proper introduction.
