April 2008 Blog Posts (154)

Management Recruiting for your Restaurant..... Where is the committment?

One of the today's early fustrations is the fact that quality candidates are not out there. The biggest identifier is the committment to a company. I understand with all the events we live with today (price of gas, war, housing market, price of food, etc), we tend to live in the NOW..... Well..... what about the future? Is it all about the dollar, title? Is that why people leave from job, to job so quickly? What happened to joining a solid company and growing within that company. Are we to… Continue

Added by Dusti Guzman on April 24, 2008 at 11:34am — 4 Comments

Integrity vs. Cost of running a business

You come into work and are organizing your walk-in, you come across several out of date products.

What do you do?

Do you re-label it

Do you put it on "special of the day"

Do you cook it up and serve it to the employees

Or simply do you toss it.

I ran across a situation the other day where I found product that was out of date. I informed my superior of the problem and asked how does he want to account for the product. He reacts by not throwing it away, running… Continue

Added by Brandon M Kidd on April 24, 2008 at 10:51am — 13 Comments

Food Shortages Drive Global Prices to Record Highs

From Treehugger.com

A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past 50 years grain prices have occasionally spiked due to weather-related events -- such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling… Continue

Added by Mark McKellier on April 24, 2008 at 6:06am — No Comments

GMs and Owners are the Protectors of the Values!

An important factor for a positive work environment is safety and trust in the leadership that runs the business. Integrity, open door communication, fairness, and no favoritism are just a few of the positive values that employees want in their work environment to stick around for the long term.

GM’s, Owners, Supervisors….you are the protectors of these values and you must be constantly on the lookout and vigilant to uncover any and all violations of these basic values. “They don’t… Continue

Added by Andy Swingley on April 24, 2008 at 3:58am — 8 Comments

Impressions from the Cincinnati Food Show

Just returned last night from the Cincinnati food show put on by U.S. Foodservice. This type of event was new for me since I'm new to the industry - not new to retail but new to restaurant. You see, I've been with Patronpath (a provider of internet marketing and e-commerce services for the restaurant industry) for only a month and this event started putting a lot of disjointed pieces together.

I had the pleasure of meeting several students from the Midwest Culinary Institute as they… Continue

Added by Marty Bird on April 23, 2008 at 6:31pm — No Comments

Takeout – The Competition

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

A recent survey from Technomics revealed that while in home dining is increasing, 42% of those meals are not prepared in the home. Apparently, gone are the days of genuine home cooked meals. Where are consumers getting these “faux home cooked meals?” A growing number of them are turning toward to-go options at their favorite restaurants. They aren’t… Continue

Added by DJ Tryba on April 23, 2008 at 5:26pm — 2 Comments

Operator Value Of A Restaurant?

How do you determine the value of an independent restaurant or to be more exact a coffee house?

The actual real property is on a 5 year lease, the cafe is equipped with albeit small, a full commercial kitchen. There is also a very nice large mobile kitchen to compliment the whole package.

I know the average daily gross and the owner will show us the books but he is open to lease or sell and wants us to make him an offer. The business runs fine as is but the owner wants to be… Continue

Added by Chef Rox on April 23, 2008 at 3:47pm — 4 Comments

Slow Food Is Good Food

So apparently slow food has nothing to do with crockpots. My bad. I know people that insist on cooking everything on low heat for hours (green bean mush, anyone?), but the slow food movement has nothing to do with that, either!

According to a slow food article on Chef2Chef (my site) the ideals of slow food are:

Food should taste good and eating should be a pleasurable…

Continue

Added by Nina on April 23, 2008 at 3:08pm — No Comments

Dairy Supplies

The chart of the week is the milk per cow gain compared to the 3 year average versus the milk-feed price ratio (or milk farmer margins in plain English). First we remember that the milk production equation is as follows; the number of milk cows x the amount of milk each cow produces = total milk production. As we already know, milk farmer margins have been waning during the past 6 months. This is reflected by the red line in the chart- the ratio of milk prices versus feed costs which… Continue

Added by David Maloni on April 23, 2008 at 11:59am — No Comments

Grab Your Two Minutes of Fame...

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere here on FohBoh (sorry if it was and I'm repeating old info), so I thought I'd drop a note in case anyone is interested in 15 minutes (or 2 minutes) of fame:

I recently wrote a company blog about the fact that some very well known celeb chefs will be appearing at this year's National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. Well, if you are looking for your fifteen minutes of fame—and the chance to stand side by side with those celebrity chefs—your… Continue

Added by Restaurant Guru on April 23, 2008 at 10:21am — No Comments

S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants

For the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants, presented at Covent Garden of London on 21st april 2008, world first restaurants are:

1. El Bulli (Spain)

2. The Fat Duck (Great Bretain)

3. Pierre Gagnaire (France)

4. Mugaritz (Spain)

5. The French Laundry, Yountville (USA)

6. Per Se, New York (USA)

7. Bras (France)

8. Arzak (Spain)

9. Tetsuya's (Sydney Australia)

10. Noma (Copenaghen Danmark)

11. L'Astrance (France)

12. Gambero… Continue

Added by roma-gourmet.com on April 23, 2008 at 5:12am — No Comments

Sinco de Mayo

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's mayonnaise was

manufactured in England .

In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled

for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico , which was to be the next port of call

for the great ship after its stop in New York .

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever

delivered to Mexico . But as we know, the great ship did not make it to

New York . The ship hit… Continue

Added by Joe Archuleta on April 22, 2008 at 8:09pm — 3 Comments

Non-Operator Create Your Own Reality

In college we used to sell coupon books door to door, and we used to have a term, “Create your own reality.” This meant that as soon as someone broke a sales record, it changed our entire outlook on our job. For example: If the record was 20 coupon books in four hours and one day someone broke the record and sold 25, we were no longer happy if we sold 20. Why? Because we now realized it was possible to sell more.

Every day we were trying to create a new reality. The same story is… Continue

Added by David Hottle, CPC on April 22, 2008 at 5:35pm — 4 Comments

That's Hot! - You Tube Contest

In an ever changing world even old dogs learn new tricks. The National Restaurant Association has started what looks to be a fun and exciting new contest on YouTube. Here inspiring chefs or any employee for that matter can submit their "celebrity chef" cooking demonstration and receive the opportunity to join other celebrity chefs at the National Restaurant Association Trade Show in Chicago mid-May this year!

To learn more about the contest visit:… Continue

Added by Chris Moyer on April 22, 2008 at 7:21am — 1 Comment

Nothing but net

Nothing but net
Nothing but net
Nothing but net!!
Nothing but net!!!

Added by JUSTFORTHEE on April 21, 2008 at 11:40pm — 1 Comment

Everything is Coming Up Rosés

It’s spring, and everything should be coming up rosés. Oh, I know times are toughening up again. You aren’t seeing your regulars quite as often, and the rising cost of oil (and I mean, cooking oil) and everything else is making your P&Ls go haywire.

So maybe it’s time to start thinking radically rather laterally… something “new” to chill your rising ire and tickle your guests’ increasingly fickle fancy. Re this recent report in Wines & Vines: sales of rosés selling for… Continue

Added by Randy Caparoso on April 21, 2008 at 5:22pm — 4 Comments

Earth Day is April 22, 2008

Earth Day 2008 is Tuesday, April 22nd. Be kind to your environment. Think about everything you do and take a moment to evaluate your knowledge on the environment. Take the Quiz.

More steps you can take to… Continue

Added by Michael L. Atkinson on April 21, 2008 at 8:26am — 2 Comments

Proud to Swim Home

The restaurant where I have worked for the past 5 1/2 years handed out over 70,000 free meals days after Katrina thanks to a generator and a few volunteers. As one of 3 New Orleans fohboh members, I feel its neccesary to spread the word about what life is STILL like 2 1/2 years after a major hurricane. I still love New Orleans for its diverse culture, great food and our determination to make it a better… Continue

Added by Kris Rainer on April 21, 2008 at 6:58am — 5 Comments

Ways To Cut Down On Food Expenses

10. Get politician to buy lunch on government credit card.

9. Cruise Costco for food samples.

8. Convince yourself that Ramen is tasty.

7. Pretend growing stomach in the inner you expressing itself.

6. Scrape up yummy road kill.

5. Sell a kidney on black market.

4. Beat rats to food scraps in restaurant dumpsters.

3. Get arrested, and enjoy fine jail cuisine.

2. Invite people to your wedding, but tell them… Continue

Added by Joe Archuleta on April 20, 2008 at 11:16am — 6 Comments

The Best Training I've had in 10 years

The best training as a server I have ever had is going out to eat myself. In essence, being served. I have experienced A+ service and failing service. Sitting on the other side and taking an objective view is what I think makes me the great server I am today! I, in turn, wait tables as I would want to be waited on. Do unto others as you would want done to you! My suggestion besides computer training,etc would be to hold a mock dinner and let the trainee survey the waiter. One exemplifying… Continue

Added by Kris Rainer on April 19, 2008 at 1:11pm — 2 Comments