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QUALITY AND CULTURE ACROSS PRICE POINTS
It’s about having the same culture and bringing what we do in fine dining to our other restaurants. The chef at my taqueria makes as much money as my chef at Clio does. That’s because I think it’s a matter of making sure the whole team understands the culture. It can be making an omakase for $150 or a taco, but it still has the same exact culture. It’s a lot of empowerment to the chef and to the general manager to make sure that the culture is understood by everybody. – KEN ORINGER
To ensure quality, there have to be processes, checks, and balances with very narrow parameters and tolerances – and you have to establish those things up front. Kitchens are operated by people, and people are going to be in good moods, bad moods – take away as many variables as you can. I try to remove the opportunities for people to fail because the weakest part of many systems is the human who is going to fail more often than your oven, your spatula, or any other piece of equipment. Make the job as easy, understandable, and repeatable as possible for human beings. – SANG YOON
Value isn’t defined by price alone. An expensive meal can be a real value if it truly blows your mind. On the other hand, cheap eats can’t be cheap enough if your disappointment grows with every greasy bite. Absolute dollars don’t count for much when it comes to calculating value – it’s more about the sum of price, quality, and satisfaction. Blow your customers’ minds with a dining experience that’s delicious and deeply satisfying, and you’ve created true value. – JOSHUA WESSON
CREATING EFFICIENCIES
A lot of people look at our business model and ask how I do so much business with so little staff. I never worked FOH, so I would watch my employees work. I would zone in on individual employees and literally just watch the steps they would take for two or three minutes. I’d watch them take orders, breakdown setup, etc., following them and identifying where I could edit their steps to make their job easier, quicker, shorter in the process. I found out that I could actually cut down some employees. We had a job that took three people. I found the two that did it best and asked them, “Can you do this without the third person?” They said yes, so we tried it, and the two guys do a better job than with a third person. We moved some things around – we didn’t just say work harder. Now they’re happy, they’re making more money. Never ask something of your employees – don’t say “Give me more” – unless you’re willing to give something. – SANG YOON
When you make people efficient, they’re on their toes, not on their heels; they’re happening to situations rather than situations happening to them, which is important, especially in terms of solving problems. Managers throw more bodies at a problem, and usually that slows down everything rather than make it better. When people are pushed a little, they learn more, they’re driven to achieve more and feel good about their results – but you can’t go too far. It’s not about cutting things out. It’s about simplifying, trying to be smarter so you can give more and still make money. – DAVID SWINGHAMER
Integrity is the big word with value. People are going to complain about a $5 taco and a $20 foie gras appetizer unless you’re doing them the way you’re supposed to. We don’t have to make our own blood sausage; we’re paying somebody $13/hour to make tortillas, but for me that’s the experience that separates one taqueria from another. – KEN ORINGER
EVOLVE OR DIE
I always encourage people to think outside the box. We can learn so much when we think about how food trucks, airlines, convenience stores are run. We’re always stuck working so many hours within the confines of our restaurants, and sometimes you really have to think differently to analyze what’s happening everyday. – KEN ORINGER
If you don’t evolve you’re going to die, so with every restaurant we have – both new and existing – we look at what we are doing and consider how we can improve it. If you aren’t constantly asking management when you stop in “What’s new? What are you doing that’s interesting/unexpected?” there’s a very good chance we’re going to miss opportunities to evolve that restaurant. – DAVID SWINGHAMER
THE FUTURE OF FINE DINING
In many ways, there were aspirational components to the way people cooked and dined in the years leading up to the recession, most of which have disappeared. The era of aspirational dining has given way to the era of inspirational dining. From food trucks to tablecloth restaurants, dining out has taken on a new meaning. In a strange way, the recession has democratized our dining experiences – and that won’t change, even after the economy begins to grow again. – JOSHUA WESSON
Right around the start of the recession, the general consensus was that fine dining was dead – in the ground, buried; they had the funeral. I think that it didn’t die – fine dining chefs are alive and well. Chefs have just decided they can let their hair down; they don’t have to have the temple of fine dining with beautiful tablecloths and expensive china. Pretty much every fine dining chef has gone downmarket now; it’s very personality driven with a level of trust that fine dining chefs have created. I don’t think fine dining died, I think it evolved. It’s still fine but doesn’t look and feel like it used to. Great cooking is great cooking. – SANG YOON
I think every chef wants to have a food truck or a hot dog cart or something like that. Chefs love to cook; they love the feeling of being able to express themselves through cooking. I think everybody just wants to eventually be able to say, “Okay, I’m done doing fine dining. I just want to serve food – no rules, no anything, whatever the hell I want to.” That’s what’s so great about these food trucks – for $200,000 somebody who has trained with Robuchon or Daniel or others can say, “I’m just going to serve calf’s brain raviolis out of a truck and charge five bucks.” Chefs can do anything that they want now. I love it. – KEN ORINGER
I would take it a step further and say that price has almost nothing to do with value – it has purely to do with experience and what you’re taking away from it. It’s not for us or anyone to define value… it’s purely in the eye of the consumer who says this is valuable. Part of my business ethos with our staff is to question daily are we doing something that’s actually ‘valuable?’ I think that our directive as restaurateurs and chefs, regardless of price point, is constantly to ask ourselves, are we doing something that people will hold on to, remember, and want to experience again? – SANG YOON
