Thanksgiving: Let's talk Business

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I love this time of year. I love pumpkin things, I love the change in the weather, and I love how crazy Food Network gets. Last Sunday, they had a Thanksgiving Live two hour special, in which Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis, Bobby Flay, and Ina Garten answered Thanksgiving questions live from Twitter, Facebook, and video chat, followed by a short segment posted online of them all sitting around eating what they made, video chatting with other Food Network personalities, swapping stories, and generally hanging out. The most important news to come from this: Giada cut her finger. She was gone for about 15 minutes but jumped back in after awhile. She's a trooper, and a goddess, and when she wears those glasses, I melt. 

Ina didn't get the hipster glasses memo

For our special Thanksgiving edition of CFRN, we won't be touching any food at all!! Instead lets read about the nuts and bolts of cheffing, pre-slicing and dicing. Join me, won't you?

So this next part goes over the inner workings of the business/practical act of being a chef. That's right folks, we've yet to hit any actual cooking, and… it'll be awhile. This First chunk is SUPER businessey, full of lists and figures and exciting stuff meant for powerpoint presentations. If you like that stuff, keep reading! If not, tune in in a few entries when I'll hopefully have pictures of food. Believe me, I'm getting impatient too. Well, might as well dive right in, starting with…

Chapter 1: The Professional Chef

Interesting tidbit:

The term "Chef" is considered a sign of respect, not just a term to describe someone who cooks. Like calling someone "Dr. Patsasoglou" instead of just "Mr. Patsasoglou."

Side note: according to the internet, the Greek surname, "Patsasoglou" means "Son of a pasta maker," with "pasta" referring to an old Greek delicacy that includes cow feet and innards. Couldn't find any way of verifying this info, but I like it, so it's on the page. Moving on.

While cheffing is rapidly becoming a very well respected career, and it is far more common now than ever to attend a culinary school or have an apprenticeship for formal culinary training, unlike the current university system there isn't a direct path to continuing a culinary education. It's pretty much learning the basics, then there are classes and workshops to keep practicing chefs current, but no real accreditation, like a doctoral degree. As one could guess, it's very experience heavy. 

The current chef also has a few hurdles that are hard to ignore, especially in the past 15 years or so. Nutrition is becoming a pressing issue, with so many news segments focused on obesity, replete with montages of fat bellies and butts walking in a crowded street, guests now inquire about the fat content, nutritional value, cholesterol level etc. of the dishes offered. 

You know what I'm talking about

Nice Kettle Corn there...

Check out that sexy neck beard

Not to mention allergies, gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, vegetarian, vegan blah blah options needed to cater to a patronage increasingly more aware of their ailments. Similarly, organic farming has emerged as more of an encouraged standard than a luxury or gimmick. And with organic farming comes the environmental concerns of industrial farming, solid waste disposal, composting, and recycling. The current chef also has to deal with food safety regulations, changing standards, outbreaks of foodborne illness, and all kinds of things that were so much easier in the days prior to indoor plumbing. In short, the current chef has a lot on his mind, and that's not even including what it takes to run a business in this economy. 

We have our challenges. What does the professional chef need in order to overcome these hurdles?

So glad you asked.

A Chef's Professional and Personal Attributes (aka how blanket terms of professionalism apply to cheffing)

• The customer is always right. Your job is to provide "…good food, properly and safely cooked, appropriately seasoned, and attractively presented in a pleasant environment."
• You are responsible to errybody. You set the tone for your establishment and reputation. Don't be a dick. That Chef Gordon Ramsay thing is more good TV than reality, if you piss off your team and/or let your guests hear you blowing your stack, you're gonna have a bad time.
• Have a good moral compass. This paragraph was a little vague, not sure what else to put here. Still decent advice I guess.
• Wear your chef uniform like a champ. It's practical and romantic in the sense of setting the "I-am-part-of-a-tradition-of-making-mouths-happy" tone. Trivia: the toque blanche (big white chef hat) might have its roots in the Byzantine empire, while it was under siege by the barbarians. Basically, everyone was running for their lives so they sought sanctuary in Greek Orthodox monasteries. In order to blend in, they wore the same dress as the priests. Once all that garbage blew over, chefs wore white hats so they wouldn't be mistaken for priests anymore. Additionally, the 100 pleats on the chef's toque represent the 100 ways a chef can make eggs. Of course this is all legend… but it's cool so we'll keep it.

And of course we have our section on career paths. Hotels, full-service restaurants, private clubs institutional catering (everything from schools to prisons), private catering, carryout, and the like, plus non-food production positions such as consultants and design specialists, salesfolk, teachers, food writers, food photography and styling, and research and development. So now that you're a "New Professional Chef," you have a ton of options, though most will have shitty hours. 

And now for the business side. 

The Chef as Executive, Administrator, and Manager

Since I have my education in music, I have very little actual education in business (though I've had a job since I was 8, so I have a very good grasp on my own finances and what it takes to run a business as well as what it takes to run a business into the ground). But a chef has to have a pretty well developed business mind. The New Professional Chef has to be a good executive, creating goals for a company and a logical plan/system to accomplish those goals. The New Professional Chef also has to be a good administrator, developing and managing a system to track those goals and manage the machine. Executive has a plan, admin sits at a computer or a phone and makes it happen. Often they're the same person. And then we have the New Professional Chef as a manager. The manager has four main roles, and they are as follows. 

Managing Physical Assets (food and beverage, operating costs, rent, tables, chairs etc, computers/registers, pots pans and kitchen equipment, and cleaning supplies).

Best sentence to remember from this section: "The primary purpose of being in business is to make money." Seems obvious, but it's easy to get caught up in the romance of making delicious food and having regulars love you etc. So it's important to focus of course on making money, which includes naturally how you're spending your money. Here are the main steps to running a financially smooth restaurant. [EDIT] I know the numbering is weird, I don't know how to change it when editing, it doesn't seem to work like Microsoft Word...

1. Know your expenses. From this you can figure out if it's most cost-effective to buy or rent your physical assets. 
2. Purchasing. This… has it's own sublist…
• Develop a list of your needs. This includes food/beverage as well as cleaning supplies and equipment.
• Develop quality and purchasing specifications. Basically describe the crap out of each item on the list, making it easy to communicate and therefore save time with purveyors. Which they, and you, will appreciate.
• Select purveyors. You should probably have two purveyors for any item. There are a lot of purveyors out there, therefore it's statistically likely you could get ripped off. So check around with other restaurant owners and with Better Business Bureau. Also keep your eyes peeled as to the quality workings of your purveyor. You want everything to be consistent, quality, clean, timely, and well documented. 
• Develop a parstock. Parstock is the amount of stock you should have consistently to hold you over between deliveries. If there's too much you're burning cash. If there's too little, your menu could suffer, and patrons hate being told that their duck confit won't have any duck. 
• Take purchase inventory. Count your stuff. All of your stuff. All of the time. Then you can order more, or… you know… not, as the case may be.
• Forecast contingency needs. Keeping detailed records can let you predict when you're going to be super busy and therefore when you might need more or less stock.
• Take market quotes. Watch out for strikes, floods, droughts, hurricanes, outbreaks, roaming gangs, and concentrated apocalypses so you can tell if there might be shortages with certain goods. 
• Maintain a purchase log. Keep them records, which is good for your business and helps to keep the government off your ass.

Wonderful, now back to the sublist.

1. Storage Areas. Maintain all storage areas, food and non-food, it'll keep your costs down. Check fridge/freezer temperatures often, and have ish repaired/serviced quickly. Make sure all shelving, bins, doors, windows, roofs, monuments, levies, what have you are sturdy and pest-proof.
2. Food cost. This is a BIG one. Make tons of lists with food/beverage raw materials. Control spoilage and waste, and make sure foods are labeled, dated, and used in sequence (first come, first served). Also watch for mishandling, such as when your food is cut, trimmed, and cleaned. The cost of food when it is received is referred to as the AP or as purchased cost. Once processed, you've got the EP cost, or edible portion cost. So, you weigh the food in the AP and EP stages, then divide the EP weight by the AP weight to determine how much you're actually spending. You're also going to want to train your staff damn well to make sure they're giving you consistent EP weight, through proper trimming, cleaning, and portion control. 
3. Recipes as tools. The recipe isn't just for preparation, it's also a formula to determine your costs. Write them carefully, and make sure they're carefully and precisely followed. 
4. Portion control. Train your staff to be consistent with their prep and plating… or else. 
5. Menu pricing. Ok so you've got a few different factors here: your market, the cost of the food you're serving, and the type of restaurant you're running. There isn't really an exact right answer… but there are wrong answers. Some places have low prices and high volume, some have high prices and patrons with monocles. Few methods we have to determine cost (yes… time for another sub-sublist):
• Factor method. Cost of the food sold should fall within a range that is equal to a specified percentage of the sales in dollars. Here you need to figure out what you think is an acceptable food-cost percentage for your restaurant. Let's say 25%. Divide the desired percentage into 100. 100/25=4. So 4 is the factor you'd need to multiply the food cost to get your menu price. If it costs $2.50 to make a dish, then your patrons are gonna pay $10 for it. Pros to this method: it's damn simple. Cons: if you're just focusing on one part of the profit, then your calculated profit might not match the actual, since you've also got to worry about other operating costs. 
• Prime cost. This… can be a pain. You basically make initial assumptions of your total operating costs and assign percentages to each operating cost and stick to them. Once you've got those, then you can calculate and factor in your raw food cost, and cost of labor (food prep) to get your menu price.
• Actual cost. Figure out the actual cost of raw ingredients using your recipes. Then use your payroll records to factor in labor costs. Then add everything else it takes to run your restaurant (since you keep such nice records of everything). Assign percentages, then figure what the value for each item should be so have real figures, unlike in prime cost. Actual food cost + actual labor cost + your other variable and fixed costs + whatever you want to make for profit = menu price.

Again… returning from the sub-sublist to our sublist...

1. Cost of Errors. You've got to have the "just in case we fuck up* contingency plan. It's a stressful job, sometimes even the pros overcook their filet mignon. Or sometimes guests are just picky douchebags. In any case, factor in these mess ups just in case. Don't want to be caught with your financial pants down.

Done with the sublist!! Now… back to the original list. *Sigh*

Managing Information (anything on a computer, media, professional organizations such as ACF etc)

BIG lesson here: don't skimp on your computer system. As in most of our lives, the computer is a big deal, and in a restaurant it can be a HUGE help or hindrance. Next, you've got media. It's good to be involved, as well as well-read. Know what's going on around you, and use this info to your advantage. Finally, you've got your professional organizations. If you're involved with these orgs, (American Culinary Federation, National Restaurant Association…) then you get inside info, resources, job opportunities, and validation to your public.  

Managing Human Resources (cooks, waitstaff, maintenance, cleaning staff)

The basics of what I'm about to go through are briefly outlined in Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille. Of course on here, we're going to go more in-depth. Here's a clip, in case you want to skip this section. This is a long post, I'm tired too, don't worry. 

Start at 18:57

The Kitchen Brigade System

For those of you keeping score, yes, this is the same kitchen brigade system as instituted by Escoffier. 

The chef/chef de cuisine/executive chef runs the whole show, including ordering, supervising all stations, and developing menu items. 

The sous ("under") chef is like the vice president, doing whatever needs to be done, filling in for the chef, and all that jazz

The chefs de partie, or station chefs, or "line cooks" are:

• Saucier (sauteed items and their sauces)
• Poissonier (fish and fish sauces)
• Rotisseur (roasted foods and their related sauces)
• Grillardin (grilled foods)
• Friturier (fried foods)
• Entremetier (veggies, hot appetizers, soups, starches, pastas, and sometimes eggs. In the traditional Brigade system, there were separate jobs; potager for soups, and legumier for veggies)
• Tournant (swing cook, does what needs doing)
• Garde-manger (cold food prep including salads, cold appetizers, and pates)
• Boucher (butchers meats, poultry and sometimes fish)
• Patissier (baked items, pastriest and desserts. Sometimes they have their own whole section and underlings including confiseur  for candies and petits fours, boulanger for nonsweetened doughs/breads, glacier for frozen and cold desserts, and decorateur for show pieces and special cakes)
• Additional important roles include the aboyeur, who accepts orders from the dining room and relays them to the appropriate chefs, and is the last person to see a plate before it leaves the kitchen, the communard, who cooks for the staff, and various commis, or assistants who work under a chef de partie. 

We've also got the dining room Brigade system

The maitre d'hôtel, aka the dining room manager or the host/hostess, trains all service personnell, oversees wine selection, organizes seating, works with the chef to determine the menu… they're the front-of-house head honcho.

The chef de vin or sommelier is the wine guy/gal, preparing a wine list, purchasing wine, and assisting guests in choosing their wine

The chef de salle is the head waiter, but that position is usually just taken by the maitre d'hotel 

The chef d'etage, or the captain, handles guests, explaining the menu, answers questions, and makes guacamole tableside

The chef de rang is the front waiter, and sets the table for each course, makes sure the food is delivered properly, and keeps the guests happy

The demi-chef de rang or commis de rang is the busboy, clearing plates and filling water, and being everyone's gopher until he/she can finally get his/her screenplay discovered

Lastly on our managing list, we have…

Managing Time (…you're kind of screwed)

Basically, there's not enough time to do anything, no matter how early you start or how late you end. The good news is that if you keep all of your lists up to date, and communicate what needs doing in a timely fashion, you'll save everyone time. The key here is to communicate, and set aside time for communicating. Make sure your staff knows what's going on, and make sure they let you know what they need in order to do… whatever you want them to do. 

Wow, so we've covered a lot, and made a lot of lists. The last couple of pages of Chapter 1 go over what to do when opening a restaurant such as figuring out your customer base (who the hell lives here and what kind of food do they like), making your menu to match that and how to make it interesting enough to set you apart (also appropriate menu size, range of different dishes, special event menus, descriptive language, and of course, pricing), designing your restaurant and the ambiance, and service quality. That stuff is all fairly basic, and… let's face it, I'm tired.

If you've completed this entry, kudos to you! Your diligence and patience are much appreciated. I'm confident the next entry, Food and Kitchen Safety, will be far more entertaining. 

As always, I hope you learned something! Thanks for reading, and again, Happy Thanksgiving :]

Cheers