Menu Workarounds
Posted by estiator at 9 July, at 10 : 28 AM Print
MANAGING FOR SUCCESS By CONSTANTINE N. KOLITSAS Business Coach
If there’s one thing that running a business in the age of Covid has taught us is to find workarounds when the normal route is disrupted. And as you all know, disruptions these days come in many shapes, sizes, colors and flavors.
Take today, for example. I got a call from my executive chef, who was just on with his seafood provider.
“The calamari supply is going to tighten,” he tells me. “We have enough walk-in freezer space in our Connecticut location to do a bulk purchase; what do you think?” Normally, he knows my philosophy to purchase what we need and to run inventory tight. The cost of money, after all, is a real expense, and tying it all up in inventory that will take months to deplete is not a good way to manage cash. But I agree with him that the cost will also go up as squid gets more difficult to procure. But if bulk purchasing is a workaround to this particular challenge, it’s nothing that’s innovative or creative; it’s just standard everyday business.
What the workaround might be is to find a way to also make the calamari go further. And to offset its rising cost by bulking the plate up with other not-so-costly items. In fact, just a few days ago, I was scouring the internet, looking at prices that other upscale Greek concepts were charging (to make sure that I’m not leaving anything on the table, and also to make sure that I’m not too far priced over the market). And as I scoured, there it was. Where other restaurants were raising the price of their calamari (some breaking the $20 barrier for an appetizer portion), and others were removing it altogether, this one restaurant mixed it up. On the appetizer section of the menu was a fried calamari and cauliflower entry, ostensibly combining the two on a single plate. Genius. The amount of the higher-cost calamari on the plate could be minimized, with the lower-cost cauliflower filling the plate. And from there my mind started racing. Grilled calamari with gigantes. Yum. How about in reverse? Add something even more expensive and justify a really high price. Maybe a seafood fritti to rival the raw seafood towers? Fried calamari with fried oysters, fried belly clams, huge fried prawns, with strips of tempura-coated fried green peppers and onion straws…
And where are there more opportunities on the menu? The price of lamb chops has been climbing, climbing, climbing. A plate of lamb chops that we could sell for $33 last year today commands a price almost 50% higher. The lamb chops we serve (those nice little lollipops that the Greeks call “paidakia”) are a signature dish, but now many of our customers find them priced beyond what they would typically spend for a casual night out. And so, we have a surf ‘n’ turf combo that has those lamb chops with a couple of grilled shrimp. And the appetizer portion is nixed from the menu for now.
The days when a menu remained static are over. Customers expect a menu that has seasonal fluctuations. This also presents an opportunity to remove items that are costing themselves out of the game. Or to redefine them.
Customers expect a menu that has seasonal fluctuations. This also presents an opportunity to remove items that are costing themselves out of the game. Or to redefine them.
And the same strategy applies for the spirits section of the menu. The Barrel-Aged Manhattan that you were making with Woodford Reserve Bourbon is just as tasty when you swap out the vermouth (which is nearly always inexpensive) with a better vermouth (Carpano Antica is a thousand times better than your M&R but just a few dollars more a bottle) while exchanging the higher-priced Woodford for a brand like Elijah Craig or Redemption, which are considerably less expensive and very comparable from a flavor perspective. The finished cocktail will be even better than the original and save you $20-$30 per batch. And you can hold price, meaning a fatter profit margin.
A wise man once taught me that adversity creates opportunity, and this is a truism that I will take with me through each of my remaining days. Don’t complain when one of these Covid or post-Covid challenges presents itself as a roadblock. Just get creative and figure out a workaround. Remember the old saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
Constantine Kolitsas is the president of CNK Consulting, a restaurant consultant and coaching business. He can be reached at 203-947-6234 or at ckolitsas@gmail.com
