Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Real Chef Consulting: Sales, Costs, and Quality Ep. 47

Transcript

Real Chef Consulting: Sales, Costs, and Quality Ep. 47 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs.
• 0:01
  PS a podcast. I'm your host on Trina.
• 0:03
  Tara on today's episode, I'm going to be your Chef
• 0:05
  consultant. Stay tuned.
• 0:18
  So before we get started, let me give you a brief update on
• 0:21
  things that I've been up to. I think, first and foremost, I
• 0:24
  should tell you, I spent the whole fucking day editing.
• 0:27
  I just wrapped up the bad sooo good Chef book.
• 0:31
  It was a lot of work. I spent a lot of time editing.
• 0:33
  No proof read it, I read it already again.
• 0:35
  I get it through an editor and it's done and most likely I'll
• 0:40
  publish it. Mid next week by Friday.
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  It'll be out. If you follow me on Instagram,
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  I'll announce the day that it's live on Amazon that you go get
• 0:50
  the paper back. Most likely I'll put an e-book
• 0:53
  on gumroad available for downloads.
• 0:55
  The reason I do it on gum roses because I think the quality is
• 0:58
  better than an e-book on Amazon, but I will also do an e-book on
• 1:02
  Amazon. Then will immediately get into
• 1:04
  the production of the audio book but the pentacene book.
• 1:08
  For those of you that have been following along, it's a
• 1:09
  conversation between Two Chefs that is fiction.
• 1:12
  My first try to fix it, I don't know if it's good.
• 1:14
  I like it. Anyway.
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  I think it's was inspired by a lot of the q&a's that I do on
• 1:19
  Sundays. So, if you follow me on
• 1:21
  Instagram, you know that I do a cigar Sunday Q&A, it's the
• 1:24
  opportunity that you all have to interact with me, H to do Q&A on
• 1:29
  the podcast, that it's just easier for me to do a weekly I
• 1:32
  guess smoke. My cigar, have a whiskey chill.
• 1:36
  Answer questions, engage with you all.
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  But that was really the inspiration behind the book was
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  these q&a's. I noticed a lot of the same
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  questions come up and it's an opportunity for me to address
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  them. You know what I'm sitting down
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  longer format and I'm actually thinking about my answers and
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  it's not whiskey influenced, I should say, But anyway, this is
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  the fifth book in the chef's psh series.
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  It's very different from all of them.
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  It's Unique. It's going to stand on its own.
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  And it's a conversation format. So if you like that style, I'll
• 2:08
  think you'll like this book a lot.
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  I know the few people that I've given that to, to proofread and
• 2:14
  to get feedback from, they really enjoy it.
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  So I'm hoping that you all enjoy it.
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  There's a lot of good information there in terms of
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  leadership and a lot of questions that people have when
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  they're new into a sous chef position.
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  Some other things that I'm up to is I will be doing a guest Chef
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  dinner in Dallas pretty soon with some great chefs.
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  Part of the Texas food and water lines more to come.
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  But we'll be cooking over at Jose with Anastasia.
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  Canon has, she's a James Beard nominated Chef.
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  She's fantastic. Good friend.
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  She makes great food and I think the other day her and I were
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  talking, I said, look, I'm retired, I'm helping organize
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  the dinner, I said I'm retired, but if you needed extra Chef,
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  I'll come out of retirement for years.
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  Like you'll come out of retirement, for Mitzi, I'll come
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  out of retirement for you. I think she was being sarcastic,
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  but anyway, I'm coming out of retirement so far.
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  One day only, I'm going to go cook with her and some other
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  chefs. I think it'll be fun.
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  So if you're going to be in Dallas in the area you should go
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  to that dinner and support Texas.
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  We don't want an alliance. It's part of the wine and dine
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  tears that they're doing. Maybe I'll organize a meet and
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  greet afterwards. You maybe we could have a cigar
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  night in Dallas. So anyway that's coming up in
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  June, stay tuned for more information.
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  The other thing little teaser I'm working on something behind
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  the scenes. You know, one of my favorite
• 3:36
  Chef podcast is the sushil podcast.
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  Sucio, talk David Soucie. Oh, I enjoy listening to that
• 3:43
  podcast. And you know, we've gotten to
• 3:45
  know each other over the course of time.
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  We talk a lot on the phone and we've wanted to do a
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  collaboration for some time but we're just never at the same
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  city at the same time where we could just sit down.
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  We want to do a face-to-face 0 instead of over jail.
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  And so we're working on something.
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  I can't tell you what we're working on, but I think it's
• 4:01
  going to be fun because a lot of people message me and say you
• 4:03
  need to listen to the sushi of podcasts.
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  I'm like I already listened to sucio podcast.
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  I'm a fan. people tell him the same thing so we can have a
• 4:12
  collab we're working on something, maybe it'll be like
• 4:15
  that route, a and Nas concert where they went on the New York
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  State of Mind, or maybe we'll do like Sushi.
• 4:22
  Oh chefs. PS a tool anyway, we'll see.
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  We'll see where that goes. But more to come.
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  Keep an eye out for that. Go listen to Shield.
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  Talk also more to come, but let's talk about Chef
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  Consulting. The people may or may not know
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  this, but I often go to places and get hired as a chef
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  consultant and the good, you know, how to see the great thing
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  about being a consultant is you go in and you fix the problems.
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  A lot of the Consulting work that I do in a lot of the
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  consultant work as chefs do, sometimes, it's very specific to
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  the needs. Of the people that are hiring
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  you, they might want you to go in and just say, hey we have
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  sanitation issues, come in here and fix it.
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  Right, a hassle plan, get us go straight.
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  Other times, it's like hey, our finances are out of control.
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  We don't know where to we, don't know where to look to cost us
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  crazy. We're not making any money.
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  Money's walking out the door. How do we fix it other times?
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  It's just like a food issue. Like our menu screwed up.
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  We to increase quality food. Sometimes it's just, can you
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  write the menu for us, or can you create recipes for us?
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  Other times it's like can you come in and be a mentor for the
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  shop and hates a whole pants but just kind of hold hands get them
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  up to speed put some training wheels on and get them on the
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  right path and other times it's like we don't have a chef we
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  don't know what we're doing. Fix it, do what you will.
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  I truly do. Enjoy the consultant work.
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  And I might be giving away some of my Consulting Secrets today,
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  but this is like a free Chef consultation for anyone that's
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  listening. This would be what I would do
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  when I go into a place. So we talked about a couple of
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  different scenarios but let's let me, let me go through,
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  probably the most common ones that are go through the most
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  common one that I go through. It's probably two things fixed
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  the food or fix the finances. Usually, those are the big two
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  because that's really what people need to keep the
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  restaurant open and sustainable. It's like the food is aware.
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  needs to be or we're not making money, like we should Now, if
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  we're, if we're looking at it from a money standpoint, it's
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  usually two things, it's easy, it's usually either a sales
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  problem or it's a cost problem. It's sometimes easier to fix a
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  cost problem than a sales problem because there might be a
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  whole lot of reasons. You know, maybe if you got a bad
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  with you, maybe you're in a bad location that you can't fix that
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  quite as easy. But a cost problem, you could go
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  in and you can look at the menu, and then, you can start making
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  adjustments to the menu to correct some of those food cost
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  issue. Now, I should say, it's not
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  always a food. Just issue.
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  Sometimes it's a price issue. So if the food cost is too high,
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  everyone automatically assumed the first thing we need to do is
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  cut costs and lower the food cost.
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  That's not always the case. You also lower food cost by
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  raising prices and sometimes fuel price themselves too low
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  because they think that cheap is good.
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  I'm not a subscriber to cheek is good.
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  I think that you should always be at the top of the market in
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  whatever Market that you're in. So top of the market appear, the
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  luxury Market. Top of the market of here, the
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  Casual Market, if you're in fast-casual Market, I also think
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  the same thing. You should be top of the market,
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  right. Everyone else will start to
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  raise their prices to get closer to you, otherwise, it's a race
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  to the bottom and that's never a good thing.
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  So, the two things that you could look at is one, you could
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  look at your food cost or two, you could look at your sales
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  price. So the first thing I do when I
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  go in as I analyze menus and I analyzed the competitive set, so
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  competitive set are other restaurants that you're
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  competing against that are similar in style.
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  I could be people in your neighborhood or that could be
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  people, you know. Again, I'll use this example.
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  If you're going into a hotel and you were analyzing the
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  competitive set, it might be other hotels that are in that
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  same Market of the same size, or it might be hotels of that size
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  in another Market, that's your in a secondary Market to
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  secondary Market, will primary market, and so on, But what you
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  didn't want to do is you're going to want to analyze the
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  menu compared to them. So simple, things like you
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  create a spreadsheet, you look at the top moving items and you
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  look and you see, okay? They sell their coffee for this,
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  we sell our coffee for that and you say where do we want to be
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  in the market? Sometimes there's a lot of
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  pushback because like I said, people are reluctant to be top
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  of the market. I always encourage them.
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  You want to be top of the market, if you are trying to be
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  the best, right? People pay for the best.
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  Now if you're not going to back up what you're doing, then maybe
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  you don't want to be top of the market but that's a whole other
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  conversation. We'll talk about that when we
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  get into the food quality part. After you've done menu analysis,
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  and you've looked at the competitive set, you want to
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  look at where there's opportunities and there's,
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  there's a tool called menu engineering and basically what
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  this is, is it takes the data that you give it.
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  So the menu item the cost of the menu item, the food cost percent
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  of the menu item and how much money that menu item greatest to
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  the bottom line and how many of your salad so that way it'll
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  tell you. Hey this menu item is really
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  doing the majority of the lifting for the other menu item
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  in this menu item. Even though it's selling a lot,
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  it's not very profitable and this menu item over here doesn't
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  sell at all. And it cost you a lot of money,
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  you should take off the menu. Something that would call a dog,
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  right? So when you look at your menu,
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  Matrix menu, engineering tool you want to look at items that
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  are dogs, who want to get rid of them.
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  And you want to look at items that are doing really, really
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  well like your work horses and how do you enhance that?
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  And then you might want to look at items that are very popular
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  but not very profitable at they popping you make them more
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  profitable I'm not going to teach you how to do that on a
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  podcast right now because that does require some sub skills for
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  you to download a program where you might need to build it on
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  Excel. But I'm sure you could find it
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  out there. Maybe I'll create one for you
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  guys. If you guys don't have one if I
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  have time, maybe I want to commit to that.
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  But anyway, once you have your menu engineering tool that you
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  could figure out where you need to make either you either day to
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  raise the price, you need to lower the food cost, that's one
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  approach. Another very simple approaches.
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  If you're looking at food cost alone is you could look at if
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  you want to make an impact, is what I'll say you need to fish,
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  where the fish are the old expression of you don't climb a
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  tree to look for fish. If you've ever heard that
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  expression, right? You wouldn't climb a tree to go?
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  Look for a fish. And we do that a lot of times
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  like we try and find the Where there is no problems to be
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  found. So if you're looking for a cost
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  problem where you would look, as you would say, What are our most
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  sold items? That's where the problem is.
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  Where are the least sold items? That's where the problem is
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  because the items that are not moving, like let's just use this
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  as an example. What's the most expensive thing
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  in your kitchen? It's the thing that is in the
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  trash because that's 100 percent food cost waste, if that makes
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  sense. If you're following me here with
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  the logic. So, another way to do it is you
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  would look at your top ten ten items that you that you
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  purchase. So you could run what's called a
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  descending were Fort from a lot of vendors and it'll tell you,
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  okay? These are the top 10 things that
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  you spend your money on, right? So your biggest fan, maybe it's
• 11:26
  bacon, maybe it's your proteins, most likely it's going to be
• 11:28
  proteins and dairy Seafood. There's like that, right?
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  That's what cost the most money. And then you're going to say,
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  okay, if you want to save money, You're going to save dollars in
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  your top spend items. You're not going to say dollars
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  in your low, spend on it. So for example, if you spend ten
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  thousand dollars a month on be on a specific steak.
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  Well, if you shave one ounce, you're going to save a lot of
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  money on that be for if you switch vendors and you find a
• 11:56
  lower price feature to save a lot of money.
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  But let's just say you're spending like 80 bucks a month
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  on salt. And I've seen this before, like,
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  well, if we switch Saul Brands will save money because this
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  salt is she purrs? Like, yeah, but you're not
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  spending any money on salt. That's the, that's the point
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  that I'm trying to make is don't climb a tree looking for a fish
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  who, like, you're looking in the wrong spot.
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  Fish where the fish oil. So if you want to make an
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  improvements in your call side, you want to look at the items
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  that are costing, you the most amount of money.
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  So look at that descending. We're for look at the menu,
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  engineering to look at the grid and see where you can make the
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  biggest impact, right? Focus on your top 10 items,
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  right? Now, the same sort of principle
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  applies to food quality as well. Now maybe that 10 out of sight,
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  again, I have no idea how large the menu is that I may be
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  consulted, but if you go into a place and they're like, hey, we
• 12:46
  need to fix the food quality if you ran a report through their
• 12:51
  point of sale system, and you looked at What are your most
• 12:56
  popular items and you say we sell these five items right
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  within those. Five items are driving the
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  majority of the comments that you're getting for feedback.
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  That's those five. Items are driving the majority
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  of the complaints that you're getting, right?
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  So you would look at that and then you fix those five, right?
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  If you went into a restaurant and you said, hey, You're
• 13:19
  selling 100 Burgers a day. And you're so lonely selling 10
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  of everything else and you just make a Better Burger, you're
• 13:25
  going to improve the restaurant. That's it, like just just focus
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  on that. The problem that we get when we
• 13:30
  go into Consulting as we think that there's like this magic
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  answer and that you got to look somewhere else.
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  It's like no, you just got to look at the top performing
• 13:37
  things and that's where you're gonna have your biggest impact.
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  You, if you want to make the biggest impact right away, you
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  look, the things that either, where your greatest dollar spend
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  is or the items that are selling the most.
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  Are driving the feedback, right? Negative or positive.
• 13:51
  That's where you want to. Look is like I said fish, where
• 13:54
  the fish are. I hope you guys are following my
• 13:57
  train of thought. You liked cut-offs, my own
• 14:00
  Trails out here for a sec. Now, the other thing that
• 14:04
  happens when you go into a place and you work as a consultant,
• 14:07
  sometimes you're going in and you're you're helping them like
• 14:10
  ship, the kitchen culture or like I said, you're kind of,
• 14:14
  you're kind of showing the show. Hey, this is the way it is.
• 14:17
  I know, I know, I know this one makes raised a lot of places
• 14:19
  where I go in and they'll say, hey, we need you to consult.
• 14:22
  They were having problems with the shop.
• 14:23
  A lot of the problems that I have and chefs, I know you're
• 14:26
  listening, right? Only chefs and Cooks were really
• 14:28
  listening to the show. A lot of the things that owners
• 14:31
  tell me or general, Managers or whatever?
• 14:34
  Where were the chef's bosses? That happens to hire gay.
• 14:37
  The sometimes they just say, my chef doesn't get it, you help
• 14:39
  them get it. And when I go and I look at it,
• 14:41
  like, what is it that they don't get.
• 14:43
  The number one thing that I see that they don't get is they're
• 14:45
  trying to cook food. That is not on the concept.
• 14:49
  So I'll give you an example. Let's just say they have a
• 14:53
  casual restaurant and maybe it's a mom-and-pop spot and they just
• 14:56
  want to do like Neighborhood, Italian food and they hire some
• 14:59
  young up-and-coming chef with a big ego and they want to Will
• 15:04
  their food Molecular Gastronomy? And they got like spaghetti
• 15:07
  noodles made with with hydrocolloids and it's coming
• 15:14
  out of a God. It's like a noodle made out of
• 15:16
  gel and it's like well that that and it's a Parmesan foam and
• 15:19
  they watch a little too much Massimo but Torah.
• 15:21
  And they're trying to do that in a neighborhood restaurant
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  instead of just doing the classics that they want.
• 15:26
  Normally that's the number one problem I have is like like
• 15:29
  cooks that are punching above their weight when they shouldn't
• 15:31
  be They're normally not making food on the level of the
• 15:38
  restaurant and when you do that, let me tell you what it looks
• 15:40
  like when you're punching above your weight.
• 15:42
  And you're trying to make something that does it, that the
• 15:44
  concept it makes the restaurant worse, actually, because the
• 15:47
  people that are coming in there, seemed like this local
• 15:49
  Neighborhood Restaurant and then they come in.
• 15:51
  It's like I was just looking for chicken parm, and you got me
• 15:55
  like this. You know, this this parmesan are
• 15:59
  dish with just the edge of the lasagna.
• 16:03
  Anyway, you can you get my point is sometimes it the food.
• 16:07
  Just doesn't make sense for what they're doing, and the ovaries
• 16:09
  are like, hey, you're the chef that we got, they're very
• 16:11
  creative. They're, they're very energetic.
• 16:13
  And they want to set the world on fire, but it's just not what
• 16:15
  the neighborhood was. That's normally the, that's
• 16:18
  normally the number one thing that I get from Consultants.
• 16:22
  When it comes to you, hey, we want you to talk to our chefs
• 16:24
  like that. That's it.
• 16:27
  Now I'll talk about this just briefly because if it's not that
• 16:30
  the chef is trying too hard and make you food, that's not on
• 16:34
  concept, it's usually that the concept is maybe above their
• 16:38
  skill level, but they really like the chef.
• 16:40
  So, a lot of times, you'll see, they really like this person,
• 16:44
  they've been there forever, the chef quit, and then it's if
• 16:47
  you've worked in a restaurant, you know how the easiest way to
• 16:49
  get promoted is like the chef walks off.
• 16:51
  The job is like hey your left, you're the new Shepherd of the
• 16:53
  new shop, right? You're the last person here.
• 16:57
  When is it happening in that situation is maybe this person
• 17:00
  has been promoted into position and now they have to do things
• 17:03
  that they're not used to doing and that thing that usually
• 17:05
  throws them off as now, they have to create and they have to
• 17:08
  create food to the concept that they, they know how to execute
• 17:11
  but they don't know how to create it, right?
• 17:13
  And they don't know where to look.
• 17:14
  And a lot of the times that you go in it's like, hey, I just
• 17:18
  need to teach you again. I'm using Italian concept
• 17:21
  example. I just teach you like Italian
• 17:24
  kid, like quick thinking about all this other shit that you
• 17:26
  need to learn, you don't need to learn about French food.
• 17:28
  You don't need to learn about the latest gimmicks in plating.
• 17:32
  You don't need to learn about foraging.
• 17:34
  Like right now, you just need to learn the basics of Italian food
• 17:37
  and a lot of times it's like it's like you just got to go to
• 17:40
  the chef and like, I'm sure you've seen this quarter Ramsey
• 17:44
  thing where you put, like, write on their ears and there's an
• 17:46
  idiot sandwich, like not say that they're idiots.
• 17:49
  But what I am saying is like, they need to turn down the noise
• 17:51
  like they needed. They're focusing on all these
• 17:53
  other things like hey you just need to focus on this concept.
• 17:57
  This type of food. Quit worrying about all that
• 17:59
  other shit. Quick worrying that you don't
• 18:01
  know this or you don't know that.
• 18:03
  That is honestly one of the best ways.
• 18:06
  To keep your job because normally what I was up happening
• 18:10
  is that Chef is stubborn and then like then you have to make
• 18:13
  the recommendation to the elderly.
• 18:15
  You might need a part ways with this place and they just don't
• 18:18
  get it. Anyway, that is my free
• 18:22
  Consulting advice for today. So if you could take anything
• 18:25
  away from it, it's this like let's summarize it make it
• 18:26
  really short and concise. Number one, if you're going to
• 18:30
  fix the cost and you to find out where you're going to have the
• 18:32
  biggest impact, look at your top items that are sold or look at
• 18:35
  the top items. It's where you're spending,
• 18:37
  that's how you're going to fix cost issues.
• 18:40
  If it's a sales issue, same thing.
• 18:42
  Look at the items that are selling and maybe you need to
• 18:44
  adjust the price and you need to do a market analysis.
• 18:50
  If it's a quality issue, look at your bottom selling items and
• 18:53
  look at your top selling items, that's where you need to put X,
• 18:57
  if you're the chef, and they're bringing someone like me.
• 18:59
  And to come evaluate view more than likely, it's one or two
• 19:03
  reasons. You're either trying to cook
• 19:05
  food, that is not on concept, or you don't understand the concept
• 19:09
  in your thinking about everything else.
• 19:10
  But the concept simplify focus on what it is that you're
• 19:14
  supposed to do and do that food and do extremely well.
• 19:17
  Don't let your ego get involved in think that you got to say.
• 19:19
  Set the world on fire in this neighborhood restaurant, know
• 19:22
  your audience and cook for them. That's a very fast way to find
• 19:26
  yourself out of a job. He's at the end of the day, a
• 19:29
  lot of these people that are hiring Consultants.
• 19:31
  It's normally because there's a problem and most likely if they
• 19:33
  don't turn it around quickly, they're losing money and they
• 19:36
  may lose their business. Anyway, your free consultation,
• 19:41
  I should charge you for this podcast.
• 19:43
  I'm not going to charge you, but what you could do is you can
• 19:45
  support me by making sure, you leave five stars on the podcast.
• 19:49
  If you're watching this on YouTube because I forget, now
• 19:52
  I'm on video or Spotify, subscribe.
• 19:57
  Leave a thumbs up or whatever they say on YouTube could have
• 20:00
  just PS a.com, go get the books, be on the lookout for the new
• 20:03
  book. That's about to come out, bad,
• 20:05
  sooo good. Chef big things with Shucks.
• 20:07
  PSA, me sushil talk. Go get the books, go get the
• 20:11
  merge. We'll see you next week.
• 20:13
  Hit the porno music.