Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Best New Vs. Best Old Ep. 90

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Best New Vs. Best Old Ep. 90 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andre Nettera. On today's episode, we're going
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  to talk about the difference between best new and best old.
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  Stay tuned. So before we get started, I'm
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  going to give you a brief update.
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  I talked about this last week on the podcast that I have a new
• 0:27
  T-shirt available. Dry your meat.
• 0:28
  It's going to be limited edition.
• 0:30
  I'm only going to have it up for about 30 days, so if you want to
• 0:32
  get it, get it now. I'm going to take it down, which
• 0:34
  I'm having a little bit of fun with it.
• 0:35
  Maybe the best Chef's PSA meme for the month I'll turn into AT
• 0:39
  Shirt. So if you want to go get that
• 0:41
  T-shirt, it's available right now at the Chef's PSA store.
• 0:44
  Go to chefspsa.com where you can get it.
• 0:46
  I also have some new Chef's PSA merch.
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  Really basic stuff, but sometimes basic is good.
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  Like, I like that clean look. So it's a a white hoodie, Chef's
• 0:55
  PSA logo, Chef's PSA logo, T-shirt.
• 0:58
  Keeping it simple, show your support for what I'm doing here
• 1:02
  by getting yourself AT. Shirt, a hoodie.
• 1:04
  A hat, this hat. Happy Chef.
• 1:07
  Plus the books are all available on Amazon as well as Audible.
• 1:12
  They're available in English, Spanish, and Italian, so you get
• 1:15
  some for the whole kitchen team. Culinary Leadership
• 1:18
  Fundamentals, Bad Suit, Good Chef, How Not to Be The Biggest
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  Idiot in the Kitchen, Line Cook Survival Manual, and Kitchen Art
• 1:24
  of War 50 Most Important Chef's PSA is still free for now as an
• 1:28
  e-book, and the audio book is now available as well.
• 1:31
  I might turn that into a paperback because a lot of
• 1:33
  people have been asking me because they prefer the
• 1:35
  paperback version, so maybe that's coming soon.
• 1:38
  Anyway, we digress. Last week I put up a new rap
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  song and and it will be at the end of this Chef's PSA podcast.
• 1:46
  Moving forward and keep the old porno music at the intro and the
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  new outro will be the Chef's PSA rap song.
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  Which by the way, that wasn't the only rap song that was made.
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  There was another one called Kitchen Commander which came in
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  close second. Maybe I'll play that one in an
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  upcoming episode. So part of what Chef's PSA is
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  not only is to give you advice, but it's also to give you a
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  little bit of a peek behind the curtain to see the wizard, so to
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  speak. Because not a lot of people have
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  access to what goes on behind the scenes when the chef
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  Illuminati are talking. And a lot of those conversations
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  that happened among chefs when the PR manager is not there and
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  the HR manager is not there and what is really being said.
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  So this past week, I had an opportunity to spend a lot of
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  time with some different chef friends, went out to dinner,
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  different phone calls, smoking some cigars.
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  And the conversations were very interesting.
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  And one of the conversations that had come up was one of the
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  chefs said best new is not as important as best old.
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  And what they meant by that was a lot of times there's best new
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  this, best new chef, best new restaurant, best new whatever.
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  And sometimes that could be a kitchen curse and that we should
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  be giving out awards for best old, you know, restaurants that
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  have been in existence for five years.
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  So the idea is that a restaurant should get better with time.
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  When a restaurant opens early on, chefs are usually pushing
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  the limits, being extremely creative and really wanting to
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  make a mark. But sometimes that's a double
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  edged sword. And I talked about this a couple
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  of episodes back where don't forget it's still a business.
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  And a lot of times a lot of those Best New restaurants and
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  best New chefs, those restaurants don't make it a year
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  or two outside of those awards. And the reason that is because
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  they don't find the balance between the business side and
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  the culinary side. And sometimes it's not
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  necessarily just the culinary side.
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  Sometimes there's service aspects, there's marketing
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  aspects. So it's not just always about
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  the food, it's about making sure the entire restaurant is running
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  well. And so the chef that I was
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  speaking to, we were talking about restaurants that have been
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  in existence for five, 610 years and how they keep getting better
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  with time and how staying power is almost.
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  It's not even almost. It is more commendable than
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  success in the first year. Great.
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  You have success in the first year.
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  What's next? What does year two look like?
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  Year three look like? Because what ends up happening
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  when new restaurants open is you usually have an influx of staff
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  that wants to work there. All the servers show up to the
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  new restaurants. You get the best servers in town
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  because they know they're going to make more money at the new
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  place. All the best cooks show up
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  because you're hot At the moment.
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  People are writing about you and they want to get a little bit of
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  that shine. They want to put you on their
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  resume and they want to work in your restaurant.
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  Everyone comes in to try the restaurant.
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  They want to flex for the gram, they want to take pictures that
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  they were there and then that's it.
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  And then after that first year, a lot of that first year hype
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  starts to wear off. And if you created a restaurant
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  that was I'm going to go once I get it, I don't know if I'll
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  ever go back. Maybe once a year.
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  Special occasion. Well, you have to ask yourself,
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  can your restaurant survive off only being the once a year
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  special occasion restaurant? There's a lot of restaurants of
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  my friends, chef friends that I have that I've only been to once
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  and I haven't been back in years.
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  And I'll tell everyone they're great restaurants, but I haven't
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  gone back. And I'm sure some of you
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  listening will know exactly what I'm talking about.
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  You go to a restaurant, you love it, you tell everyone how great
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  it is, but you don't go there every week because it's not
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  necessarily the type of food that you want to eat every day.
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  Now, the restaurant that's been around for five or six years,
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  they've probably figured something out.
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  They probably have a good balance of the fastball down the
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  middle, the crowd favorites, along with dishes that keep
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  their name in the headlines. People still want to keep coming
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  in to try some of the new stuff because they have new things
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  going on. But people could come in and
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  know that, hey, my favorite dish is still on the menu.
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  It's like those music stars. They always sing the greatest
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  hits and everyone wants them to play their new shit, but they
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  got to they got to play the greatest hits because that's
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  what people come for. The Rolling Stone satisfaction
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  is the example that gets used often.
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  Now, during one of these conversations that I had, I was
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  talking to another friend whose restaurant is really struggling
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  now. They live in another city where
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  they built their restaurant in a suburban neighborhood and they
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  have incredible food, but it doesn't feed the neighborhood.
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  And everyone came early on at the beginning to check it out.
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  But as time went on, their food was so avant-garde that they
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  lost the local clientele. So the neighborhood doesn't come
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  to the restaurant. People drive there for the
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  special occasion, but it went from being one of the hottest
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  restaurants till no longer being relevant.
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  And that restaurant struggles financially.
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  And they're thinking about what do we do?
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  Do we have to pivot? Do we introduce brunch, which is
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  like, don't introduce brunch. You know, it's the lunch menu.
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  It's the brunch menu. Do we have happy hour?
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  When you start hearing all these things?
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  Yes, they're good for business and they help increase sales,
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  but it's usually because you're suffering with the main
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  attraction, the main attraction of dinner service.
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  If that's your type of restaurant is struggling.
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  You can't get people then to fill up the seats every single
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  day. So you have to open it up to
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  other things in hopes that you could fill up the restaurant,
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  whether that's brunch, happy hour, light bites, specials,
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  Groupon, whatever the case may be, the primary thing isn't
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  doing its job. Now action is the most important
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  thing. You have to act.
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  You have to take some sort of action to stop the ship from
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  sinking. But you also have to think to
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  yourself critically what got you there in the 1st place.
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  And a lot of times it's you created a restaurant for a
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  special occasion, as they say. You built a church for Easter
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  Sunday. One day out of the year, people
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  are going to go there. What about the other 364 days?
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  Do they have a reason to go? Do they have a favorite dish?
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  Is it comfortable enough for them to go every day?
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  Something to think about those five year restaurants have it
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  figured out. And when you think about the
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  success of restaurants with longevity, a lot of times the
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  staff has been there for quite some time.
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  They know the system, they have rhythm, they've seen a lot of
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  the problems, They understand the food.
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  A lot of the sous chefs and cooks in that place can make the
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  chef's food sometimes better than the chef.
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  Or they could create dishes that feel like if the chef created
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  them because they know their style, sometimes better than the
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  chef knows it themselves. If the restaurant is packed
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  every night and it's been around for five years, you probably
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  have staff on the service team that's been there for a long
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  time because they know they will get good money consistently,
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  which means service is better. Your maitre-d' has been there a
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  long time. You have regulars that come in
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  and those regulars are golden. You need to make sure that you
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  treat your regulars very well because they are supporting your
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  business and they don't have to. They could go eat somewhere else
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  whenever they want. So when we go back and we look
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  at some of these awards, you know, whether it's the Best new,
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  Best New restaurant, best new chef, the idea of long standing,
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  or as my friend said, the best old chef or the best old
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  restaurant sometimes might be more important.
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  I was at dinner a while back with a lot of chef friends of
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  mine. Some of them were James Beard
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  winners, food and wine, best new celebrity chefs.
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  And we were all sitting around the table talking about what
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  award meant the most to you. And as we went around, someone
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  said, you know James Beard, someone else had food and wine,
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  someone else had best new restaurant, eater this, best
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  chef that. We all had different answers
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  until we got to one person and they said honestly, none of them
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  mean much right now. A full restaurant and making
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  that money means more. And then everyone changed their
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  answer. Every single chef around the
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  table said you're right, a busy restaurant, a successful
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  service, repeat customers making money.
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  All of that means more. And that's not to dismiss the
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  awards. Because when you get that first
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  award, I'll tell you, when I received my first big award, I
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  was on cloud nine. I received Dallas Morning News,
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  Rising Star Chef, I think in 2003.
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  And I loved it and I bragged and I stood with my chest out.
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  It was puffed up a little bit and I started to believe my own
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  bullshit a little bit. Fast forward years later and I
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  received Best Chef DFW two years consecutive in 2011 and 2012.
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  My restaurant got four stars and another restaurant that I was
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  the chef of was rated number one in the city by different
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  publication. And so I was on top of the world
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  at the moment. But when you start to get some
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  of these awards, the ones that started to come in slowly after
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  that didn't feel as good as some of the earlier ones.
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  And when I went to work, I wasn't stressed about keeping
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  the awards. I was stressed about keeping the
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  doors open, supporting the staff that worked there.
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  And it's a double edged sword because you start to believe the
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  bullshit that's written about you and you have to know how to
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  differentiate between the business and the success from
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  the industry, your peers, the media, etcetera.
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  It's a big responsibility that a lot of chefs have and it's not
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  something that's discussed enough.
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  I think It's not easy being a chef.
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  I'll tell you that when you're trying to run a successful
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  restaurant and balance your creativity as a chef, you get in
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  your own way. You start getting in your own
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  head thinking, I want to do this, that and the other with
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  food because that's what's relevant.
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  And trust me, I know food. I cook every day for a living.
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  This is my passion, this is my craft.
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  And you go and you create these beautiful dishes and they don't
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  sell and the customers don't come back.
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  Or you created a dish that was too difficult to execute and
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  your culinary team couldn't pull it off during a busy service.
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  And you start thinking to yourself, are you pushing for
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  more awards or you pushing for a successful restaurant because
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  more awards don't necessarily keep the doors open.
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  Now I don't want anyone here to misconstrue what I'm saying.
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  Awards are great and if you're getting them, congratulations.
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  And I'm not saying you should not push for them, but I'm
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  saying there is a balance and you can't neglect 1 without the
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  other. I think we need to change how we
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  do things in this industry. Best New is Good, Best New
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  restaurant, Best new chef. But I'd love to see Best Old as
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  much as I'd like to see Best New.
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  Shout out to all those restaurants that have staying
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  power and have been in the game for a long time.
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  Mad respect and for all the chefs that are on the come up,
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  don't fall for the traps of yesterday.
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  Best New is good. But also focus on that staying
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  power and that longevity before we wrap up.
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  I can tell you this when I look at any single award that I've
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  received over the course of time, whether it's best new
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  restaurant or you know, best chef in this city or whatever
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  the case may be. And I look at the list of those
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  people, and you could go back, and you could go back to your
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  city and look at the best list of chefs and go back 15 years
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  and see how many of them are still on those lists.
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  How many chefs have been on the list for 10, even five years, 15
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  years, 20 years. How many chefs have done that?
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  How many chefs have created a legacy?
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  And how many chefs have been hot for a moment and then you never
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  hear from them again. What do they do?
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  They all take different paths, and who knows where they go.
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  And it leads. It leads to different areas for
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  different people. But I'm sure if you have a
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  conversation with them, they'd all tell you the same thing.
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  Those awards are good, but staying in business is better
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  anyway. If you want to support the show,
• 11:59
  you know what to do. Make sure you leave five stars,
• 12:01
  Nothing less than five stars. Go to chefspsa.com.
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