Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Restaurant Mental Exercise for Chefs Ep. 21

Transcript

Restaurant Mental Exercise for Chefs Ep. 21 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs PS a
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  podcast. I'm your host Andhra natera.
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  On today's episode, I'm going to take you through the mental
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  process of opening your restaurant.
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  So let's start first with an update.
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  What have I been up to? I've been very busy this past
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  week. I haven't been posting enough on
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  social media for the chef's psa's.
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  I had to take a couple of days off.
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  It's traveling cooking. I did a dinner in El Paso,
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  Texas. I know I had talked about this
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  earlier and I shared a story on social.
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  But it was a group of chefs. All of us are from El Paso.
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  So you had Rico Torres from me, SLI.
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  He's kind of the organizer of the El Paso, family meal.
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  He's been instrumental in getting all the chef's bringing
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  us together and getting us to cook together.
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  Hopefully at least once a year, but sometimes a couple more
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  times than that but you have other great chefs on there like
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  Jake Rojas Gaber alehsalaam, Delgado, Fordman Union as Omar,
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  Flores undress, Padilla. There's there's a lot of really
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  good chefs in the group and we all got together and we all
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  cooked was it was a great time I was in charge of the dessert
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  course Self and Gaber Alice. We did a, we were in charge of
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  the desert and overall, it was a good event.
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  We raised a lot of money. We were able to give back to
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  help people. Texas Food Bank, nonetheless,
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  that tied, me up for a couple of days with travel.
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  But update to other things, I finished the line.
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  Cook survival manual. The book is done.
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  The e-book is live. The paperback version.
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  I'm struggling with a little bit.
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  These are the struggles that I deal with right?
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  So writing the book is not that hard editing, the book and
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  catching, all the little mistakes is very hard and
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  there's there's a glitch right now with the book where there's
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  110 pages, but it shows that there's 112 pages.
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  So, It's it's a little messy and I'm like trying to figure it out
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  so I'm like beating my head against the wall, trying to
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  figure out what the glitches because, no matter how many
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  times I've tried to correct it every single way the file that I
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  have says, one thing and the file that the publisher has
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  says, something completely different, no matter how many
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  times I submit it. Anyway, neither here nor there,
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  that's what I deal with. That's the hard part about
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  writing books, but the book is done.
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  I will announce it on social when the paperback version is
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  live, the e-book is life. Now you go get it.
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  After that, I'll start working on the audio book.
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  I'm still working on the audio book with culinary leadership
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  fundamentals. That's not far off, but it's
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  taken a little bit longer than I thought.
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  It's a longer book. So it takes a little bit longer
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  to read. It's probably going to end up
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  being about anywhere from five to eight hours for the audio
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  book, where the first audio book we did was just under an hour so
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  you can see that there's a significant difference.
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  I will do a line, cook survival manual audio book as well but
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  that's That's probably that's probably most likely early next
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  year. I've also been working on a
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  culinary leadership fundamentals.
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  Video course. That's pretty much done.
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  Couple weeks away, I will have that available for sale on my
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  website but anyway let's move on and talk about today's subject.
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  So the mental process of opening up a restaurant and why I want
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  to take you through this. So a lot of people go to
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  culinary school or they dream of becoming a chef because they
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  want to one day open. Our own restaurant.
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  I'm not exempt from that. When I first got into the
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  industry, that's all I want to do is have my own place, but I
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  think there's a lot of things that people don't realize that
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  they don't know when it comes to opening up your own restaurant.
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  Thousands of little things that are going on that you need to be
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  aware of and that you might not think about.
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  And so, One of the things that I do so my my job right besides
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  chefs PSA is I Mentor chefs. I work with a lot of chefs
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  executive chefs, Cooks people in The Culinary World restaurant
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  owners, I work with them to help them become successful at what
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  they do. And that's my business, that's
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  what I do. One of the things that I do with
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  my mentees is sometimes I take them through mental exercises.
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  So someone had said to me, one of my mentor meetings is I
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  should do this. Mental exercise on the podcast.
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  So hopefully, you guys can go along with me and you'll
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  understand what this may look like.
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  When I interview people, you know, when I used to be a chef
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  and if I was interviewing to cook and I'd say, you know,
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  what's your, what's your goal? Many people would say, I want to
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  one day, have my own restaurant and I would say, okay, tell me
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  about it and they'd really have no idea they'd say, oh, you
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  know, something small and what kind of food and they'd say, you
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  know, this and then beyond the food, they'd kind of get stuck
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  because they haven't, We thought through all the small details
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  that go into opening up your own restaurant.
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  In my opinion, if you want to manifest something, whether it's
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  your own restaurant or any sort of thing that you want to
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  manifest into reality, I think it needs to First manifest in
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  your mind. You need to have a clear idea of
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  what that looks like, because if you can't see it in your mind's
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  eye, then most likely, you're gonna have a very difficult
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  time, manifesting it and reality, and I think as a chef,
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  you need to think about all the little things that you would
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  have in your own restaurant. Durant.
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  So, I want to take you through the experiment through the
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  experience. That I take my mentees through,
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  or people that I've interviewed through, in the past of what it
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  takes to open up your own restaurant.
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  So I would start out with the question and by the way, while
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  I'm asking these questions, you should be answering them in your
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  own mind because I want you to think about this.
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  Oh, this is good exercise for you.
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  If one day, you want to open up your own restaurant.
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  So, the first thing I'd ask them is tell me about your
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  restaurant. Then they'd say, oh, you know, I
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  want to Open up my restaurant said, okay, what kind of food
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  are you serving? You got to think about that.
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  Like what kind of food are you serving?
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  Most people say you know, maybe fine dining.
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  I said okay, what do you mean by fine?
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  Dining, tell me the price point. What's your average check
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  something that they don't think about, okay, now once we've
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  established stablish that, are you doing tasting, menu?
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  Or you doing all a cart? Okay.
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  They haven't thought about that either.
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  You know, the funny thing is, most people say, oh, I do a
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  combination of tasting, menu, and all the cart.
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  Okay, great. How many items are on your a la
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  carte menu? How many items are on your
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  tasting menu? How many cooks do you have in
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  the kitchen? Okay, let's say you have a lot
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  of people say oh I have a grill, a Satay maybe a fish cook, an
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  entremet dessert person, agar Maj a pastry chef, a couple of
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  people in the back. Okay.
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  How many is a couple? How many people are prepping?
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  What time do they come in? What time does your am team
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  start? What time does your am team,
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  leave? What time does your p.m. team
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  coming? Then they start to answer these
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  questions because now they're starting to think.
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  Okay, well shit, I want to do all this food and then I'll ask
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  them. Do you think you could execute
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  that food with that many staff? Okay.
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  Great. Let's think about it.
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  Now that we've determined all this, how big is your
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  restaurant? Who, so we designed the kitchen
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  before we even thought about how big the restaurant was, okay?
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  So maybe the restaurant is 100, 100 seats, okay, great.
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  How many days a week, are you open?
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  Five? What days are you closed?
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  Sunday, Monday. Okay.
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  How much money do you make per day?
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  Hmm, we didn't think about that. How many covers do you have per
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  day? How many covers do you need to
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  break even great? What's let's talk about your
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  labor costs? What does that look like?
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  What is your average rate to that?
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  You're paying your Cooks? What do you pay your most
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  expensive cook? What do you pay your most?
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  Newest cook. Mmm.
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  They got to think about that great.
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  How many hours a week are they working?
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  What's your kitchen hierarchy? Look like who's the chef?
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  And they'll say I'm the chef and said, are you the chef or you
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  the restaurant owner? Does that mean that you're doing
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  the butchering? You're doing the ordering you're
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  standing on the pass every day? A lot of them will say, no, I
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  hire a chef de cuisine. You know what they think about
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  it, this in I'll get a chef de cuisine because I'm the
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  restaurant owner. Okay, great.
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  What are your Cooks? We're in the kitchen.
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  What kind of uniform do they have?
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  What colors their apron do? They have uniforms, or do they
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  not have uniforms, is your kitchen open or is your kitchen
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  closed? What is your line look like?
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  What equipment do you have? And they'll say this, I say,
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  okay, well, what brand is your stove?
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  You have a French cooktop, do you have induction?
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  Do you have a hood cleaning company?
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  Who's your hood cleaning company?
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  How often do they come? Who cleans the kitchen?
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  Do your Cooks clean it or do you have night cleaners?
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  How expensive are these night cleaners?
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  What's your budget for that? So these are all those things
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  that you start to think about, right?
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  So you start going through the exercises.
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  Okay, great. Now, let's talk about the dining
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  room. What do your servers, where?
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  How many servers do you have? Do you have a Hostess or a host?
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  What's their uniform look? Like, who takes reservations
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  when the host is not there. Do you have an answer in
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  service? So now the wheels are really
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  starting to turn. And by this point, I've lost
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  most people because they haven't really, they haven't really
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  thought of all these things, right?
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  Do you have a general manager from the front of the house?
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  Is there a separation between the service team in the culinary
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  team? Or are they under one
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  management? Meaning a lot of lot of
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  restaurants is like the chef is the main person throughout the
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  entire restaurant, is that the same thing that you want to
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  achieve, or do you want to have them being equals the front of
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  the house manager, and the person that's in charge of the
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  kitchen? Again, something that you need
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  to think about We talked about the service.
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  What style of service do you have?
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  Who makes their uniforms? Are they custom made?
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  How expensive is each uniform? What did the plates look like,
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  do you use, you know, bernadotte Fine, China, Rosenthal, or do
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  you use a custom Artisan who's making plates for you, what's on
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  the table tablecloths, right? Why do we use tablecloths a lot
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  of places use tablecloths because the tables are beat up?
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  So just because you use a tablecloth doesn't necessarily
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  signify like people are like oh we don't want tablecloths, okay?
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  But then sometimes you have beat up tables, right?
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  What's the trade-off? Do you want to have beat up
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  tables? Are you okay with that?
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  That's up to you? That's, that's your choice.
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  Or would you prefer to have tablecloths, okay?
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  You want tablecloths, how much does that cost?
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  Who does your linen? What stem, where do you use?
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  Right, are using real wine glasses or using some off-brand
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  are using the generic Edward. Don brand, right?
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  What's the flatware? What is your Cutlery look like?
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  Do you preset? Cutlery is it rolled silverware?
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  What are your napkins? What color are the napkin?
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  What is the design of your restaurant?
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  Is it bright to with Windows? Is it?
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  Dark are the chairs comfortable or are they cheap?
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  Write all these things matter when you're opening up a
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  restaurant. Do you want to scale your
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  restaurant? You want multiple restaurants?
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  Where do you want to the location of your restaurant?
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  What city? Is it in a busy part of town?
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  Or is it in a slower part of town?
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  Is it in the suburbs? Are you trying to open up a very
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  high-end experience in a secondary Market?
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  Where you open it in a primary market, right?
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  What's the demographic of the area in which you're opening up
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  your restaurant? So you start to run through all
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  these things in your mind and now your wheels should be
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  turning. Your sure.
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  You should probably be thinking right now to yourself.
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  Should I never thought about all of that?
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  Or I have thought of all that? I'm not sure which one it is.
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  But if you truly want to open up a restaurant, I think you need
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  to go through this exercise and keep asking, what's this, what's
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  that? Get down to the smallest detail,
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  who's creating your logo? What's the name of your
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  restaurant? What does it mean what's the
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  story behind your Cuisine does? Every dish have a story or whose
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  food are you cooking or even cooking your own food or
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  cooking? Someone else's food.
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  The more you think about this? The more you can manifest it,
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  the more it could materialize in the real world.
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  Very successful, people who own restaurants.
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  No down to the mine. Show what they're doing to the
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  placement of the fork, where it goes to, which way you flip the
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  plate. And can they read the name of
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  the plate straight up, or is it upside down?
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  So, think about all these things.
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  I know this is just kind of an exercise.
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  This is something I take people through.
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  I believe it's a good exercise to take yourself through.
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  If you're a chef for one day, you aspire to open up your own
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  restaurant. So you can start thinking about
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  all these things. But I will say that when it does
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  come to opening up a restaurant Aunt, I think a lot of people
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  don't realize the cost Associated, you know, I don't
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  know, having a conversation with a couple of chefs the other day
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  and we were throwing out numbers.
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  We were in this restaurant. We're looking at, like, how much
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  do you think it cost to open up this restaurant?
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  Two million, four million? And the fact of the matter is,
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  like no one's ever saying, oh, you know, 50,000 that that price
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  just doesn't exist. I mean, maybe you could get a
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  food truck for 50,000, but even then I'm not even sure if you
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  could get a food truck for 50,000.
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  I think, for, for the most part, you're looking in the millions
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  of dollars when you're trying. Open up a restaurant.
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  So do you have funding do you have investors behind the fact
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  of the matter is? A lot of restaurants don't make
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  it. That's that's the harsh.
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  Reality of this business a lot of restaurants don't make it a
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  lot of people fail. So if you have a million dollars
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  of your own money, let's say are you willing to gamble that you
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  might lose it. All in six months, it's a tough
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  decision and there's inevitably delays.
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  And you know, one of my friends is open a restaurant.
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  Right now we're talking about all the delays that go into
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  construction. I know when I was opening up the
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  last thing it was like we're going to open up in June know,
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  we're gonna open Up a July August.
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  And then next thing you know, we're opening in September,
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  right? Inevitably there's delays in
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  restaurants and there's the unknown unknown, when the
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  restaurant opens and then you get a food critic or Yelp or
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  whatever and you could go from busy to not busy in a matter of
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  a couple of reviews. So all these things are things
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  that you need to consider. If you want to open up your own
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  restaurant and I'm not trying to discourage anyone from doing
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  that, but I want to make sure that you're having real
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  conversations with yourself, because the more real, the
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  conversation you have with yourself, the more likely, you
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  will be able to succeed. Seed in your restaurant, you
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  have to think of everything because inevitably, there's
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  going to be things that pop up that you didn't think about.
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  But if you've got most of it covered you can then put your
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  attention on the things that you didn't think about.
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  But if you didn't think about a lot of things, you're going to
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  spend a lot of time dealing with those and the things that you
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  didn't even know. You did it.
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  No, anyway, That was a that was a fun little exercise.
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  I like to take people through that.
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  I hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you like that
• 14:39
  style. Like I said, I do a lot of
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  mentoring with chefs and these are some of the things that I
• 14:42
  take people through. If you want to know more about
• 14:44
  that you could DM me if you want to support chefs, PSA,
• 14:50
  subscribe, leave five stars on the podcast.
• 14:53
  Follow us on all social platforms.
• 14:55
  I appreciate it. Go get the book culinary
• 14:58
  leadership fundamentals. How not to be the biggest It in
• 15:01
  the kitchen. And now the line.
• 15:03
  Cook survival manual. Go get some of the merch on
• 15:06
  Chefs. PS a.com, the t-shirts are great
• 15:09
  anyway. Thank you all.
• 15:10
  Hit the point of Music. See you next week.
• 15:01
  It in the kitchen. And now the line.
• 15:03
  Cook survival manual. Go get some of the merch on
• 15:06
  Chefs. PS a.com, the t-shirts are great
• 15:09
  anyway. Thank you all.
• 15:10
  Hit the point of Music. See you next week.