It was a useful day, but I wouldn't want to sound conceited when I say I didn't really learn anything new. She hawks an interesting concept; that the menu is the first thing a would be restaurateur should consider. From it, spring all the other decisions one will make: premises, kitchen, staff, equipment, layout, design. You name it. I am not sold on this. Consider the menu first, sure, but before you start worrying about how many fridges you're going to need, think about location and your market. There are more than a few proprietors gazing hopefully through the door of their empty restaurants, wondering where it all went wrong and how they are going to stop the bailiffs in the morning, because they are in the wrong place.
That said, I do like the idea of the menu being the key. With any business you need a really strong concept of what you are trying to achieve. You need a clear vision to sell to your staff and customers. If your business is a restaurant, then that vision is your menu. In an early exercise we divide into groups. Our first task is to discuss food related business opportunities arising from the recession. A number of ideas are suggested, some good, some bad. I resist the temptation to say Restaurant Consultant but this would clearly be the wisest answer. Next, we peruse a range of menus and consider their relative merits. It makes you realise how shit most menus are. How hard can it be?
At lunch I take care of my sourdough. I refreshed it last night before I left, and again this morning. It is lovely and frothy and smells like a mix of beer and blue cheese. Time is pressing, so I knead it in a machine. I feel like a traitor. I can't help but take it out of the machine and give it a good going over myself. I need to feel it in my hands. After the lecture, I knock it back and I have to admit, lazily put it in tins to prove overnight in the fridge. If I really cared I would get more structure in it and lift it into tins. I have my starter siphoned off, so next time I will take more care. It's a learning process after all.
In the afternoon we chat a little more then go back into our groups and consider some case studies. We have an email sent by a couple who owned a garden centre, and were planning to build a new structure to house an 1800 sq ft coffee shop. Their premises were quite remote, but they had a loyal customer base, many of whom had been encouraging them to diversify in this way. Research in a trade publication indicated they could hope to drive their revenue by as much as 10%. Our group digests the email, and discusses. Before we get too far down the path of what their menu might look like, how they could market themselves, grow vegetables and leaves for the cafe on site, have a crรจche to look after the kids etc etc, I suggest that maybe they shouldn't be doing it at all. Their plan is holier than a well nibbled salad leaf.
Once we proceed on this tangent, it becomes obvious. By the time our restaurant consultant comes round, we tell her how we would advise them not to bother - keep your money in your pocket, stick in a kettle and a few chairs and see how it goes. She is surprised - most groups don't take this path, but it is exactly what she told them. Who needs Gordon Ramsey? There's a recession on. I can see my future unfolding before me.
Earlier in the day we were discussing the wisdom of a soft launch. Only a real idiot would have a Grand Opening. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. One of the students remarked, "My father always said we'd have a really big party the night we close."
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