As of February 1, Terroir Restaurant & Wine Bar will be closed. This journey has come to an end, but as Semisonic poetically said in the song “Closing Time”:

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

Cheers!

Stu

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I hate to generalize, but in my 18 years in the biz, I’ve known two kinds of chefs: those who love to do functions, large parties and catering, and those who don’t. Most of my career has been spent in smallish, usually owner-operated, fine-dining restaurants and boutique hotels with little-to-no banquet space, so you guess which category I fall under.

Being an owner-operator myself, though, I have a choice to make when it comes to the eternal restaurant question: Do you take a large party and give up a-la-carte seating and/or possibly close for that private function, or do you turn it down and concentrate on regular business? I certainly expected the question to come up during the peak holiday season, but this dilemma reared its head more often than I would have imagined for a 60-seat restaurant.

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Last week I received a letter in the mail. Yes, real mail, not e-mail, text message or carrier pigeon.

There’s nothing that earth-shattering in receiving a letter, except that is from a customer and her husband who dined with us a few days before and who happen to live in our neighborhood.

Let me digress for a moment and say that I’ve been jaded and skeptical about the online restaurant-reviewing “media,” particular in my fair city of Portland. In general, they pull out their keyboards before connecting the synapses in their brains and generally have some pre-existing biases that tend to conflict with the true ethics of reviewing.

With that in mind, I opened this handwritten envelope with a bit of trepidation and cynicism. My mind was thinking, “Oh great, a complaint letter.” That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad ...Read More

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In this time of holiday giving, the issue of customer service seems to be at the forefront, at least here at Terroir. My question to all you purveyors, is “What happened to my customer service?”

The weekend before Christmas turned out to be a fairly busy time at the restaurant. Between parties, mixers and regular service, we were a bit busier than I expected. We started to run low on a few of my artisan cheeses, so I contacted one of my local specialty-foods distributors (an independently run business, for your information). I don’t do a lot of business with them because they lack the depth and knowledge of Pacific Northwest ingredients we typically need, and I have had customer-service ...Read More

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Cole (as in Cole Danehower, my wine and beverage guy, r.) and I were having dinner the other night, and we were discussing what has and hasn’t been accomplished on the public-relations front since we opened. The message we’d hoped to get across was, “Terroir is the quintessential Pacific-Northwest restaurant. A place that feels like a real restaurant. It’s a copacetic blend of good design and focused intent. Terroir is that rare restaurant that seems so right for its location, yet with an appeal far beyond its neighborhood. A place that will convince you that small plates, civilized dining and reasonably priced food can coexist.”

The problem is that the new customer base doesn&...Read More

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Will "Tuesdays at Terroir" bring in winter stay-at-home customers? Stu Stein's going to take that gamble.

Back in business school (go Fighting Illini) and even as recently as when I taught restaurant management, the marketing buzzwords were focus groups, market segments and ROI (return on investment). We in the hospitality industry (and especially those of us in the independently owned restaurant segment) do not always have the money, time and external expertise needed to mount traditional marketing campaigns.

I’m not just talking about guerrilla marketing, which Jay Conrad Levinson defines as “unconventional ways of pursuing conventional goals. It is a proven [marketing] m...Read More

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Busy earth2table blogger Stu Stein finds a few delightful meals at airports.

Within the last month, I’ve been to Montreal, San Francisco and Seattle and have traveled through a half a dozen airports along the way. Mind you, this was business-related (mostly business-related, anyway). What I have noticed is if you want to experience and understand (at least superficially understand) the terroir of a city, visit its airport.

I see that skeptical, snide look on your face, but bear with me while I try to prove my point. Want a local microbrew in San Francisco or Seattle? Head over to Gordon Biersch at San Francisco International Airport, or the Seattle Tap Room at S...Read More

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A local [Portland, Ore.] reviewer--in a condescending, “I don’t understand, but allow me to tell you how smart I am” way—recently wrote of Terroir, “I was suspicious of what the menu said he was evoking: A Taste of the Pacific Northwest. Hasn’t it already been done? What more could Stein do with it?”

Hasn’t it already been done? Basically, the reviewer was asking why we need another restaurant, caring about preserving local tastes, flavors, communities and artisans. Why? Because it needs to be done. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

That being said, others have asked, now that summer’s glory has passed giving way to winter’s chill, what can be done about sourcing ...Read More

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When you receive that phone call from a local charity does your blood pressure begin to race? Does the excuse section of your brain go into over drive? Do you hand the phone to your business partner and tell them to make a decision? ...Read More

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Picture me wearing a large (extremely large) cowboy hat and chef whites out in front of my restaurant, in front of a big banner over my door reading, “Come down to Crazy Stu’s, where our prices are so low, they’re just plain INSAAANE! Save big, ’cause we’re slashing prices and EVERYTHING MUST GO! And if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is!”...Read More

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