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earth2table: How to Get Your Associate's Culinary Degree in 500 Words or Less
January 4, 2007

Stu Stein

January 4, 2007
One of the students in my restaurant-management class gave me an article she wrote to share with all of you. When you have completed reading, you may forward your check, payable to Terroir Restaurant & Wine Bar University, and I will have your diploma in the mail to you in 5 to 7 business days.

Lessons From Uncle Stu

By Kali Eichen, Patisserie and Baking, Western Culinary Institute, Portland, Ore.

I enrolled in culinary school to become a baker, not a businesswoman. But Chef Stu, our esteemed teacher and restaurateur, makes opening a restaurant from scratch seem as easy as making pie crust from scratch. Based on his experience in the industry, he has developed something that sounds—to this neophyte—like a foolproof method for opening a successful restaurant. I have distilled for you here his most important lessons, so take careful note.

Play With Someone Else's Money. You are going to make mistakes. You might even fail. That is OK. Failure leads to learning, which leads to better decision-making in the future (and a stronger character, says most everyone from Gandhi to Colin Powell). With that in mind, do not go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy by starting your own business right away; go into management instead. Find a job, climb the culinary ladder and do whatever it takes to get actual experience running a restaurant before you invest your life savings in an endeavor that, as I said before, may fail.

Keep a Finger in Every Pot, Part I. No, I am not suggesting the Ken Lay (of Enron) approach but rather that you have intimate entrepreneurial and culinary knowledge of all details for the business you want to create. Commit to memory every page of your business plan. This way, you will know important details large and small<\m>from where every dollar you beg for will go to the thread count of your linens. When it comes to the biggies—accounting, insurance, licensing and the like—it is advisable to hire professionals, but it also is important that you do homework first: crunch your own numbers and do your own research. The more planning you do and the more well-thought out your business plan, the more likely you are to succeed—which leads to lesson three.

Put Together a Sexy Business Plan. Your business plan should entice, stimulate and excite. Like every person out there looking for the "perfect mate" package, your business plan should be complete with the works: the who, what, when, where and how-in-the-name-of-all-things-holy about your restaurant; customer demographics; strategies for getting butts in the seats; what a day in the life of this restaurant will look like; and how cash will flow in and out. This document is not only key to convincing the rest of the world that this restaurant is a financially viable and lucrative idea, but also the blueprint for how you will run your business (see previous lesson).

Keep a Finger in Every Pot; Part II. Two words by which to live: quality control. Test your recipes and test them often. Just because you gave the sous chef a recipe and plate design for the dish that made your restaurant famous does not always mean it will look or taste like the recipe that made your restaurant famous. People expect consistency. Disappointment does not lead to repeat customers.

That’s enough for today. Class dismissed.

Stu

Posted by Stu Stein on January 4, 2007 | Comments (0)