Restaurants and Institutions

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So You Wanted to Have a Restaurant
July 10, 2007

Here’s a little insight into a day in the life.

Chef Stu Stein (r.) with Cole Danehower, Terroir's wine/beverage consultant.

Last Saturday, I arrived at the restaurant at about 7:30 a.m. We’d done 122 people the night before (we turned away two parties of four during the 8 p.m. rush because we didn’t have tables available) and we were, to say the least, a little low on prep. We’d started with about 30 people on the books for Friday, so you can see that so far, we are definitely a “walk-in” restaurant. That said, I looked and saw we had about 26 people on the books for Saturday. (I think we need to start a pool for the final number of covers we do.)

First on the list: Make coffee and turn on the music. As she does several days a week, one of our neighbors comes by about this time to have a cup of coffee with me and fill our large flower vase with freshly cut flowers from her garden.

Next: Open my office and take a quick look at sales reports from the night before. Currently, we are averaging about 2½-to-2¾ plates per person, with a total check average of around $30 per person. Sales by dollars are split 58% food sales to 42% alcoholic-beverage sales. It’s only been two weeks so it’s hard to tell, but we’re just about right on target with my initial plan.

Now it’s time to get sauce work and butchering out of the way while I have the place to myself and it’s still cool in the kitchen. I take my veal stock and veal remoulage (the second stock made from already-used veal bones) and begin to make veal demi-glace. I start the red-wine sauce for the beef, white-wine jus for the rabbit, roasted vegetable stock, and cauliflower-horseradish broth for the risotto; then I start to braise lamb shoulder for the lamb pasta. I clean and marinate beef top sirloin and rabbit hind legs, using the bones and trim for the sauces. I clean several whole sockeye salmons for the Salmon a la Plancha (I’ll use the trim for the tartare).

At 9 a.m., Maria, my restaurant cleaner/daytime prep cook, arrives to begin cleaning the restaurant from the night before. As soon as she cleans the ashes from the wood-burning oven, I crank it up so the hearth can begin to heat up for night service. I didn’t have much for dinner last night, so I decide to make some scrambled eggs toast for Maria and myself.

By 11 a.m., Maria is finished cleaning and starts her prep list for the day: French fries, brunoise vegetables for the lamb pasta, and English pea flan, among other tasks. Friday, I’d called one of my cheese makers and left a message for him to add several things to his normal Saturday farmer’s market list for my cheese plate tonight. This morning, I called him and found out he didn’t get my message, but he did have ideas about several products I could use. He called his contact at the market and told her to pull them aside, and that I would be there within the hour. (I guess I need to make a little detour to downtown Portland this morning.)

By 1:30 p.m., the rest of my staff begins to arrive: two hot-line cooks, pantry cook and pastry chef’s assistant, Jose (Maria’s husband). Most of my prep work is complete by the time they begin to do their mise en place and go through their prep sheets and station assignments for the night.

My front-of-the-house manager had a previous engagement tonight (he told me when I hired him), so my wife Mary comes in at about 2 p.m. She goes through the waiters’ side-work lists and then prints the wine list for tonight with help via telephone from Cole Danehower, my wine/beverage consultant. Mary’s been at the restaurant almost every night after she finishes her work as a regional chef at McCormick & Schmick’s. And I thought I worked a lot! She tells me that we need to work with the waiters on their initial table greetings: They need to make sure they mention that Terroir is a small-plate restaurant where guests are meant to design their own experiences.

At 3:30 p.m., my guys put out family meal (purchased veggie lasagna with garlic bread and salad), and we all sit down to go over the menu and wine changes, along with who’s on the books and what we need to concentrate on regarding service standards.

By 4 p.m., the outdoor-seating area is set, family meal is cleaned up, my p.m .dishwasher has arrived and we are ready to rock ’n’ roll.

I’ll save you the suspense: We did 107 covers that night. After organizing everything for inventory on Monday and helping my staff break down the coolers and the screens from the hood system, I got home about 11:45 p.m. It was time to sleep, for Monday I count and order.

At least it’s a four-day week. Gotta love the 4th of July holiday!

 

And the journey continues.

Cheers!

Stu

Comments or questions? E-mail Chef Stu at StuStein@rimag.com.

Posted by Stu Stein on July 10, 2007 | Comments (1)