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Work Your Plan
September 18, 2007

Many of you may have seen the latest e-mail newsletter from Terroir or saw the press release with this announcement:

“Terroir is now open on Sundays! Chef Stu Stein’s new eco-friendly restaurant, featuring small plates made with sustainably grown local food, has proven so popular since opening in late June that he has decided to extend the hours. Starting Sunday, September 9, Terroir Restaurant & Wine Bar will be open six days a week: Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. For more information and reservations, call (503) 288-3715 or visit www.terroirportland.com.”

“Why?” you may ask. Or, “So popular? Yeah, right!”

What it really is about is working the plan. From the beginning, the business plan was based on the assumption that Terroir would be open for dinner six days a week. (To be honest, I always dreamed of having the perfect chef-owner job and only working four days a week. For some reason I just couldn’t make the numbers work out right on the budgeted pro-forma statements, so I decided to try to be realistic.)

When we put our team together near opening, we were operating Tuesdays through Saturdays, 5 p.m. until 11 p.m. It didn’t make logistical, scheduling or financial sense to try to immediately open for a sixth day. It was partly a staff-comfort issue, as in, how many front- and back-of-the-house personnel do I need each day to execute our vision? Do we really need five line cooks every day or can we run the line with only three on weekdays and four on weekends? How many tables can our waitstaff comfortably handle without being too overwhelmed or overloaded? Do we really need a back waiter or an expediter/food runner?

I knew that if I could get to the point where: a) My cooks were on nine- to 10-hour shifts, working four days a week; b) We could run the line with three staff members during the slower days; and c) We could run without a back waiter/expediter/food runner, then my employee and general-overhead numbers would be minimal on Sundays. It took a month or so to learn the answers to those questions, at least based on current volumes, and the answers all turned out to be, “Yes, we can.”

The other question was whether the neighborhood would support us. I seem to have been proven right that the locals want a place like ours to go to on Sundays. Other similar restaurants have been somewhat busy on Sundays (I do go out to eat and see what is happening occasionally), and our own numbers for the first three weeks we’ve been open on Sundays support my assumption that we could do the same. I’m not saying we are turning people away or that there is a line around the block yet, but even without much advertising, we are getting customers through the door, in the seats and spending money (check averages are more than $30 per person so far).

As with many of the issues I’ve raised since we have opened, only time will tell how our strategy works out. But I do think the one key is flexibility. Know when to bob, when to weave, when to back off and when to make the gutsy move.

Cheers!

Stu

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

Posted by Stu Stein on September 18, 2007 | Comments (0)