Restaurant loyalty

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

We don't do fast food. Our carry outs include Persian, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Cuban, Seafood (fried oysters on a salad tonight), Continental, Thai, and maybe some others I can't think of...most all of it is upscale.

The food is plenty hot for our preferences and plating to us is less important than ingredients and preparation.

. . . . Pete

It's not so much that they can't keep the food hot, but that the texture gets ruined. For example, I would imagine that fried oysters are best immediately out of the fryer and their quality rapidly deteriorates as they make their way to your house. Which is what I mean by plating, the textural integrity of the dish seems very hard to preserve.

But I trust Robert when he says it can be done!

 

[Peter Creasey]

Nope, the quality ingredients and preparation don't deteriorate in such a brief time frame.

. . . . . Pete

 

[Tristan Welles]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

Nope, the quality ingredients and preparation don't deteriorate in such a brief time frame.

. . . . . Pete

Fried food? In just about any type of container the steam alone works to ruin the texture. Gotta disagree with your police work, Lou.

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

Rather than eat out, we tend to order by phone, then carry out, and then eat at home with our wine/music/ambience/comfortable attire/etc.

. . . . . Pete

Hm. If we're including takeout, then our local island Chinese place surely passes the six times a year rule. Probably more like twelve times a year, as I'd guess we order takeout Chinese at least once a month.

But I wasn't really thinking we were counting that kind of place.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

 

[Chris Coad]

Part of it is that, at least in NYC, restaurants that people find interesting are very much a luxury item. By which I mean the kind of expensive that would give my depression-era mom a heart attack. We loved eating at Apiary, for example, but a dinner there would work out to be about 1/3rd of our monthly rent. Worth it for the experience, but not tenable to do more than a few times a year.

 

[kirk wallace]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

My understanding has always been that to succeed long term, restaurants need a steady core of regulars. History is littered wth restos that open with big buzz and then closed within 18 months.

To my mind, the sign of a good restaurant is that they treat 1st timers (and infrequent returners) as valued regulars, so as to have a chance of those folks coming back, and valued regulars as such (without making newbies feel slighted or under-appreciated).

 

[kirk wallace]

originally posted by kirk wallace:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

My understanding has always been that to succeed long term, restaurants need a steady core of regulars. History is littered wth restos that opened with big buzz and then closed within 18 months.

To my mind, the sign of a good restaurant is that they treat 1st timers (and infrequent returners) as valued regulars, so as to have a chance of those folks coming back, and valued regulars as such (without making newbies feel slighted or under-appreciated).

 

[Brad Kane]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

I'm not sure how much you can really extrapolate from a dozen or so people responding on a wine board, Jeff. I mean, whereas it doesn't seem like many of us here frequent the same fine dining restaurant(s) with regularity, I know at least three people that will dine at Marea every week or two.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Brad Kane:
I'm not sure how much you can really extrapolate from a dozen or so people responding on a wine board, Jeff. I mean, whereas it doesn't seem like many of us here frequent the same fine dining restaurant(s) with regularity, I know at least three people that will dine at Marea every week or two.

Oh, agreed, agreed. I'm not working on a PhD thesis. I'm just thinking about the kind of people I know. If we're all a bunch of thrill-seekers who must have something new, and that's atypical of the populace at large, so be it.

 

[robert ames]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

well, in dinky walla walla, it is our regulars that carry us through the winter months, but every time i am serving someone that says that this is there first time here (almost always from out of town), i always welcome them and, as their dining is winding down, always say that we look forward to their return.

interesting aside--in a completely different world, haruki murakami, before he was supporting himself as a writer, had a jazz bar in tokyo, where his goal regarding repeat customers was to get one person out of ten first-time customers to return. when your customer population base is sorta 10 million people that will pay the bills and keep the doors open.

 

[Tristan Welles]

originally posted by Brad Kane:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

I'm not sure how much you can really extrapolate from a dozen or so people responding on a wine board, Jeff. I mean, whereas it doesn't seem like many of us here frequent the same fine dining restaurant(s) with regularity, I know at least three people that will dine at Marea every week or two.

And considering the self-selection process needed to get to Disorderly status, I'd say any summary of this discussion is probably misleading.

While cooking seems to be a passion of many here, we seem to be overlooking some of the things a good restaurant can do which even the most dedicated amateur can't achieve. Like having three or four stocks to hand. I make veal stock quite often, even going the next step and preparing a demi-glace. But fish stock? Almost never.

And restaurants certainly have first dibs, sometimes almost a monopoly, on the best ingredients. Even the best markets in the largest U.S. cities rarely have fresh rabbit or feathered game, etc.

 

[mark e]

originally posted by Tristan Welles:

And restaurants certainly have first dibs, sometimes almost a monopoly, on the best ingredients.

I have no direct experience with NYC restaurants, but on the West Coast (and certainly where I live now in central NC) nothing is farther from the truth. As a consumer, I have generally bought direct from organic farms in both places and so do some restaurants, but most do not. The phrase on many SF restaurant menus: "organic when available" would be - these days at least - called "alternative facts."

When working as a produce buyer in SF - using only high quality organic and biodynamic ingredients - I would say that I was in the company of a very, very small number of other restaurants. Perhaps a handful. So no, restaurants don't have anything approaching a monopoly.

 

[Tristan Welles]

you have knowledge of something (bio- or organic produce) of which I wasn't thinking.

So I will amend my thought as follows: In Chicago there is no doubt that restaurants have a near monopoly on the best products when it comes to lots of seafood, game, imported butter, farm produce, and other categories.

In the few instances where I could source from the same supply it is very inefficient to do so. So the supply chain is another factor that validates the higher quality of food, in many instances, that restaurants can produce.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by Brad Kane:

I mean, whereas it doesn't seem like many of us here frequent the same fine dining restaurant(s) with regularity, I know at least three people that will dine at Marea every week or two.

If I could afford to, I would too. So consistently good. Five minutes from my office.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by MLipton:
To turn Kirk's point on its head (mind you, I'm not implying that Kirk has a pointy head), those of us who live in smaller communities as opposed to the restaurant meccas of NY/SF/LA and Chicago have many fewer dining options. So, going out to dinner comes down for us to a choice between 7 local restaurants and one wine bar that we enjoy enough to go to. Dining out comes down to taking a break from cooking at home, a task that mostly falls onto my shoulders (not that I mind) and eating foods that we can't easily prepare at home. Since we'll eat out a couple of times a week on average, the 6 times a year threshold is reached rather easily for several of those. Of those 8 places, only 6 would be considered "fine dining" and we'd have wine at only 5 of them.

Mark Lipton

This. We get a babysitter twice a week (for sanity) and so we HAVE to go out. We have a rotation of spots that we hit 6+ times a year.

I know a place that I wish Rahsaan would hit 6 times a year, it would inspire me to keep having a killer wine list (since customers, in general, give zero fucks it is really more of a charity than anything).

As much as I would love to really track our customer data, it really isn't possible at a granular level for a small restaurant (and i say this as an owner who is very comfortable with data collection and analysis). We rely on our staff for insights into our customer base. IMO, we keep the doors open through regular customers who dine with us 6+ times a year and if we make any money, it is due to customer flow above that.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The count runs about 2:1 in favor of people who have 'favorite' restaurants using the loose standard offered. But, among those, only a few said they went really often. Some of this has to do with cost (eating home is cheaper) and some of it has to do with the local market (e.g., my 365 potential dinners diluted across 10,000 local restaurants).

But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

If we needed 150 covers a night, we'd be out of business.

The lease you sign determines everything else about a restaurant.

Business plans really aren't that focused in this industry. It may be for corporate restaurants, but not independent ones. We focus more on cost control and hospitality more than a focus on new customers versus regulars. New restaurants soak up many of the new customers, who then move on to the next gramable spot.

 

[Florida Jim]

Regarding how many times I go to my favorite restaurant; when in CA, once a week minimum.
When in FL, never.
We are about 6 and 6 in each.
Hence, about 26-30 times per year.
Best, Jim

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by VLM:
I know a place that I wish Rahsaan would hit 6 times a year, it would inspire me to keep having a killer wine list (since customers, in general, give zero fucks it is really more of a charity than anything).

Hint well taken!

When I recently refreshed my memory of your wine list, I was indeed reminded of how special it is. I should probably make an effort to enjoy it in the near future.

If I'm being brutally honest, my memories of the food at Rue Cler are certainly good but the food is more exciting at Mateo, the new Mothers and Sons, or even the Counting House. And when I go out to dinner it is usually not with wine geeks, so we end up at one of these places. But perhaps I should revisit.

 

[evan hansen]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
But if I need 150 covers/night to keep the lights on, it appears that a restaurant must rely on a steady stream of new guests.

Restaurateurs out there, is that how it is? Do your business plans incorporate a bias towards 'new guests'?

I can't speak to what it's like in highly saturated cities like SF or NYC, but in Detroit, our model is simple: Be as good as we can be at everything we do within our concept, and people will come. And more importantly, we try to offer the best hospitality within our "style" of service to everyone, regardless of who they are.

So far, it's worked quite well. We anticipated that we'd get a lot of repeat guests, and we do. But we also still get a lot of new guests, folks from out of town, and so on.

We're able to track that about a third of our sales come from repeat customers, but that data is VERY incomplete, so I imagine it's higher than that. But we're doing 150 covers on OK weekdays and 300+ covers on a moderately busy Saturday, so there's a big range there and a lot of them are certainly new each week.

originally posted by Tristan Welles:
In the few instances where I could source from the same supply it is very inefficient to do so. So the supply chain is another factor that validates the higher quality of food, in many instances, that restaurants can produce.

Much like my earlier sentiments, I imagine NYC and SF to be quite different, but in Detroit, this isn't wrong. We have a very large farmer's market in the city, but it's a mix of both small and very large producers and resellers, and there are smaller markets in the suburbs, but they are indeed quite small. At our restaurant, we work most frequently with farmers that can deliver. My partner/chef certainly walks the market, but we get a lot from urban farms (another thing that'd be rare in high value real estate markets like NYC and SF) that is simply dropped off at our door.

Conversely, on a visit to Madison where I was talking to an orchard owner and walking the market to find provisions for dinner, it was clear that a lot of the great farms in the region were represented there and almost none of the market was chewed up with less reputable producers. Honestly, it was a dream market, and there were a few chefs that they recognized and pointed out on a Saturday morning.

Beyond the local produce, I think most markets, whether it's SF or Madison or Detroit, skew toward restaurants. We definitely get good cheese, oysters, overnighted seafood, freshly milled flours from earlier in the week, etc that a lot of places can't get. And when they do, we get to refuse it if it's off in any way, whereas a reseller might not grant you that advantage.