Clark Wolf's Rants, Raves, Diatribes...and a few other Thoughts

Pull Over, I’m Hungry!: Santa Rosa’s food truck controversy

 

Are food trucks good – or bad – for competition?  Bricks and mortar restaurateurs periodically get their knickers in a tart twist about the mobile food business parked out front, so it’s only fair to look at it from a purely business perspective.

Restaurant folks are deeply entrepreneurial and adaptive.  They screamed bloody murder when faced with impending no-smoking laws, then figured out how to make new, larger profits from smoke-free bar rooms.

They’re also delightfully mouthy and often make very good copy for the ever growing coterie of writers on food; professional and otherwise.

Food trucks are hot copy. New ideas and ancient offerings come fast and furiously, fueling tweets probably best reserved for international uprisings.  But hey, culture that tastes this good is worth a nibble.

History and common sense tell us that clusters of food businesses breed healthy competition and more general success.  The term “Restaurant Row” happened for a reason, and casual offerings next to more formal ones just bring more customers looking for more choices — perhaps not today, but often in the surprisingly near future.

Recently, up my way in Sonoma County, there was a bit of a dust up when the local town elders promoted what they call “Munch Mondays” in a city parking lot, designed to build downtown activity in Santa Rosa.

It’s done alright so far – it actually reminded me about eating downtown, which I’ve done twice recently at brick and mortar restaurants, and had never done on a Monday.

A loud complaint came in the form of a letter to the editor from a beleaguered server who complained that “three servers, two bus boys, three cooks, a hostess and a manager [waited] by the window for somebody to come in,” while these drive-by eateries stole their business.

I’ll tell you who’s ruining that woman’s restaurant business. It’s about who was scheduled to work on a Monday in January in the bricks and mortar biz, not about who scheduled the trucks.

I salute the city council, urge them to keep it up, maybe rent a truck to offer in rotation to these established local restaurants so that they can try new foods, meet new customers and promote their best instincts, which should always include lively competition.

Full article here

The staff meal: working together, eating together

 

According to experts, breaking bread together regularly is a way to solidify familial bonds. If that’s true, is there a better way to build camaraderie among employees than to have daily group meals? And is there any better business to do that in than a restaurant?

That’s the philosophy of Joseph Calcagno, 49, who owns five Italian restaurants, including pizzerias, in Manhattan, Staten Island and upstate New York. He makes sure that, every day, his workforce of 100 or so eats a carefully prepared lunch together at their respective establishments.

Mr. Calcagno introduced these events when he opened his first pizza joint in Hudson, N.Y., at age 19. He was continuing a practice of his father and grandfather, who had run pizzerias in Brooklyn and honored the long European tradition of feeding laborers around a common table.

Held in the late afternoon, the family-style lunches consist of food cooked in a restaurant’s kitchen usually by the chef, but sometimes by a waiter or other employee, or even Mr. Calcagno himself. The business remains open, with workers joining or leaving the meal as they need to.

“When you break bread with someone every day, you have a different relationship with that person,” said Mr. Calcagno, whose restaurants have combined annual revenues of about $4 million.

Clark Wolf, president of Clark Wolf Co., a Manhattan-based food and restaurant consultancy, thinks Mr. Calcagno’s instincts are on the money. “Sharing food promotes productivity—that’s a fact,” he said.

When he ran a gourmet grocery in San Francisco, Mr. Wolf said, he would make an elaborate breakfast for all his staffers every Sunday. “Believe me, it works,” he said. “Everyone felt honored and respected.”

Though the approach is natural for a food business, any company can adopt it—for example, by providing lunch on Fridays. It’s important that whatever is served be high-quality fare, according to Mr. Wolf. “The Googles and Oracles, they go to a lot of trouble to have really good food,” he said. “It’s not just better nutrition but fosters a positive attitude.” Google, for example, serves such specialty items as sushi and fresh berries.

Another option is to have a regular potluck lunch, Mr. Wolf said.

Full article here