Tag: burger trends
Burger Wars: Beef versus Plants
When you think of a delicious and juicy hamburger, several components need to be spot on—fresh vegetables, delicious bread, and first and foremost, a delicious patty (preferably a hand-pattied blend of beef). The star is certainly the meat—but what if there is no meat? Can a non-meat burger still be craveable and sought-out by consumers?
With shifts in attitude and preferences for healthier and even animal-friendly (think veganism and vegetarianism) meal options, it’s no wonder that more plant-based burgers are making their way on menus. While many veggie burgers are made from a combination of legumes like beans and lentils, new varieties are trying to come as close to a true meat flavor as possible.
Take the Impossible™ Burger. The company the produces it utilizes “ingredients with the precise properties needed to deliver the taste, texture, flavor and juicy sizzle that meat lovers crave ” In fact, these burgers even “bleed” like the real thing (heme is the key ingredient to produce this effect). Its primary ingredients are wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein, and their meat is sold in restaurants across the country. So does it live up to the hype? You may have to try it yourself to determine this, but in the meantime, check out this review from The Spoon.
Meanwhile, some fast casuals are going 100 percent animal-friendly. Plant Power-Fast Food, based in San Diego, has a large menu featuring all your favorites like bacon cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, breakfast burritos and more. Everything served is plant-based and non-GMO.
If you are thinking of revitalizing your menu to include plant-based options, contact Synergy.
April 2015 Newsletter
Greetings!
It wasn’t so long ago that a number of operators banned “foodstagramming” in their restaurants (of course, some still encourage guests to turn off their cell phones when they’re dining).
Now, of course, most have either embraced Instagram or given in to the fact that certain people will take pictures of their food no matter what. But there’s no denying that the food porn trend goes beyond simple photography—in fact, it could be argued that Instagram and all the other social media are accelerating what is already the crazy-fast adoption of new food trends. And there’s also the ever-present danger of chefs and customers alike focusing (get it?) so much on picture-taking that they forget about how it tastes, or even tasting their food at all. Read the article on restaurateuring in the age of Instagram for additional perspective.
It could also be argued that the whole Bone Broth thing is also a function of social media and its tendency to make this a business of food fetishists. If you want to get on board, our culinary development associate Justin Braly shares a recipe for simple chicken (bone) broth.
And speaking of trends, there’s one that simply shows no sign of being over: better burgers, always and ever. We’ve got 15 different ways to tap it.
To your success,
In the Age of Instagram
By Joan Lang, Editorial Director
If it seems like one minute a restaurant has a certain thing on the menu and two weeks later everyone else has the exact same thing, you’re not imagining it. And it’s not just the foodie press and bloggers and the Food Network. It’s Instagram.
A picture is worth 1,000 words, and food pictures on Instagram say it all: what’s in a dish, what the diner thinks of it, and exactly what it looks like. And that makes this business more competitive than ever.
Or call it the age of food fetishes, and the Cronut was just the start. Thanks to social media—in particular the picture power of Instagram—food trends are now spreading, fully formed, with lightning speed. They’re being hatched, and then they’re being replaced almost as quickly.
Another cheese and meat board—really? More roasted Brussels sprouts with fish sauce replaced by more kale Caesar salads supplanted by more seared cauliflower steaks and now it’s Avocado Toast? Yes, indeed.
There are lots of other implications, besides menus becoming increasingly similar.
As far as Instagram goes, restaurateurs need to decide whether they’re “fer it or agin it” (a policymaking conundrum that not surprisingly tends to split along Millennial lines). As of now, more operators appear to be agin it, or at least not on board, as a recent Smart Brief poll showed the great majority of respondents either not using Instagram or not knowing how to leverage it.
A nice-looking plate is now called “Instagram-worthy” by both guests and reviewers. Can you say “focus on presentation”?
Instagrammers have become the new bloggers, reaping fame and contracts from their posts. And we all know how influential the blogosphere became to the restaurant industry.
Everyone wants to know how to take better Instagram photos, now that they have that fancy iPhone. (We may need to consider changing the lighting to facilitate picture-taking—or anticipate more early-bird specials or growth in the breakfast daypart, just because natural daylight is almost always better.)
Last but certainly not least, savvy marketers are turning to the medium to get their message across.
• Applebee’s has, among other things, turned its Instagram account over to its fans for a year in order to gather user-generated content aimed at helping the aging brand establish its standing as the go-to hangout spot
• Chefs and independents who use Instagram often end up on Must Follow lists that invite more followers (and potential customers) by the hundreds
• Taco Bell uses Instagram very effectively to promote new menu-item launches and LTOs
• Frank Prisinzano, the outspoken chef-owner behind a number of popular New York restaurants, has used his account to critique his own restaurants—getting lots of attention in the process
• Domino’s old sign/new sign “scavenger hunt” has helped draw attention to the chain’s rebranding efforts
• Zoe Nathan Loeb is using her proximity to beautiful food to promote both her restaurants and her new cookbook
Using Instagram needn’t be a big involved campaign. Even something as simple as posting photos of the days specials or inviting fans to post selfies taken in your restaurant can reap beautiful rewards.
The Bone Broth Boom
By Justin Braly, Culinary Development
Whether you call it stock, consommé, brodo or broth, there is no mistaking that the bone broth craze is upon us. Bone broth is heralded for its beneficial nutrients such as collagen (good for hair and nails), glucosamine (great for joint health) and glycine (which is great for removing toxins), but what exactly is it this delicious yet simple elixir?
Bone broth, in theory, is as simple as it gets. Broth by definition is soup consisting of meat or vegetable chunks, and often rice, cooked in stock, and bone broth is even simpler. Bones, with little bits of meat still attached, are cooked with any assortment of vegetables and aromatics for upwards of 24 hours—much longer than most recipes call for—in simmering water until the bones release their collagen and nutrients. This mixture is skimmed of fat regularly as it cooks and strained through a fine mesh sieve when it’s finished… voila! You have bone broth, which has become a cornerstone of the Paleo diet.
The amount of blog posts and websites dedicated to bone broth is astonishing, and small towns even seem to boast at least one person at the farmers market peddling this magical elixir, noting that their broth will change your health for the better. But in major cities, the craze is even bigger. In New York, chef Marco Canora may have started the craze with Brodo: A walk-up window that sells piping hot cups of broth (in three different sizes) to hungry customers in the morning, daring them to “rethink their hot beverage.” In San Francisco, there are at least six places selling “liquid gold.” Will bone broth rival Starbucks one day? Probably not, but maybe instead of a morning juice or afternoon cuppa, people will gravitate towards broth for their nutrients and vitamins.
Like all trends, bone broth has many different iterations. Restaurateurs, chefs and bartenders are taking advantage of the bone broth trend, because if it’s hip consumers will buy it, even in a cocktail format. At Los Angeles’ Pistola you can get “From the Kitchen With Love,” a $22 bone broth cocktail consisting of six ounces of lamb consommé plus two ounces of Glenlivet 15. Consider it a play on French Onion Soup.
While I don’t see the broth cocktail scene taking off, bone broth for kitchen use will stick around, so why not make your own? This recipe for Chicken Bone Broth is a great place to start.
Chicken Bone Broth:
5 lb. chicken bones
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 gal. cold water (enough to cover the ingredients)
2 medium yellow onions, roots cut off and halved
4-5 carrots, washed and cut in half
6-8 celery stalks, washed and cut into thirds
6-8 cloves of garlic
1 bundle thyme (fresh)
3 bay leaves (fresh)
1 tsp. salt
1. Place chicken bones in a large stock pot. Add apple cider vinegar and water to cover the bones.
2. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to keep a low simmer for 24 hours. Stir once or twice in the first few hours, and then a few times for the duration of your simmer, adding additional water as needed.
3. After 24 hours add the vegetables, garlic, salt, thyme and bay leaves to the pot. Increase heat to bring back up to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to maintain a simmer.
4. Cook for 8 hours longer, stirring every hour or so. Let simmer with lid off for the last 2 hours.
5. Strain all ingredients by pouring bone broth from one pot to another through a colander or strainer.
15 Shades of Burger
By Joan Lang, Editorial Director
Quick: What’s one of the most successful and enduringly popular menu items in all the restaurant universe, from mainstream fast food chains to destination dining? What can guests never seem to get enough of? What inspires cult followings and seemingly endless creativity? And what has nearly every revered chef in this country tried a hand at?
Although its exact origins are shrouded in late 19th century obscurity, the hamburger has emerged as one of the iconic pleasures of American dining, and a bulwark of the restaurant menu. From circa-1921 White Castle “belly bombers” to db Bistro Moderne, with its game-changing Original db Burger (a $35 sirloin burger filled with braised short ribs, foie gras and black truffle Parmesan bun, first introduced in 2001), there’s almost nothing that can’t be done to and with a burger.
No wonder sales of burgers keep growing—in 2014, according to NPD, the number of hamburgers sold increased 3%, in part because rising beef prices incented more restaurants to add them and more customers to order them.
Stuffed
Packing a tasty bite of something in the middle of an otherwise traditional patty adds not only flavor and juiciness, but it’s also a surprise for the guest and an operational advantage for the house because it keeps messy, melty ingredients like cheese or foie gras off the griddle. And you can stuff a burger with everything from blue cheese or Brie, to caramelized onions, chutney, salsa, olives, chili, sausage or even a fried egg.
Old-School
Although there’s a great deal of debate about what constitutes a “classic” hamburger—that’s the whole point of this article, after all—after several years of burger one-upsmanship there seems to be a move back to a style of burger that’s traditional, but elevated. That means juicy, well-seasoned meat, traditional condiments and toppings like tomato and mayonnaise, old-school American cheese, and a fresh, slightly squishy bun that soaks up all the juices. No elk meat, no kimchi, no lavash flatbread: just best-in-class technique and ingredients.
Mini
Ah, the slider. These fun little mini-burgers made it possible to put the popular overstuffed sandwich on a small plates menu, and spawned dozens of different variations from pulled pork to fried chicken. The Slider House, in Nashville, has one of everything, and guests can mix and match two or three choices with a side for $8.99 or $11.99 respectively. Sliders have also become increasingly popular as bar snacks, as in the two different formulations of Cheeseburger Sliders tucked among the wings and quesadillas on the Snacktime menu at TGI Friday’s.
Blended
Short rib and sirloin. Brisket and filet. Seeking the perfect ratio of fat to lean, flavor to tenderness, burgermeisters are writing special specs for burgers—half of them, it seems, from butcher-to-the-stars Pat LaFrieda. That and sobriquets like “never frozen,” “handcrafted” and “ground in house” are the earmarks of the quality meat trend that’s sweeping the better burger movement. The famous cheeseburger at Husk takes much of its savor from Benton’s bacon ground in with the chuck and flank
Smashed
Differing schools of thought abound on how to cook a burger, and along with grilled vs. griddled and thick vs. thin, there’s the ongoing controversy of minimal compressing on the grill vs. smashing that puppy down with the spatula til the juices sizzle. We’re talking Smashburger, among others, which promises burgers that are “Smashed Fresh. Served Delicious.” Proponents claim the technique of smashing a meatball-thick patty down on the griddle creates plenty of surface and thin edges that pick up a tasty, crisp char. Shake Shack also smashes its burgers, on a Miraclean griddle, which not only builds flavor but allows the meat to cook more quickly.
Other Meats
Though the great majority of hamburgers are probably made with ground beef, there are all kinds of other meats that can be used to make a signature burger, including turkey, pork and lamb, as well as bison, buffalo and more unusual meats. The Breslin Bar & Dining Room, in New York City, has quickly become famous for its chargrilled lamb burger, which picks up additional Greek accents from the addition of feta cheese and cumin mayonnaise. A menu favorite at Tavern in Los Angeles is the Pork Pork Pork Burger, made with ground pork, bacon and chorizo finished with Manchego cheese and romesco sauce on a brioche bun. And Islands Fine Burgers & Drinks, based in Southern California, invites guests to substitute a turkey patty for any of its burgers.
Fish
Here’s a category that tells you how far the “burger” definition has traveled, with patties made from crab meat, ground tuna or salmon, and shrimp. Fishburgers are great for operations because they can be made with non-premium product, including trim, the thin ends of a salmon filet, or broken shrimp, allowing guests to enjoy a luxury ingredient at an affordable price point. Burgers made with seafood have a low-fat, high-protein nutritional profile that appeals to health-conscious diners who still want the indulgence of a “burger.” The neutral flavor and soft texture of fish also take well to ingredients that wouldn’t work with beef—like the Asian Ahi Tuna Burger served rare with Asian slaw and wasabi dressing at Lazy Dog, which has 16 locations in ahi-crazy Southern California.
Ethnic
The hamburger may not actually exist in Korea, but the kimchi burger has certainly caught on here. Fusion mashup
BopNGrill, in Chicago, has other signature burgers that call to mind other ethnic specialties, including the Pizza Burger (topped with mozzarella sticks, marinara, American, Parmesan, and caramelized onions), Bavarian (pretzel bun, sharp cheddar, caramelized onions, bacon, Dusseldorf mustard) and Hawaiian-esque Loco (fried egg, short-rib gravy, caramelized onions, bacon, sharp cheddar).
Top-of-the-Line
The Original db Burger notwithstanding, restaurateurs and chefs have been trying to outdo each other with the most expensive or most luxurious burgers for years, using ingredients like Wagyu beef, truffles (even Smashburger has a truffled menu entry), lobster, wild mushrooms and even a bottle of Chateau Petrus (served on the side). Not surprisingly, many of these burgers can be had in Las Vegas, but a clutch of upscale restaurants in San Francisco are serving more-ish versions of sliders, like the escargot patties topped with foie gras on the menu at Bisou Bistronomy.
Over the Top
Size and variety also make an impression with burger fans. Chomp Kitchen and Drinks in Warren, RI, has amassed a cult following for its over-the-top Stack Burger 3.0, a towering assemblage consisting of a beef patty with American cheese, spicy fried chicken with smoked gouda, smoked BBQ beef, bacon, ranch dressing, and onion jam with lettuce and tomato. And three-location Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar features an extensive menu that includes 19 different burgers plus additions and substitutions ranging from six different breads to sake-marinated sauerkraut.
Regional
There are regional sandwiches, and regional sodas, so no surprise that burgers come in regional styles, too. In Northeastern Mississippi, for instance, the ground beef is mixed with flour and soy meal and fried, to create something called a Slugburger, while the Deep South is home the Pimento Cheeseburger, a tasty conglomeration that has recently gone trendy outside of its native habitat, as at the new ABV in the Mission District of San Francisco.
Vegetarian
There are veggie burgers and there are veggie burgers, and lately restaurants are catering to guests who avoid meat but crave burgers with versions made from soy, nuts, grains, ground vegetables, and other tasty concoctions. Oshi Burger Bar, part of the Jeff Johnson Restaurant Group in Memphis calls its organic veggie burger the Conscientious Objector, topping it with tomato, crushed avocado, red onion, Swiss, lettuce and burger sauce. Michael Mina makes a Fava Bean Falafel Burger with Gamble Creek Farms organic cucumber yogurt, tomato confit and tahini at Locale Market in St. Petersburg, FL. Even White Castle has a Veggie Slider.
Grass-Fed
Socially conscious sourcing is big in the burger segment, with antibiotic-free and grass-free meat a centerpiece of many business plans. For higher-end independents, many with chain aspirations, grass-fed and local beef is the way to go. Crave Real Burgers, with three locations in Colorado, works with local ranchers for its beef. Breakaway Café, in Sonoma, CA, sources its organic pastured beef from SunFed Ranch. The Burger Lounge chain has been selling grass-fed burgers, local produce and a green lifestyle since 2007. But now even Carl’s Jr. has jumped on the bandwagon with an all-natural, grass-fed offering.
DIY
The Counter was arguably at the forefront of the customizable menu item trend—burger or otherwise—back in 2003 and it’s still going strong, with locations all over nine states plus Ireland, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. With a mix-and-match selection of patty meats and sizes, breads, cheese, toppings and sauces, the concept touts a possible 312,120+ different burger combinations, “unique to each customer,” plus dozens of already-designed options. Of course, it’s easy for just about any restaurant to offer a DIY options: just look at Friendly’s.
Patty Melt
Thanks to the unending popularity of classic American comfort food, it stands to reason that the patty melt would also get the better burger treatment—and the trending success of both grilled cheese sandwiches and artisanal toast hasn’t hurt. Hardee’s Bacon Velveeta Patty Meltdown is in-your-face retro, but the new Snappy Pattys, in Medford, MA, delivers “upscale contemporary American food” including a sixsome of signature patty melt sliders made with grass-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free beef with scratch-made sauces on house-baked olive oil brioche.
Tip of the Month
Want more advice and ideas for using Instagram? Check out these articles from the National Restaurant Association, F&B Kibbutz, and Pizza magazine.
December 2011 Newsletter
Greetings!
The end of the year is upon us, and that means all the annual wrap-ups, best-of’s and best guesses for next year are being published. With this month’s and next month’s newsletter, we’ll be sharing some of our collective thinking on what the important food trends will be in the coming year, based on what we’ve been seeing, hearing, tasting, and drinking in the last few months. The list runs from the ongoing importance of menu items like burgers and pizza to the new fascination with nose-to-tail sourcing.
And we’ll continue with more trends next month. In addition to food trends, we’ve also got some ideas for increasing your beverage sales at a time when many customers are saying “Just water, please.” Creative nonalcoholic beverage items can represent a significant source of incremental sales and lasting customer satisfaction. And if you care about your corporate culture—and you should—make sure to read out colleague Morreen Bayles’s article on how to create a good one.
Wishing you all a safe, healthy and profitable holiday season.
To your success,
Dean and Danny
Food Trends: 12 for ’12, Part I
This is the time of year for reflecting on what’s happened in the past 12 months, and looking forward to the possibilities for the next 12. For many of our peers, that means predicting what some of the food trends will be for 2012. Here are Synergy’s.
The Big Three: Burgers, Dogs and Pizza These value-laced favorites have proven themselves to be blank canvases for the creativity of operators—and the seemingly unending craving of consumers.
1. Burgers: As stripped-down “better burger” franchises like Five Guys and Smashburger continue their march across America, new players are keeping the pressure on. B.A.D. Burgers/Breakfast All Day charges into Manhattan with its huge and trendy menu (Chicken-and-waffles! Five kinds of burger patties! Dozens of a la carte sauce and toppings options!). Coal Burger in Scottsdale bases its burgers on the coal-fired ovens that made parent company Grimaldi’s Pizzeria famous. Not to be outdone, established chains are ramping up their burger offerings: witness Whataburger’s new Green Chile Double, which ran systemwide as an LTO earlier this year.
2. Hot Dogs and Sausage: Where hamburgers go, hot dogs follow, joined by sausages reflective of the growing interest in charcuterie and other housemade meat products. Brats, bangers, even bologna are getting the handcrafted treatment: Kupersmith, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side—a project of eight School of Visual Arts students—emblemizes the trend with a mix-and-match menu of housemade sausages and crafty suds.
3. Pizza: Neapolitan, Provencal-style, grilled, wood-fired, coal-fired, round, square, deep-fried. Topped with everything from fried eggs and Benton’s bacon to handmade mozz and heirloom tomatoes, artisan-style pizzerias are sprouting up everywhere there’s 00 flour and a customer base. Serious Eats’ exhaustive/obsessive weblog Slice is getting a real workout staying up with the volume.
4. Sandwich Generation Hasta la vista, ham and cheese: You’ve been edged out by everything from Vietnamese banh mi and Italian porchetta sandwiches to gourmet grilled cheese and media noche panini. The sandwich category is attracting serious chefs with ambitious culinary philosophies who want to make their food more accessible to time- and wallet-challenged food lovers. Take Charles Kelsey of Cutty’s in Brookline, MA, who has channeled his CIA education and 12 years of experience working at upscale restaurants into a quick-casual concept that dispenses the likes of the Spuckie (a muffaletta-like mélange of fennel salami, hot capicola, mortadella, mozzarella, and olive-carrot salad on ciabatta) and the Ham Pimento (Niman Ranch ham, Southern-style pimiento spread and sweet pickles and baguette).
5. Butchers Get Star Status
The whole nose-to-tail cooking thing (housemade salumi, heritage pigs, and crispy pig tails) has reached its natural next step in the whole “craft butcher” movement, in which many of the meat cutters are or were chefs. The new Butcher and Larder in Chicago, for instance, is run by husband-and-wife chefs whose resumes include some of the Windy City’s finest restaurants. In New Orleans, John’s Besh’s Cochon Butcher not only supplies his other restaurants, but also serves as both a retail and restaurant profit center in its own right. In a reverse move, Prather Ranch Meat Co. is opening a restaurant adjacent to its shop in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. And the uber-hip Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn has begat not only an onsite general store, but also the nearby Marlow & Daughter for grass-fed beef, humanely raised pigs, and all kinds of sausage—the skins are even sent to a tannery to be turned into sustainable leather tote bags.
6. Gluten-Free Gets a Jolt A recent article in the New York Times entitled “Should We All Go Gluten-Free?” shows just how mainstream the disinclination to eat gluten has become—a trend that savvy restaurant operators have not failed to note. In fact, according to Technomic, menu items billed as “gluten-free” increased by 61% between 2010 to 2011. Nowadays, many independents and chains alike sport special menus for celiac sufferers and the gluten-averse, including pizza and pasta concepts like Biaggi’s. Bakeries specialize in gluten-free cupcakes, websites like glutenfreetravelsite.com list restaurants around the country appealing to the gluten-sensitive, and with sales of such products topping $1.6 billion last year, according to Mintel, there’s no doubt that consumers will learn to expect this option more and more when they dine out. Get busy and get the wheat out.
Be sure to check our newsletter in January for Part II of the Food Trends article.
Pour Profits, Instead of Just Water
By Joan Lang
The recent “Beverages at Foodservice” study released by the NPD Group put numbers to a trend that many operators have known implicitly for quite some time: In an attempt to hold the line on expenditures, many consumers are ordering water instead of soda and brewed coffee. In fact, according to NPD, while traffic declined a relatively moderate 1% over the past five years, sales of these profitable but discretionary beverages are down a more significant 6%, representing more than 2.7 billion servings. And that’s some real coin.
The concurrent relative growth of other nonalcoholic categories, including smoothies, specialty coffee and even tried-and-true iced tea, indicates a targeted solution to the problem of customers saying: “Just water please.”
As Synergy’s Dean Small states in this article from Fast Casual, “When a guest buys lunch, they want a beverage, and if you don’t have a creative beverage strategy, they’ll not buy one or trade down to something basic.” That thinking is even more true today as the languid economy struggles into its fourth year.
If you haven’t branched out past the standard-issue beverage offerings of coffee-tea-or-cola, then you’re not doing your part to leverage a powerful source of profits and customer satisfaction. And remember that some people order tap water because they are avoiding calories and caffeine, so you need to take that into account as well when you offer options.
Iced tea and coffee, juices, flavored lemonade, and espresso-based specialties are obvious choices for building beverage sales, but here are some additional ideas for turning on the tap—for profit opportunities.
• Housemade sodas – Remember the old soda fountain? At their simplest, carbonated beverages are nothing more than fizz and flavor, and many clever operators are taking advantage of that fact by utilizing their soda gun or a cartridge-based carbonation system to create their own housemade sodas. At one sixtyblue in Chicago, the extensive beverage list includes housemade sodas flavored with the likes of cara cara orange, pineapple and elderflower, priced at $5. Making sodas in house opens up a range of flavor frontiers, from familiar root beer and chocolate to more exotic products like fennel-cardamom, many of which are designed to be more food friendly than standard cola or lemon-lime.
• Local and regional specialties. The age of artisanship has led to a revived interest in local and small-batch bottled sodas and other beverages, whether traditional favorites or newly minted. At American Eats Tavern, José Andrés’s newest creation, in Washington, DC, the selection of nonalcoholic possibilities includes Moxie from Maine, North Carolina’s Cheerwine, Boylan’s cola and diet cola from New Jersey, and other old-fashioned regional favorites that fit with the restaurant’s American-heritage menu format.
• Seasonal beverages. The possibilities for seasonal offerings go beyond hot beverages in cold weather and coolers in summer. Coffee specialists like Dunkin’ Donuts display considerable genius with hot and cold options that tap into seasonally popular flavors like Gingerbread or Iced Peppermint in December and Tropicana® Orange & Blue Raspberry in the summer. The fact that these season-sensitive beverages respond so well to promotion is absolutely no coincidence.
• Special-teas. The world of tea is, if anything, even more prone to geekdom than coffee, with hundreds of different varieties that tea lovers are rushing to sample. From the fairly standard categories of black, green, and oolong to super-specialized products like exotic flowering white tea, chai (a category of spiced tea beverages), rooibos and other herbal teas, tea-like infusions like hyssop, matcha (a finely milled green tea popular in Japan), and lapsang souchong (smoked tea), this is a category that can educate and delight for a lifetime.
• Customized specialties. A recent SmartBlog on Restaurants post heralded the age of customer specification for beverages, just as build-your-own pizza and mix-and-match sandwiches have put food menus in the consumer’s hands. If you have syrups, juices, bitters and other flavorings on-hand for specialty coffee, these increasingly available products can also be offered as add-ons to other types of beverages, from steamed milk and hot chocolate to lemonade and old-fashioned phosphates. In addition to providing more flavor for the customer, these additions can support premium or a la carte pricing.
• “Healthy halo” beverages. Tea has long been considered a health-giving elixir, and juices and smoothies are another natural when it comes to tapping in to healthy messaging for beverages, but there are other options as well. Natural sweeteners like agave syrup, honey and stevia are supplanting sugar and sugar substitutes in a variety of different refreshers, and fruits and vegetables with purported anti-oxidant powers—like pomegranate and acai—have also become more popular. At LYFE Kitchen, a healthy-foods concept that Synergy Restaurant Consultants helped to develop, the beverage menu includes a variety of healthy beverages both bottled and housemade, including coconut water, pomegranate-cranberry juice, and the Cucumber-Mint Cooler (purified water with slices of fresh cucumber, mint and lemon).
Need help making your beverage menu more interesting and customer-friendly? Synergy Restaurant Consultants can provide a free evaluation.
How to create culture
By Morreen Rukin Bayles, President, Creative Restaurant Solutions
Culture: It’s one of those concepts that is so hard to define because it’s not tangible like an employment application, a training manual, or a performance review. Culture is not something you can touch, but it certainly is something you can feel, whether it is present or absent. It’s the fiber that weaves together a team and it’s exhibited in the way managers and employees interact with one another and with the guest or customer they serve. It’s the energy, attitude, and support evident in these interactions.
Creating a productive, effective culture takes time, focus, and consistency. Because culture sets you apart from your competition, it’s critical to take the time to thoroughly define it and thread it through all aspects of the employment life cycle. To create a distinctive culture, use the following tips:
• Start with your organization’s mission, purpose, and value, then define the behaviors required to deliver them 100% of the time.
• Determine the energy and “feeling” for your concept from the perspective of the managers, employees, and consumer. How will you be different from your competitors? What unique behaviors must occur to provide this differentiation?
• Identify, by position, the actionable tasks necessary to provide the desired level of service, and include those behavioral components in the job definitions.
• Create hiring tools that identify the type of person who can perform the required tasks while naturally exhibiting the desired behaviors. This is essential because it’s easy to train the tasks required for the job, but nearly impossible to train the behaviors. For example, many companies conduct pre-hire assessments that test for their desired behaviors. Others conduct behavioral interviews where you ask the candidate to imagine themselves in realistic scenarios and see how they would react. Provide training to the professions using the hiring tools to ensure they use them consistently and appropriately.
• Conduct an orientation that exemplifies the culture with every new employee. Make sure the orientation involves interaction, activities, and introductions to all other team members. At the end of the orientation day, if new employees don’t feel inspired and welcome, you can guarantee they will turnover quickly.
• Provide training heavily weighted toward hands-on practice and involvement with other team members. Validate the effectiveness of training with hands-on demonstrations and activities. Make it as “real-life” as possible. Allow for flexibility in the number of hours required for training based on the team member’s ability to demonstrate the behaviors and tasks.
• Create an environment based on acknowledging positive behavior. Recognize and reward managers and employees who foster the culture. Rewards can be as simple as a shout out at a pre-shift meeting, to a hand-written thank you note, to a small gift card. It doesn’t have to be much, but it should be given publicly to motivate others to strive for the desired behaviors. How can you identify these people? Just look at their results. In an environment where culture is strong and delivered consistently, retention and sales are usually up, while costs and complaints are down.
• Incorporate cultural components into performance reviews and make them just as important as the numeric results.
• Provide advancement opportunities to those who uphold the culture and get the results.
• Conduct culture surveys periodically to assess the reality of the day-to-day execution and perception of your organization’s culture. Getting feedback from those who have to uphold the culture everyday is priceless.
Yes, all this takes time and effort. But incorporating these suggestions is invaluable to the organization’s results and retention. Paying attention to your culture will help to position you for more profit and long-term success while creating a more enjoyable environment for the people you serve.
Tip of the Month
Have you decided to ramp up your selection of tea offerings? Congratulations: You’ve picked a subject that has kept people fascinated for thousands of years. Tea connoisseurship is every bit as specialized as the fields of wine or coffee, so you’ll need a few resources to get you started: Teausa.org represents the U.S. tea industry through the combined resources of The Tea Association of the USA, Inc., The Tea Council of the USA, and the Specialty Tea Institute. Learn-About-Tea provides a good basic starting point for learning about the world’s many kinds of tea, their history, characteristics and benefits.
In Pursuit of Tea is beautiful retail site that includes ample information about the culture of tea, its health benefits and brewing tips. This article on Tea Flavor Profiles from About.com takes a more flavor-based approach to tea selection, and includes links to more detailed entries.