Demo this.

If you had this space for a weekend, what would you demo/teach to 18 affluent, paying, engaged, kitchen savvy people?  Anything you want, any price point you want to hit.  It's got all the equipment you could need, motion activated cameras connected to high-def screens, and a hell of a marketing department.

Let me know.  I'm curious.

A day in the life...and a trip to Taylor AFS

Sometimes, despite the fact that it is technically what is known as a JOB, my career allows me to have some fun.

 This was not a typical day, but it just kind of played out this way.  Let's start with the end:  A lavish spread put on by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington at Virtue Feed & Grain in Alexandria.  I called my wife and told her I wouldn't be home for dinner.

Now let's go back to the beginning.  It started out with a trip to Taylor AFS.  They provide a line of restaurant equipment that is top notch.  I had my team join me there for an off-site sales meeting.  The guys at Taylor said they'd feed us lunch.  That was an understatement.

 This was one of the crab bombs they cooked up in their combi-oven.  It steams, broils, sautes, bakes, and holds foods at different temperatures.  You can set shrimp to steam on the bottom for 3 minutes and veggies on the next rack up to steam for 7, they both get done perfectly at the same time and there is no transfer of flavors.  Neato.

 A shot of the raw bombs.

 Who doesn't love swirly's?  These guys distribute a very nice line of products.

This is David Forbes showing us how the Henny Penny pressure fryer works.  He was the person who invited us for lunch and a demo.  The fryer keeps the chicken perfectly moist, and uses much less energy than conventional open-top fryers.

They also demonstrated some great open-top fryers that use recirculating heat and ingenious designs that allow you to use less oil and energy.  The savings mount up quickly.  Another neat feature is that the open-top fryers have built-in filters and only take a few minutes to cycle through the filtration process.  Wish they'd had those when I was dropping wings in the fryer!
Below is a video of Michael Johns giving his elevator pitch:

 They carry their own line of breading too.  Very tasty stuff.

  See!  There were veggies.

How about a dashboard that tells you what the temp of every critical storage area in your restaurant is?  All wirelessly.  Alerts can be sent to your cell phone.  Neat stuff.  Keeps logs for your HACCP needs as well.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed a little slice of life here.  If you have any questions on any of the things you've seen here feel free to post a comment or send me a message.  More posts coming soon.

Why, and at what rate, do restaurants fail?

Research from Cornell about restaurant failure rates and reasons

KDS (Kitchen Display Systems) at The Hamilton in Washington, DC

These are some pictures from a new restaurant/entertainment venue in DC named The Hamilton.  It's 950 seats and they are open 24X7 starting in late December 2011.

 There is nothing quite like a huge shiny kitchen with lots of technical toys.  The three expediter screens are 26" touch screens.  They look very tough and industrial.

 All mounting was done by a business partner of mine.   If you're interested in having him do your mounts/security/surveillance/phones/audio let me know.

 The mounts are all industrial-grade VESA 100.  Very tight and secure.

 There are 13 individual 19" prep KDS screens in two kitchens and a service bar, and 2 of the 26" screens for the expo stations.

 The beauty of KDS is that it cuts down on any verbal communication in the kitchen, with each prep person only seeing what they need to do.  There are circles at the top of each ticket that let every person in the kitchen who has items on that particular check see which other stations have items on the same check and allows them to coordinate silently on a table-by-table basis.

 Once each station is done with their part of any given check, they double-tap the ticket and it disappears from their screen.  The expediter sees the circles representing each station fill in as the check gets completed.

 Once all prep stations are completed, the ticket shoots to the upper left hand corner of the expediter screen and will have a blinking, perforated border, letting them know that that is the oldest complete check and any food in the window on that check belongs to that table.

 The operators of The Hamilton have put this to tremendous use in the Old Ebbitt Grill, which is actually in the same building.  The Old Ebbitt can run over 1000 covers a day, doing $25 Million+ on an annual basis, and have no food left over at the end of a rush because each person only makes what's on their screen.  It's helped them bring in an extra $1,000,000 a year in revenue due to speed increases.

 Another benefit of the KDS system is that every detail of every check/menu item/station is tracked from the second it is rung into the system until it is marked done by the expediter.  This means you can tell exactly how long each station is taking to get items done, how long each menu item is taking, how many times any station has hit alert levels, and where the bottlenecks are.  Silver Diner was able to increase their guest velocity by 28% during times they were one a wait by analyzing various aspects of these reports and adjusting their operations accordingly.  If you would like details, shoot me a message.

 This is a speed of service screen, or SOS as it's known in our vernacular.  This is also a 26" screen.  It shows a box for each table in the restaurant.  You can scroll to the right on the screen to see each floor.  Once a check is started on the table the square turns white.  Once a food item is rung in a small box appears in the square with a timer showing how long it's been cooking.  There are configurable alert levels set so that after a certain amount of time the square will turn yellow, alerting the kitchen staff and management that alert level 1 has been hit for that table, and then another alert timer will trigger alert 2, which turns it red.  Each alert reached is also indicated by an exclamation point in the box.  Once the order is marked as done at all prep stations and the expediter station the square turns blue, but the exclamation points remain, allowing managers to have visibility to the fact that the table did in fact reach alert one and/or two.  The box resets once the check is closed on the table.

You can also look at the detail of any check by double-tapping any square that is showing an open check.  In addition to that, any station can high-lite any menu item on their screen with a touch, then hit a media key which can bring up any information the restaurant would like to enter about that menu item including recipes or preparation instructions in text or video format.  It can cut down on training cost/time and increase the consistency of the items being produced.  It's much more than just a paperless kitchen.

For more chef-driven restaurants, we now have the ability for the chef to high-lite items on his screen and tell the prep stations to start working on them.  This is handy in tapas style as well as steak houses, where a chef may want the secondary stations to wait to prepare short prep-time items while a steak is being cooked.

All-in-all, a very high-tech operation using technology to it's advantage.  If you would like more information on the system and how I can help you use technology to make your restaurant more efficient and profitable please reach out.

Controller Position for DC Metro Restaurant Group

Controller Position

The Controller will handle all accounting, database/analysis, and financial responsibilities.  The primary duties include:

• Manage day-to-day operations of the Accounting Department, including preparation of weekly and monthly financial statements
• Interaction with other the Company Leadership
• Cash management, bank structures and relationship, and shareholder distributions
• Detailed communication and planning with outside accounting firm
• Accounting duties, including payables/receivables, inventory management, sales reporting, cost accounting, financial forecasting and modeling, expense reimbursement system, etc. with focus on systems building, implementation and efficiency
• Loss prevention
• Establish, implement, and maintain internal controls
• HR functions, including employee benefits administration, working with outside payroll company with the plan of bringing payroll completely in-house
• Audit and income tax planning, primarily preparation of information for outside CPA prepared tax returns and annual audit
• Managing of insurance coverages and premiums
• Other financial, accounting, tax and administrative aspects, including evaluating, implementing, and overseeing the use of technology in the company’s operations.
• Financial Analysis and Modeling (Cash, Real Estate, ROI on business Deals)
• Presentations and Reporting (Periodic Board Reporting)

Department Management:

• Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, and Controlling an Accounting Department.  (Developing for our next phase of growth)
• Weekly, 4 week Period, Quarterly, and Annual P+L reporting
• Payroll ( Payroll Experience to take the function in house with Compeat Software)
• Receivables  (inter and intra company Bakery Billings and LLC Restaurant transferring of product)
• Payables  (Streamlined Payables and Direct Billing)
• Compliance (Labor Laws, IRS reporting, Records and Data Archiving, Licenses and Leases)
• Compeat Analytics Data (Theoretical Food Cost, Recipe Data Base, Payables)
• Loss Prevention
• Banking Relationships (All online services for payroll, payables, and statement reconciliations including all cash management)
• Insurance renewals in general insurances and employee benefits

Qualifications

The ideal candidate has an accounting degree, with at least 5 years in restaurant or hotel bookkeeping and accounting.   CPA or MBA is a plus.  The candidate should be trustworthy, organized, hard working, flexible, a detail-oriented self-starter and able to thrive in a small, team oriented and entrepreneurial environment.  Strong computer skills are required, intermediate to expert Excel user, and experience with restaurant-centric food cost management system (COMPEAT experience is a plus, but not a must). 

Experience successfully managing a team of 3-5 administrative and accounting staff is required, as is some true “company-building” experience as it relates to building and implementing systems in a department or workgroup.  Proven experience in financial analysis, financial management, and project management. 

The position offers competitive compensation and benefits.

Sustainable Restaurant Practices by DCSEU

For those of you who missed the sustainable restaurant practices seminar Monday presented by The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, you'll find a sheet with some ideas from DC's Sustainable Energy Utility below.  A great panel including Hollis Silverman of Thinkfood Group and John Snellgrove of The Saint Ex Group were involved.

Here's a video of some of the neat things MICROS can do with a partner, namely Unison Agency http://unisonagency.com/  in Georgetown.  Please check them out.  Let them know where you saw this.