gerald

Great to see you Guys at the show today - Good luck with the new store - congratulations ← Good to see you too, i'll look forward to your announcement soon.

You have an address Gerald? Congrats on the addition to the empire! A. ← Fraser Heights, 160th and 108th ave (the new south surrey, only its north of hwy1, go figure) 15989 108th ave 604-582-8372(vera)

Vera's Burger Shack Fraser Heights, will be opening on monday March 13th, with liquor licensing following shortly thereafter.

ahhh to dream

I think the thing that thoughtbox finds most annoying is the core competancies of the cc model. thoughtbox, you are or have been in restaurant business, you clearly understand numbers, I think the reason cc does this with the burger pricing is because it is a standard throughout their menu. you know this is a nickel and dime business ( actually more like pennies and nickels), if you took the margin or error across their menu and calcuated the same mistakes it would make a significant difference. The other thing that you are not looking at when it comes to menu engineering produce price fluctuation kills menu items. I will tell you, there is not a restauranteur around that doesn't cringe at the every caesar salad going out in dec, jan , feb, when lettuce can get upto 80.00 a case, from a norm of 18-24. Tomatoes? all i can tell you is please don't order extra on your burger in the winter, again the price moves into the 50's. my point being, the very thing that cactus clubs of the world do, is what you don't appreciate (maybe appreciate is the wrong word). Lastly, it may seem lackng soul, but soul can be inconsistent, and inconsistent kills restaurants like cc. edited to ad the following PS i think at heart, most of us are just burger eaters

Daddy A I couldn't help but notice the backdrop for your tamale pic, bottom right hand corner, Is it subliminal, or just an amusing mistake. edited for the correct pic

Unfortuntely, staffing in the qsr business is a bitch, when you have good people you have to hang onto them. At the end of the day, scotts comment about the staff thinking they were running the store probably speaks to his staffs discontent. "Wow Scott the owner of this Blend's use to be a coffee merchant in the New Westminster Quay when I was running a wine shop there back in the 80's.I just got off the phone with Scott and he said that he had a mutiny by staff who thought they were running the shop Anyway he said it's been a major headache with staff and a businessman's worse nightmare. " Unless he is there 24/7 at some level, the staff are running the store. It is very tough times in the labour pool, minimum wage does not cut it.

okay okay so after my 5th glass of red truck i hope earls doesn't read this thread, i don't want to have to go there to buy my red truck okay okay so its a bottle and I'm by myself, does that make me a bad person, but my wife had a sip b-4 she passed out

like a casino the food is a component of the experience, they want you to come back for the full package.

Couldn't agree more, give any independant owner the pockets and buying power of a cfd, and they would be your mistress.

I guess I have to chirp in here a little bit. I think cfd's exceed expectations in a couple of ways 1. The consistency, a restauranteur/chef that I worked for once said be consistenly bad or good, just be consistent, if a guest has to guess what he/she is in for they will go elsewhere. How many great restaurants have gone out of business because of that, ALOT. 2. Training, how many times have you interviewed/worked with somebody who worked in a cfd and thought, wow they can handle the rush, now we just need to teach them how to serve, they are by most accounts workhorses, that need some polish. 3. Lastly, they innovate in terms of design and menu engineering. POS systems would not exist without cfd's, qsr's, std's (okay the last one is a why staff changerooms exist, Okay I jest, or do I , Only the cfd's theft camera's know for sure ) The negative aspect of the "chains" is that the little guys have the tendancy to get coitussed up the caboose, when trying to get pricing that allows them to be profitable, someones gotta pay for the cost plus contract that get signed. From personal experience, my partner once asked me if it pissed me off that the bigger we got the better pricing we asked for and received? My response was no, thats the way the game is played. The interesting thing is that cc, earls, milestones et al need to figure out the way to engineer the menu ala noble, bond.... and have the 10.00 cook re-create it EVERYTIME. Sometimes its just easier to acquiese to the masses and say "caesar with chicken, would you like cajun or teriyaki". Then turn, show off the quarter bouncing caboose and run off for a giggle about the guys that are checking you out. I can tell you personally we cook one item 80% of the time and my 10.00 flippers still screw it up more than I would like. My wife is in the clothing business and lamented how difficult it was to buy every season, and be unsure about whether or not the cothes your are buying will sell. I responded with my standard sensitivity, I smirked and said you want difficult, try making 50000 burgers ALL THE SAME, cfds have a much bigger and more complex menu. enjoying my 3rd glass of red truck, by cline which interestingly enough has imo done a very good job of creating a 15-20 dollar set of wines that are consistent from year to year, alot tougher (especially when mother nature plays tricks with ouy) than cfds and stds (but they stay roughly as long) cheers

winners submissions check the link above to see who won the build a better burger contest, the winners burger will go on our menu from feb 20 2006 until feb 19th 2007 thanks for all your submissions I think it was huge success.

The Fishhouse and Cannery were sold over 10 years ago, I can't conceive a scenario in which Bud would sell Fortes (well, short of a 1 with 7 zero's after it)

After reviewing, cooking, tasting, testing (about 100 times personally) we came down to the 15 top choices. The judging took place yesterday at an undisclosed location, so secure it was that one of the judges wentr to the wrong place. WE HAVE A WINNER!!! We will be having a release party for the new burger on tuesday from 3-5 where we will be giving out samples of the top 3 burgers. davie st location 1030 davie st from 3-5. thanks again to all the people that submitted recipes and we hope that this will become a yearly contest. Further, thanks to the judges who gave up their time to try alot of meat (10 different burgers were made and judged). Hope to see you tuesday Gerald

a brilliant piece about andrew morrisons life.

Was at gotham last night, they sold out in the first day, 1400 resos they could not call out because of the incoming call volume.

Testing is ongoing with a total of 1056 entries, I would like to thank the egulleters that contributed to the build a better burger contest, stay tuned for updates. We hope to have a final 15 recipes by the 10th of january and will then forward the recipes to the judges for their input. Once we have done that we will narrow the field to the final 6 for tasting and declaration of the winners.

anyhow, back on point circolo, had the porterhouse for 2 (and I even shared), outstanding, came with a bed of arugula and shaved padano. wingnuts, with my partner noah, hammered down 60 wings, spicy thai peanut sauce, very good, jerk sauce, okay, smokey bbq, a little sweet for my taste, seriously hot, very good. Had a couple of deep fried candy bars as noah says, how do you take a candy bar and make it even worse for you, dunk it in the deep fryer. flying wedge, had the vegetarian on flax crust, know what, the flax crust is excellent

soprasata is a spicy pork salami, your best bet would be, a bosa and sons, or falesca importing if they are still around.

In jan feb, Vera's Burger Shack will be moving accross the lane in kits, in a fully renovated space with Ice Cream, salads, 5 tv's and 30-40 seats. hope to see you there

its not aurora but vera's kits is open 11-9 christmas day

I can only say when I was in the fine dining game your kitchen stayed open until your posted closing time, if anything your main kitchen closed and you still did appys and desserts, or if a party comes in you get your kitchen staff who are now changed or in process of getting cleaned, put a bottle of to-kill-ya and a couple of pitchers on the pass line and say "boys I need a little support" As a guy who snaps if my staff remove condiment boxes early I can only hope if it happens in my place I get a phone call asap so I can deal with it like a fat kid deals with a chocolate bar-agressively (personally speaking). bottom line, you get served (the worst case scenario, everyone was cut because it was quiet) let me get the grill going and i'll fire up some steaks and chicken.

One of my biggest mistakes in my previous fine dining incarnation was not fighting hard enough to hire andrea jefferson. She has an excellent command of the kitchen, flavours are clean and distinctive, I will definitely frequent quince. Andrea if you are lurking good luck.

You should be taking anna nicole smith's lead and marrying a cash sucking old-timer, not buying one. Back on Point, Another benefit of the lp route is that it gives you alot more "eyes" which are focused on the things that can negatively impact your business. Your partners won't tell you when they have gone to a your place, but you will hear about it if they had an issue. As the general partner you need to have thick skin and a head for business, having partners help keep both on point. When its the banks money, emotion can cloud judgement, when its people that you see or have relationships with, it provides brilliant clarity.

Great thread Jamie; As Someone who has financed projects under the exact Limited Partnership formula that Jamie puts forth I can tell you the benefits. 1. If you have a real handle on the budget required it allows you to open with the ability to focus building the business not on the ever present thought " please let this be a good weekend so we can pay our.... whatever needs to be paid NOW". If you are a restauaranteur and you haven't gone through that all I can say is you have way too much money. 2. If the deal is fair and people like what you are about then it is much easier to get done. 3. If you are doing this form of financing NEVER, EVER,EVER,EVER do a cash call. Nothing says "i don't know what I'm doing more than that". If you have to ask for money at the start and then return additional funds early your partners will look at it as a bonus payment. This form of fundraising is good for both independants that have a track record in the industry and for growing concerns. The issue with growing concerns is that if you are like us, where you can show a good concept and growth potential, everytime you want to go the traditional funding route it inhibits growth, with things like personal guarantees (the seans comments re the house on the line) the bank likes to fund one at a time, on a 4-5 year return that does not allow for much growth, the "MAW" formula is good because it allows better growth. Proof is in the pudding we are opening 3 stores next year on the back of that formula.