Edward J

Good Chef's coats are double breasted for a reason: For good presentation, you quickly unbutton, and then button up on the "good side". For working away, a bib apron is effective, again, for presentation, it's just a quick removal of the apron, tuck the bib down, and tie it back on for a "regular" apron. Cheap coats are cheap, best used for "messy days" when you know you'll be getting dirty.

Huge area to go into. Lease reading is one area of expertise, new or partial build-outs tied to a lease are another. Staffing is a biggie, and much of it depends on local laws Lawsuits are another Local bylaws regarding noise, opening hours, another Liquor licensing another, and I hope that no U.S. state has as archaic and stupid liquor laws as Canada does. Contract writing for catering another and on and on and on

Location, location, location. If the place you want to take over has no gas/open flame or hood, and is located in a building with residentail suites, or if the place you want to rent has never been a food business, don't do it. IMHO everyone will complain about odours, noisy guests, and opening hours. You will need a minimum of 120 amps of power if you go with induction or plain electric cooking eqpt.. You also need to budget amperage for d/washing, refrigeration, (also includes foh refrig) lighting, foh stuff like espresso machines, ice machine, hot water heater, a/c and or heating, etc. Health dept. doesn't really care much about the type of cooking equipment you have, but many insist on NSF/UL listed commercial eqpt--California insists on this. Landlord's insurance co may or may not give you grief about cooking without a vent hood or proper fire supression system (Ansul system), again, every Fire Dept. has different codes. Health will want to know how you sanitize your equipment though, and may give a household d/w the "hairy eyeball", and I doubt many health dept's still allow the "three sink method" for a'la carte places. City may demand for a grease trap (aka grease interceptor)--again, every municipaity has different codes I guess what I'm trying to say is to check out you local municipality to see what they want for a restaurant. You will need a minimum of $50,000 start up for rent, inventory, salaries, permits and fees, and opening expenses. 99% of places that go under in the first 6 mths do so because they are under financed. Take heed! If you have transportation most of your supplies can be bought locally and on a daily or bi-weekly basis. Oh, and make sure your clothes washer and dryer at home are in good shape......................................

Mickey D's washrooms get vandalized regularily, as with many other chains, not to mention the gawd-awfull messes many leave behind. These get cleaned on a hourly or bi-hourly basis. One of my observations on human behavior is that if anything is free or underprioced it will be treated with scorn and contempt.

Ummm.. no, I've "resurfaced" my nylon cutting boards many times. Matter of fact, I've been known to pick out used nylon cutting boards out of the garbage or ask the manager for them, trim them up with a table saw, and resurface them on a thickness planer and have "brand new" cutting boards--which I would sell back to the manager.

In any case, I usually add some kind of mirepoix in my stocks. Chicken stock just begs for leeks, in my opinion. Celery usually finds it's way in most of my stocks--I peel my celery stalks for soups and other dishes (you can floss your teeth with the tough outside fibers) so the peels and leaves go into the stock, same with the greens of leeks. Not a big fan of carrot in most stocks, but will include it when roasting mirepoix for jus. Onions, or any family member of the onion family always goes into my stocks. Bayleaf and a bit of thyme always go in as well--it's second nature by now as I have fresh bay and many herbs growing in my backyard all year round.

In central Europe (Switz. Germany, France) there is no stalk celery. Celeriac is referred to as celery. During my 7 years in Switzerland I was taught in school (Kantonal Gewerbeschule, Stadt Luzern), and at the work place instructed to include celery root trimmings as mirepoix. It was roasted along with other root vegetables for veal stock, and the flesh was used for salads and for soups. The skin does include a lot of dirt trapped in the fine roots so it must be carefully washed.

The Europeans do not use stalk celery--the way we know it--but rather celery root: A big round thing,1-2 lbs, pale yellow/whie skin with a creamy white interior. (the flesh oxidizes very quickly) It has a celery flavour, but is different, not as assertive and melds in the background very well. Some of the more "classic" mirepoix include ham, with some very old cookbooks asking to line the bottom of a pot with first with ham, then mirepoix, then the liquid.

had a peek at the M od d'art website. These are the "good ones". Our local C.C. uses them, and when I went to the Calebaut Workshop in Montreal last year they had about 12 of them--one for each variety of couverture. Derrick said they had them for about two years and had no isues with them at all. The ones I have serious issues with is the Martelatto brand--two units and each melted down into a stinking puddle of plastic and burnt chocolate.....

Who makes/mnfctrs the mol d'art? I've had some serious issues with "other" plastic melters.

I couldn't get much technical information from the Wolf site regarding this oven. For years, there have been many commercial convection ovens with a "steam' feature. But this is not true steam... For pro Euro-bakeries and many Chinese bakeries, the ovens (or steamers) are fitted with a box that generates steam. This operates independent of the oven and belches clouds of steam into the oven cavity. These units consume a lot of power to convert water to steam. Most of the Euro-bakers use the steam in 2 or 3 10 second blasts and then no more for that bake. What the commercial convection ovens (but NOT including the Rational ovens) have, is a water line connected to a solenoid. Press a button and water is squirted onto the squirell cage fan of the oven. Tiny droplets of water are flung all over the oven cavity. However, you need energy to convert water into steam. The energy comes from the oven's walls. You will get steam but at a cost--lower oven temps. It will take the oven some time to get back up to temperature again.

This thread has gone on much longer than I intended, but I welcome all the replies. So, the thread was about how to handle people who use washrooms and then walk out. It's quite a common problem and I listed the approaches other merchants have taken. (keys at the counter, "no public washroom" signs, or, in Starbuck's case electric apartment-building style buzzers) From your replies, I have refrained from using these approaches. But as I have said already, the problem exists, it's just that many don't think it a problem, and many merchants don't really bring up the subject. Although I have been cooking and baking professionally for close to 30 years now, and in 3 continents, I feel I have a different perspective than most e-gulleters. It's not the cooking perspective,(there are many here who have much more experience on things like sous-vide and m.g.) but rather the perspective from a food establishment owner/manager. I don't find much of this perspective in many of the threads on this forum since joining several years ago. In any case it is a different perspective, some might take issue with it, some might find it refreshing, and then there's also the big hope that some might use it to think differently.........

It's a pity that merchants don't share this opinion. Surely you, and every one on this forum have been asked at one time or another to buy some thing or leave*? Yes, merchants do have that right. *(ie browsing in the magazine section for 20 mins while waiting for a bus or ducking out of the rain?)

Ipe is another one, teak has bits of silica in it, wooden barrels for water, liquor, wine, etc, are usually made of white oak. The point I'm trying to make is that wood will expand when exposed to humidty. The expansion and contraction will put considerable stress on the wood fibres beside the glue joint, and this is where it will fatigue eventually. It's kind of the same thing of why you shouldn't soak an axe in water to tighten up the head--after a few cycles the wood will fatigue because it can't expand aginst solid steel, and will not expand anymore, making for a very loose (and dangeerous) axe head. The best designed solid wood furniture (and boats) and the ones that have lasted so long are designed not to combat wood movement, but to accomodate it. Most people do not like to handwash a wood cutting board, and don't like to use bleach to sanitize the board after using it for poultry, meat, ect. It's sooooo much easier to toss the thing into a dishwasher..

Absolutely. But don't forget that once made, a boat sits in water ALL of the time--no humidity changes. And also, a common boat building technique is to space the planks about a dime's thickness apart, so that when the planks swell they don't buckle and pull away. A wood cutting board goes through a very nasty environment in a d/w--hit with hot water, then subjected to steam, then dry heat for the "dry" cycle, then back to room temp with humidity under 75%--and all this in under 3 hours. No wood can survive this kind of abuse for very long.

Yeah, that looks like rotary-cut maple veneer. Ya'gotta understand that wood moves with humidity changes it's just a bunch of fibers held together with lignin, a natural glue. Flat-sawn wood moves a lot, quarter- sawn not much at all, split or riven even less, but all wood moves--even wood in furniture 300 years old still moves--provided there are humidity changes. Film finishes for cutting boards are a lousy idea. Most film finishes are not flexible, and wood moves, so eventually stress cracks will appear on the finish--if it has gone through extreme humidity changes in a short period of time like in a dishwasher. And once moisture gets under the film finish it's game over. Bamboo is not a wood, but a grass, and it is hollow. Bamboo flooring, cutting boards, etc., are made up of slim strips of bamboo that are glued together. Even with hairline glue joints, it still is a lot of glue surface to bamboo ratio.

Exactly my point. It isn't a "coffee shop". I sell artisan chocoaltes and psstries. See what you want to see, read what you want to read.

Ah, qwerty, thank you for taking the time to write such a long post. 1) Guy knew washrooms were for customer use only, because he said he'd get something after using it. I believe I said this in my post. 2)Why was I a jerk? The guy was obviously trying to weasel out of buying something when he said he would. I gave him a way out and he took it,(without putting any change into the tip jar...) is that being a jerk? 3)Yes, many merchants including myself and even my church and kid's schools will call the city to have cars towed when they need to. So, yes you are right, everyone does it. For me, when I advertise , I like to promote my products and service. Everyone who walks into a store sees what they want to see. Mr Realtor only saw a bathroom,because that's all he wanted to see. One of my biggest sources of amusement is with some of my "regs", the ones who come in all the time for coffee. It is only when they come into the store with a friend or child that the other sees a 6' display case of pralines and a 8' display wall of chocolate figurines and bars. The reg's eyes pop open, "When did you start selling this stuff?" they ask.

From reading the original post, it seems like many of the problems stem from untrained employees and owners/managers with little experience. One feeds the other, I guess. Experienced restaurateurs are reluctant to start up in small towns for a number of reasons: Availability of trained employees is a big one, small pool of customers to draw from is another, and liquor is a harder sell as many customers have to drive much further--no taxis or busses to catch. I'm sure the owners and /or managers are aware of their problems, or they should be.... As an owner myself, I appreciate honest criticism from customers, and I know only honest ones will bother to point out my shortcomings, those who don't care just won't come back and won't bother to say anything. It's a tough call.

No, no rage. Customer came out of the bathroom and proceeded to the counter to ask about coffee--his choice, not mine. I am obliged to answer qeustions about my producsts, which I did. If I didn't, I would be considered "rude", even though it was obvious he wanted to weasel out of a situation--which he did. Pehaps I was being rude when I suggested to "just put some change in the tip jar and go"? Or was it a segway to end an embarassing situation? But he DID come back, only to park in front of my business--on a Saturday, 2 days later. From the time he parked to tire marking to ticketing to towing was over 4 hrs, and he parked directly under a 1 hr parking sign. Was I being nasty? Rude? Perhaps the city is, imposing parking restrictions on busy strets with all the ticketing an towing? I'm not upset about his, but only want to illustrate what happens "on the other side of the cash register". I had no idea it would garner so many responses, but am glad it does.

Love the attitude. Guy was a real estate agent. Made a nice little commission on a 1/4 million condo within 2 days. But that's not the point. He knew that washrooms were for customer use only, but was too cheap to buy something. O.K. I can live with that, but then to go on, ask stupid questions if my coffee is bird friendly as well as fair trade is a bit rich, again, I can live with that too, but then comparing prices to Starbucks went too far. He was obviously looking for a way to weasel out of paying for a 2 buck coffee and wasting a lot of time doing it. Do you think he would actually come back? He knew he embarassed himself and made himself look like a cheap a-hole. Do you actually think he would have the kahunas to come back and buy something at a latter date? It's a question I'm pretty sure you won't answer. If someone parks their vehicle underneath a sign that states 1 hr parking and camps out for a whole afternoon, it is their business. Some of the stupidist things I've seen are very angry people arguing with traffic cops or tow truck drivers about parking signs. Many merchants along the street call the city to ticket when cars are camped out for whole afternoons--it really screws up the parking for other customers. I did not identify myself when I called him up, just told him his car was being towed.

Chocoolate too cold. Choc. will shrink if it is nice and warm and properly tempered. As it cools it doesn't shrink as much-no shrink, poor release.. Try getting it a half degre higher.

Like I said in previous posts, ther are no qualificatins/standards/benchmarks for cooks, and only one private society has them for Chefs. Once standards are in place for "cooks", the b.s. will slow down enormously. Once standards are in place...... Problem is, no one really is making any effort. Certainly not the schools, not the Unions, not the hospitality industry as a whole.

I thought this thread went dead last year. In any case I believe I have illustrated some of the challenges I face as a small independent artisan chocolate shop, and I am sure many other operators, don't face the same challenges. Mjx, yes, I am happy to sell even small items (my cheapest is $1.25). This is why I open for business. Bigkoiguy, currently I do not "punish" any customers. As I described in the above post, I still do not have locks installed. Some abuse this, and some appreciate it. If you look at some of the other replies in this thread, they range from talk of libel and lawsuit, to insistence that I provide his service--no ifs or buts. It was only Panaderia Canadiese that used the word "respect". That's all I want.

Business recognition, not personal recognition. Competing Chefs are either owners/partners or have the owner's blessing to compete. Prizes? Caah purse wouild be best, but usually sposors provide the prizes and very little choice is given.