Busboy

Ahem -- if you don't want a bellman don't give him your bags. If you don't want to use the valet, don't give him your keys. Having them work for you, and then stiffing them, is wrong, regardless of the reasons behind your actions.

It was bad enough that I'll be on vacation and miss the picnic. Now that pulled pork is involved, I'm officially . I hope you're happy. We'll take a picture for you. OK 1PM it is. See you all there. I'm of to the market and the butcher (anyone know where to get lamb sausage casings?).

That seals it. I'm there 1PM rain or shine.

I think a gallon will go far -- I've noticed that this is a pretty moderat crew (you, me and Mrs. Busboy excepted)

I think people are just going to byob, and rely on Al's Sangria for a change of pace. Al -- can we bring a bottle of rioja or something to help you extend your recipe? Rojo o bianco?

Hey little bird, fly away home... (Did you notice that Battali picked "Singapore" as one of his five suicide road trip songs?) Does 1 o'clock work for you? There will likely be dogs in the park, mnebergall's aside, but they kind of have their own corner, away from where we'll be.

I can move to one, if that works for the others, why don't we see who else wants to weigh in before we move it, though. I am happy to help haul the Weber. Dogs are invited. And I haven't washed my car in a year.

The condition of my lawn is hard evidence that thunderstorms are predicted more often than they happen, so my fingers are crossed. At any rate, I'll prpbably head out in anthything short of a true toad-strangler. If anyone wants to, they can call me for a report, day of; thunderstorms are sometimes so localized, thge weather may be completely different from one zip code to the next. Just PM me for the #. Otherwise, I'll post about 1PM if things look dicey, and try to figure out a back-up plan in the mean time. I think we can share the grill, I am eager to taste your wings. Charcoal would be great.

One is required to use the English word for foreign cities when discussing logistics, foreign policy and other serious subjects. One is allowed to use the local names when waxing romantic or nostalgic, or when speaking with a native speaker. Right: After we made love, we stood on the balcony as the moonlight played on the Arno and gas lamps illuminated the back streets of Firenze. Wrong: These plumbing fixtures were made in Firenze.

I checked out the site this morning. The bad news is that they seem to have removed the grills during the most recent renovation, but I will be bringing a small that Al and I can share. If anyone else has a hibachi or something they can tote along, that would be swell. The good news is that the bathrooms were clean and open. Our little corner of the park will be just down from where 31st street intersects with R street. See you Sunday at 2.

Street parking, but usually pretty easy to get. Glad you can make it!

I am going to swing by, hopefully this evening, and make certain, but there were grills extant last time I looked. I will also bring my mini-grill to supplement.

The current forecast is for perfect picnic weather this Sunday, and even those who fear the stove can think in terms of tomato salad (unless HillValley wants to change her offering) or even a cheese run so that mkyte's extraordinary bread won't be under-utilized. Dessert might be appreciated, as well. Come on down! Here's the list as it now stands: Mnebergall -- BBQ Busboy & Friends – Homemade sausage; grilled summer vegetables; peaches & sticky Hillvalley – Salad Mr.& Mrs. mktye – Bread and Asian salad Al Dente & Friend – wings and Sangria hjshorter & son – Potato salad, slaw and juice boxes Edemuth -- market selection Looks like 10 adults and three kids at this point. Montrose Park is in Georgetown, on R Street between 28th and 32nd. We will set up the on the right side of the park as you face it from R street -- the cemetary side -- towards the kids playground. Call time is 2 PM though I will be getting there early to ensure that we have a table or two.

Not necessarily true. Higher sales means higher cost of goods sold thus resulting in a lower gross profit. To generate the same profit level of lowering your cost of goods sold by 5%, you would need to generate 10x the sales. This depends on the initial margin, though -- I'm curious to see the math. You're assuming an initial 6% margin, right? But, even at a volume increase of substantially less than 10x, the margin begins to expand, since certain costs are fixed, ie rent, lighting, advertising, licensing, some labor, etc. In some cases -- say a bar with a large fixed investment but low sales volume -- lowering prices below present cost might even bring in enough new business to creat a profit where none existed before. Theoretically anyway -- if your bar's not taking in enough to cover fixed costs, pricing may not be the problem. At the level of hip and trendy, bars don't compete on cost so much as on intangibles, creating a branding effect which in turn increases price inelasticity. Anyway, why wasn't economics this compelling back when it was my major?

Beans: What are your employers' fixed costs? Own or rent? You're in a waterfront location, right? Probably pretty pricey if he's paying rent, especially if his landlord knows he has six-figure weekends. How often does he have to make up for the substantial wear-and-tear your place undoubtedly experiences? How many people on the staff who aren't selling and who earn fixed salaries (accountants, managers etc.) regardless of volume? I'll be your guy is looking at a very different equation than that of someone who buys a storefront and some furniture, has a part-time accountant, manages the place himself and tends bar a few times a week. I think in the latter case you can cut your margin as the original lump gets paid off, whereas the in the former case continued high fixed costs make that much more difficult. With the volume you do and the costs you face, I'll bet your management is very interested in liquor costs, as a point or two multiplied by a large volume is probably the difference between a very profitable year and barely scraping by.

So, the liquor cost of ~ 25% is something that works in your place, and an industry rule of thumb, but not necessarily the only formula that works? A place with low overhead (you have to see the inside of mrbigjas' bar -- their note was pobably paid off 20 years ago, about the last time they renovated) could cut margins a bit in exchange for more volume? Especially in a down-scale location?

They pour the shots out of the $22.99 1.75L bottles, and the shots are small--1 oz. shots, I'm pretty sure. They buy the 30 packs of Pabst which are nearly always available, so I think it's less than that. The margin is probably somewhere between what stephenc said above, and what you just described there. And they make up for that lower margin in lots and lots of volume. Lots of volume doesn't make up for a high liquor cost. Ever. Why not? Is there only one business model that works, regardless of the fixed costs a bar or restaurant faces? What about wine costs? Not being cranky, just curious.

I would assert that the high price is precisely what makes super-premium vodkas sell. People think, "it costs more so it has to be better." The same is true for many things. Isn't the old saw in the antiques business, "if it isn't selling, raise the price"? Ironically, it works. I'm pretty sure that your observation and mine complement, rather than contradict, each other. The power of marketing and the drive for status are a potent combination. stephenc This the place with the ancient guys who've been playing jazz there since the late 60's or something? Found that place by happy accident one night. I love it, too.

"I'll have the $15 martini and a $50 burger, please." I'm waiting for the $30 frites made with organic Peruvian spuds hand-harvested by descendents of Inca shamans and fried in a deep fat fryer filled entirely with molten duck fat and foie gras.

$30/bottle wholesale? for 750 ml? This points out the real problem behind this ridiculous pricing: people who pay $30/bottle for something that costs the manufacturers almost nothing to make. I know there's a difference between high- and low-end vodkas, but $30 for grain neutral spirits buys a whole lot of marketing -- love that frosted bottle -- and very little else to differentiate it from from Stoli, Finalandia and the rest. I think I get Stoli retail for about $30 a 1.5L, so I'd guess that whlesale would run $15/liter tops. This is about $0.45/oz or $1.80 food cost, giving, by Katies reasonable formula, a good-sized $8 drink. This double digit stuff is for people with more money than sense.

On Sunday I fell into a discussion with a woman who is half Greek and travels to Athens regularly, who made me promise to find a Taverna in Plaka called (as I remembered) "Skolastica." Upon googling "Kouklis" I find that another name for the place is "Skolario" and the description on the site is exactly what she described to me -- looks like a "must eat." It's a small world -- unless you're navigating Athens at night by foot with a Greek map. At any rate, I'll hunt it down if at all possible and report back.

I'm not actually that intimidated, more that we just didn't have time to fit in a trip to a neighborhood to which we've been many times. And just as well: it did seem as though it would have been snarky to pile onto a great report, and I was pleased to see that our trip and HillValley's complemented, rather than overlapped one another. On to Queens! Vive les amateurs!

Looks like I'll have to journey into Hilton once again, though I shudder at the thought, just to check out Milos. Rumor has it that the whole place has been taken over Olympic consultants and early-arriving IOC bureaucrats, with the IOC scheduled to take it over completely for the month of August.

It's been a long time since I lived in Boston (anybody remember Governor Dukakis?) but I wonder if one of the locals knows of a decent place in the old Portugese neighborhood in Cambridge. That might fit the low-budget theme, and get torakris into a someplace new and different.

I have never found any scientific proof that different alcohols provide different drunks, but years of informal experimentation have convinced me that they do. I know for a fact that I am a different person after drinking martinis than after drinking wine or sipping vodka -- happy, of course, but a different kind of happy. I stay away from tequila, but I have no doubt that the stuff could reactly differently with someone's system than another type of booze.