Chef Fowke

Look out; here is Chef Fowke's famous twist on things.... I am a little surprised that no one ever said 'relax, the restaurant was full! Lots of people obviously like it. Maybe they were just having a bad night. You have no right making a complaint if you were not willing to try the place a second time'. I work at one of Canada's largest white tablecloth seafood restaurants. We make mistakes. We have a budget for complaints. I wonder how well we do? I think we turn ever complaint into a customer.... The restaurant business is a hard gig. Perishable inventory, constantly revolving staff, eccentric Chefs, alcohol and long hours for the staff. I would hope that someone would give me a second chance if I had a bad night. Here is a great post. I had on some of my work go sideways on me! (user name) Coop took me to task and I beleive his words were true. This is how he/she felt. Now we do 175 000 guest a year and hopefully those numbers would prove a few people like us! Here is the link: Chef Fowke Slage!

Well! From reading all the threads I think we should wait until the first of January to brew. I have a few calls out to some brew masters for help that may or may not pan out. Lets set a budget...I would say around $15us to brew 20liters of beer. Lets not worry about water quality or fancy ingredients in the first brew. Lets do it really simple and produce something we all can drink without a scotch chaser to dull the after taste. I will try to contact some 'chef friends' and get them to participate in the projects. Chefs all love beer and they tend to be able to produce great descriptors of flavours. I also work with a great sommelier (she administers the sommeliers test in Canada). I will get her to be present when I taste my batch that I brew. Now all we need is to see who is going to participate. Lets all confirm on this thread this week.... After the December 14th we will know the list of the participants. I cannot wait to learn more about brewing! This is great. Post Script: I still think we should get an International kit to start with. Maybe a kit that is a no brainer that a brew master can walk us through and explain the different stages of fermenting and brewing. Otherwise some of us are going to get discouraged and quit this project because our first batch is going to be a gross batch of fermenting sludge.

I am very passionate about my smoked meat! I met my wife while she was attending McGill in Montreal. We spent many a dates in Schwartz’s (she spent five years in school with me driving from TO every alternating weekend to see her). The only problem with living in Vancouver is it is too far from Montreal. Here is my previous thread/discussion on Smoked Meats: eGullet Pastrami Thread

Had the luck of coming across a leaflet for ‘Frenchies!’ restaurant today at work. I left early, grabbed my wife, and went for an authentic Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich! Wow. Very good. The sandwich was a little lean compared to Schwartz’s in Montreal but the light rye bread, the pickle and the coleslaw were 10/10. Coke in a glass bottle. Nice touch. But only opened until 9pm. I ate all my smoked meat in Montreal after 1:00am. Hopefully after the business gets going they will expand there hours. This is worth a trip to Helmcken and Howe!

But more importantly then just embarrassing the restaurant, let everyone in the food industry who posts on this board know what happened so they can avoid it in the future at there own establishment. If you where the manager and you got a letter from an executive chef about a sub-standard dinner how would you have responded? We have all had complaints in our restaurants, and often we have thought ‘damn customer doesn’t know what he/she is talking about’ or ‘just looking for a free meal’. Unfortunately that customer might have a genuine complaint that is a real problem that runs deep through your entire organization…. This post is not to embarrass the restaurant, I have had many meals in Europe, USA, Britain, etc that have not been up to my expectation (one of them at a three star Michelin); all have been dealt with on the spot and I left happy In 99% of the cases the problem was dealt with immediately and reinforced my belief in the excellence of the restaurant. Never was ‘not charging me for a meal’ necessary. Correcting the food, an apology from the manager or a visit from the chef recognizing the problem always was enough. This was unique. I informed the restaurant of a problem, they did nothing and my wife told me to relax because the meal was only $22. That is the issue. Should you expect more from a restaurant then the prices on the menu?

I told the server that the food was inedible...I still got a bill. I was on vacation and my wife wanted to leave (we had a great walk along the beach). It was only $22, is that worth ruining your night or vacation?

I am looking at a few buildings up from the seabus terminal. I want to attract customers from the local hotels, financial district as well as the commuters.

I was very tired and hungry when I left. If I had taken this matter any further that night I would have been a tyrant! My wife and I were on our vacation and my wife was trying to calm me down by saying “it's only $22 let it be”. In hindsight, you are right. I should have demanded to see the manager, refused to pay, etc. But isn't it the job of the restaurant and its management team to make the customers happy? I stated quite clearly that I did not enjoy the food while I was still in the building and nothing happened.

At least one hotel and one other restaurant are using Canadian Prime beef in Vancouver; 900 West at the Hotel Vancouver and West Restaurant. The price on Canadian prime is staggering. When J&L meats (the last of the slaughter houses in BC) closed it was only slaughtering 4 prime cattle a week! That’s only 8 tenderloins and striploins. I am looking to Alberta to fulfill my need in Prime. The important part of my restaurant venture is it is using quality as a profit center. The portion on the meat will be small (which will help keep the price realistic/no sticker shock). The meals are intended to be samplings so you can try three or four proteins at each meal. Now this brings us back to another thread; I have chosen to use Canadian prime because it is finished on barley vs. corn in the USA. The fat and marbling are pure white and the flavor is distinctively cleaner and the fat smoother. It is a matter of taste but I believe if enough people try the product they will be converts.

No, I sent an email. The email was on my Executive Chef template because I had my work laptop with me on vacation. It was clear that I was 'in the business', my name and where I worked. The letter was extremely polite and was initially intended to just explain my experience; nothing more.

In the end it was the return email I got from the owner/chef that made me want to write this post. As I said earlier in this post I had traveled all day, I looked tired and crappy when I entered the restaurant and all I really wanted was a quick and tasty meal. Now, I am Canadian, so I know that I was never rude to anyone in the restaurant; Canadians never are. Its part of our heritage. The email started by stating that if I hadn’t enjoyed my food that by no means should I have paid for it. It then went on to say that they usually get good feedback on the lamb. The email ended with a request to try the restaurant again. The second line blew it for me, first. What was the chef trying to tell me? That I was an idiot for not liking the way he prepared the lamb? I made it very clear that the lamb was below my expectation because it was over cooked and that I was upset because I never got a quality check when the food was served. After I mused about the second line I began to re-read the first line. I shouldn’t have paid…was it my fault I paid? I complained, a bill was brought with a full charge, I was tired and angry, I paid and left… I have taking a hard and long look at how I am going to respond to complaints in the future. What this chef/owner did, on the surface, was correct. He responded to the letter, apologized and invited me back. It was only a $22 lamb entrée. Cheap for lamb…

And yes, my new restaurant will use the recipe posted here! Hopefully by September we will be up and running. I guarantee (laws providing) I will ship anywhere in North America.

We plan on moving 200 - 300 pastrami sandwiches a day in peak season!

As the day is long I will never open a restaurant that does not have Montreal Smoked meat on it! Life is too short not to have brisket close at hand...

And this is why, Steven, it has taken me close to a year to get ready to quit at Joe’s and start planning the new venture. I have spent the last year searching for the right people who understand my passion and will develop my ideas to a higher level. Yes, at the end of the day 50% of the pride of operation will come from satisfying 1000’s of customers a day with great food and wine but 50% will come from running a well developed business plan that produces a profit. When the original business plan was being developed with started by developing a financial spreadsheet to see how much revenue we needed to generate and what our cost of sales would need to be to survive. From there we started to develop and nurture the dream. Weekly we review all of the new plans to that original financial spreadsheet. It is really, really hard to stop being a chef and becoming a restaurant operator. A lot of different functions and realities need to be balanced to be successful. Luckily everyone in my development group believes that QUALITY is a profit center and we can prove it with the original financial spreadsheet.

Oddly, I've had several very good meals at Sparks Woodfire in Studio City. To make it clear: The room was beautiful, well laid out and inviting. The server (when we say him) was well groomed, friendly and informative. The hostess was hot. The food; I saw huge potential. Great ideas on an extremely well laid out menu that made me hungry! I think this restaurant is probably a very good restaurant. It just does not have systems to manage it properly. They probably have really good days when everything clicks and all the customers are happy and other days (when the cook is hung-over, the servers girlfriend dumped him, etc) that the customer pays for it with a bad experience and the house doesn’t catch these deficiencies. Case in point is the restaurant across the street called Dukes. It is not as clean looking, the menu is not quite as interesting and the servers not so slick. But, you always get a great experience. They have a valet as you pull up to the door, a group of host/hostesses (with a manager) meets you at the front door and ask the same three questions that guarantees you get the table you are looking for. A cocktail waitress appears at you table immediately to take a drink order. The server is not far behind to explain the specials. I have only been to Dukes three times and this exact scenario has been played out each time. At the end of the meal a manager personally asked how everything was. Spark's should be ten times the restaurant of Dukes. They aren't but I think they think they are!!

Rule number 10.... Know KatieLoeb! Great post. I will review and post soon. Between you and bean I have a couple of days of research to do! Thank you, this is all brilliant!!!!!

Why not get 20 people involved and brew 20L of beer each. We can each send 19l of beer to the other brewers. It would be brilliant! We then could pick a saturday night to taste all the beer and could respond live online with our critic!

The management team has been hired, the drawings and business plan are complete. We are just finishing up with the investors. The investors should all be inline by the end of March. At that point construction should be complete within six months.

Spark ding. ding ding.... I win.. woodburner Bingo! Now that we know the place...what about letting a problem go just because the food was cheap? Is that a valid excuse for a restaurant to serve food that is awful? I do not believe that the investors in Sparks want the public to think that the food is inexpensive and crap.....

I will be just an observer and will do what the masses decide. Once I understand the process I will start requesting different flavour profiles. Count me in! Lets make beer.

This is one of the benefits of the 'market' concept. We will be able to serve everything al a carte. The portions will be small (4oz for fish and 5oz for meats) so that more flavours can be experienced in a visit. I expect that it will take two portions to fill a hungry customer. One portion for lunch, etc...

I love going to Duke's! Even as a tourist destination they concentrate on customer service. The food is good as well.

Two years? I think it will probably be 10 years minimum. Maybe I am off on this but the handling of the liquid cash needs to be a top priority. This leads to anti-theft systems. It is so easy to 'scam' a restaurant as a server/bartender. I will use blind cash outs, but is there software available or a system of management that will help eliminate this problem?

What is the perfect set up for a high volume bar? How many brands maximize profitability? I have a tech designing a cooler system for all the wines. He is making 19 different temperature zones so that all the 'house wine/table wine/wine by the glass is served at its optimal temperature (the USA and Canada server there white wine way to cold and there red wine way to warm!!!). How do you train the customer to appreciate the effort without alienating them?