But today, he's going to give us all a guideline,
what would you say?
A couple of restaurant tips or secrets,
things you want people to know.
Navigating a menu.
Okay, so we're going to start out with that.
Basically, he's going to give us some stuff to do
when you're going out.
Instead of giving us a recipe,
you're going out for the night,
a heads-up for your next night out on the town.
Where do you want to start, buddy?
Well, when we write menus,
we have to use everything.
So we have certain items that are money makers
and certain items that aren't,
certain items that are more value-driven for the customer
and certain items that are just fan favorites
that we can make money on.
And oftentimes when we write menus,
there's an anchor item,
or something that's very high priced like this.
You see the fanasuzi,
the first one on the menu on the top right.
So you got a strip steak, 54 bucks,
you look at it, you say, wow, that's expensive.
You look down, salmon, 27
and then you look at a burger for 23,
which is really expensive
but it sounds good compared to the 58 bucks.
Compared to the 58 bucks
you're spending for the steak.
You're like, okay,
well if the burger was up top at 23,
a burger for 23, that's a lot,
but now all of a sudden I'm going for a burger.
It puts it in perspective.
And in fact, the restaurant makes more money
on a 23 dollar burger than a 54 dollar steak,
sometimes depending on the steak.
Well it depends on how long the steak is aged
and you gotta pay for real estate, even for a steak.
So that's just one item,
and the same is for wine.
Wine lists kill me.
If you work in restaurants,
you know the actual price of everything on the menu.
I drink a lot of French and Italian wine.
When I go to a restaurant,
I go to the section of the wines
that I know the price of.
Right, right.
It's like shocking!
Well you know what,
25 years ago when French wines dominated,
you really couldn't remember the names either.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And now with California wines,
at least the names are in English.
More accessible, yeah, exactly.
Anyway, we have some white wines here.
You see, and you got Valentine's Day coming up.
Usually the cheapest wine, nobody orders.
That's right.
So the second cheapest wine is usually same as the cheapest.
(laughing)
So if you look at it here,
you'll see the Chardonnay at 45 dollars
is probably almost the same wine,
it's a different vintage, different year,
but the second one is...
I guess it's okay to buy the cheapest one
is what I'm saying,
the second cheapest is usually the better seller.
And you see that with wines,
and wines are a little tougher to get with.
And if you look at value-driven stuff,
if you look under the plates here.
If you're going to eat at a restaurant,
some people order pasta,
you want to open that one?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's not a lot of value in paying 20 bucks for pasta
when you can usually make it at home.
Yeah, if you're going to go out and pay somebody,
pay them to make something you don't know how to make.
Or the craftsmanship, yeah.
(applauding)
I mean, and we'll go over the...
Although if these two people are dating,
I mean, it's weird, man.
They just ordered a mountain of mashed potatoes
and a pound of spaghetti.
(laughing)
Nobody's getting anything after this dinner except a nap.
They're going to be in sugar shock.
And they're drinking beer.
And buffets is the other thing at restaurants too.
Some do it well and some don't,
but sometimes the thinking behind it is,
you always have two different plates.
The smaller plates so they take less food.
You gotta get a nice-sized plate,
this is a dinner buffet or lunch,
but the brunches,
these have all the pastries and the sweets and the breads.
The stuff they want you to load up on, exactly.
You load up on it, it's the salads,
ravioli is another thing in a restaurant.
Restaurants like mine at Tavern 62
or restaurants in major cities,
we put really good stuff in them,
but you're utilizing product.
It's still good, but it's not a high ticket item.
These are fillers, fillers, rice.
Also you have the spoon sizes.
They give you the big spoons at the beginning.
For the cheap stuff, right.
And the little spoons at the end.
And the veggies, and you move down,
and usually you get meats at the end.
And the meats, there's a guy or a girl slicing it.
Carving station, yeah.
And they cut you thin and you can ask for more,
there's fried chicken down at the end, and stuff like that.
(applauding and cheering)