I’m Alex Berman and you’re watching SELLING BREAKDOWNS.
In most major cities, you can sit down to different meals from all over the world.
We take it for granted that you can eat Sushi in Paris, Burritos in Chicago and a burger
in Nairobi.
But one of the most surprising things about the business of dining out, is that it’s
a surprisingly new one.
Sure, you’ve always been able to buy cooked food but the concept of a restaurant is only
about 200 years old.
And the man who really started the boom was Georges Auguste Escoffier, from France, I
mean, where else did you think the godfather of the restaurant business would come from?
Today, we’re going to look at the innovations Escoffier brought to cooking and dining and
also examine why restaurants are often said to be the hardest business of all.
The word restaurant means “restorative” and likely refers to rich broth soups that
would restore people’s energy and health.
There’s a claim in France that the first restaurant appeared in 1765, run by a Mr Boulanger.
But there’s no actual evidence for it.
Here’s what we do know; many people in the cities wouldn’t have had their own kitchen
and would have either bought cooked meals from the inns and taverns or whatever was
available from street vendors.
In cities like Paris, there were strict guilds and rules so a vendor would have been forbidden
from selling a range of foods.
For the aristocracy, the fine dining was mostly found in the great mansions and palaces, or
in hotels.
However, after the French revolution, at the end of the 18th century, many of those aristocrats
took a trip to the guillotine.
Before Escoffier, being a chef was not a very attractive job.
You were still a servant, the kitchens were hot and it was pretty dangerous.
And for diners, the few restaurants that existed were chaotic; food would be inconsistent and
dishes would come out in a very haphazard order.
Escoffier has been learning the business since he was 13.
After a seven year stretch in the army, he opened his own restaurant in Cannes.
But it was in 1884, when he moved to Monte Carlo that he began to change the industry
for ever.
He ran the kitchen for the new Grand Hotel, owned by legendary hotelier Cesar Ritz.
Here, Escoffier introduced the brigade system.
This is where all the chef names come from; Chef de Partie, who’s in charge of pastry.
Saucier, who does sauces.
Commis; a line cook who is often a young chef learning each station.
By splitting it up this way, like a manufacturing plant, it was possible to know how long each
dish took and the chefs on that section would be focused on just a few steps, so they could
perfect the process and be consistent.
Escoffier also introduced the hat and scarf, to keep sweat out of the food, as well as
banning smoking and drinking, that were pretty common in kitchens at the time.
His greatest impact was not in Paris, but when he moved to the Carlton Hotel in London.
The English restaurant scene was almost non-existent, since the aristocracy had stayed in place
and kept employing the great chefs in the private houses.
Escoffier changed all that and was the first person to ever offer an a la carte menu in
Britain.
The World Wars limited the growth of dining in the first half of the 20th century but
from the 60s onwards, there’s been no looking back.
And most traditional chef’s training is still based around Escoffier’s cooking manual;
Le Guide Culinaire.
Despite all Escoffier’s help, the restaurant business is still very hard.
Around a quarter of new restaurants fail in the first year and about 60% fail within three.
It's because there are a lot of factors going against you.
You need a lot of capital at start up and if you don’t start strong then you’ll
never build the word of mouth that you need to build up some steam and keep the restaurant
going.
Another major challenge is stock management.
If you’re cooking fresh food, that has a very limited lifespan so you can’t make
big savings by buying in huge bulk, because you’ll have to throw a lot of it away.
What’s more, a lot of your stock is paid on delivery so cash flow can be a major headache.
For first timers, the biggest mistake is this idea of “following your dream” and offering
food that you would like or your dream courses.
This is a major mistake in restaurants.
That dream almost certainly doesn’t match what the market wants or is ready for.
You might want to have a rock n roll themed ramen bar but does your neighbourhood?
You have to be very honest about who your customers will be and where they will come
from.
Then advertise, run promotions, break your neck to get people through the door.
The quality of the food and service is what gets people to come back but when you launch,
it’s all about getting people in the seats, any way you can.
Wanna learn more about business theory and history?
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