Kitchen Economics

There are several theories that can be used to calculate the probabilities of success in the restaurant business. While I won’t pretend to know the efficacies of such studies, my gut tells me that if you want to be the chef/owner of an eight-table, 30-seat hole-in-wall joint, your interest in food far out distances any particular interest you might have in money. People who want to contribute to the six-trillion hamburgers that McDonald’s has served in the past few decades are prime candidates to enjoy the riches afforded to those who just don’t give a damn about food. They see the preparation and service of food as steppingstones to untold riches. They eagerly embrace new methods of preparation that will reduce payroll and give way to increased profitability and lower costs.

Without so much as ever opening a cookbook, these entrepreneurs in the food world know their ways through Samuelson’s Economics and can with ease apply economies of scale to whatever venture may be presented. The models that Samuelson and his cronies made little sense to me. When I was a student at the University of Illinois, I minored in economics and joined the small masses of young folks willing to sell their souls to gain take control of their fathers’ businesses upon graduation.

Not really.

I was not part of that group. I left the businesses of my father to him and started off as a journalist. I figured the economics background would serve me well. I’m not sure that it did.

My first foray into the business world came during my elementary school years when I collected discarded soda bottles and turned them into a corner dairy in my neighborhood for pennies and nickels.

It was about this time that McDonald’s opened its first franchise store in Des Plaines, a few miles away in that Chicago suburb. It was fun and the hamburgers actually tasted good, which is the secret behind fast-food outlets. Well, the real secret is sugar. To this day, I’ll have a Big Mac and fries every now and then. I’m in good company in that Julia Child also had that iconic sandwich every now and then.

Franchise restaurants are the product of focus groups and consumer surveys that, for all intents and purposes, guarantee success. The mid-level casual restaurants like Applebee’s are a bit riskier than those with drive-thru windows, but not by much.

The mom-and-pop restaurants are what I seek out when traveling. You don’t learn much about a town if your dinner was what you had in your town. Give me Lou’s Café or Mom’s Home Cooking on a small town’s Main Street any day of the week.

The small, independent restaurant has several each of advantages and disadvantages. In a franchise, your marketing is built-in to the business model. There’s shared advertising and most can be saved from the doldrums of a slow month with funds from the franchiser.

As jealous as I might have been of the franchised restaurants’ cash flow and other perks, I was, after twelve years as chef/owner of a thirty-seat Italian restaurant, pleased to have maintained my independence. Cash flow was a constant battle. I couldn’t afford advertising, so I relied on word-of-mouth. Hell, I couldn’t even afford a cash register that told the operator how much change was due to a customer.

My employees knew how to count.

Most of them—not all—knew how to cook or wait tables. A lot of my employees had drug or alcohol problems and they were savvy enough to know that I couldn’t afford to drug-test them. Unlike the uniformed robots delivering fries to the windows, my employees were rag-tag groups that in most cases cared more about the food than they did about whatever flavor-of-the-week narcotics found their ways into their bodies.

In a room full of sharp knives, I never felt threatened.

I had more than a handful of talented cooks go through the revolving door. I mean, really talented. They had learned their craft in small restaurants, patching together skills that were well-earned. I learned early on that cooks who had attended culinary schools had picked up a single skill or cuisine. My best employees tended to be high school boys who played team sports. I don’t think any of them used drugs, but they knew what teamwork was all about.

I learned early on not to hire snowboarders.

The restaurant kitchen is a unique workplace. There’s plenty of high energy and little room for error. A slip in the preparation of a table’s order can result in a bad dining experience. A table of four might be having its dinner prepared by three or four cooks. It can also result in entire dinners having to be tossed. Waste is the restaurant’s biggest enemy.

I miss the restaurant business and the customers who were appreciative of our efforts. I miss most of the people who came to work for me. I miss the heat of the char broiler and the range top; two ancient pizza ovens, barely insulated, chugged along at 475 degrees each.

And at the end of the day, as the hour would approach 11 or 12, we’d go outside, grab a smoke and a shift drink, and laugh at the train wrecks we had so narrowly averted.

We’d tell some kitchen war stories, snuff out the cigarettes and head back to a kitchen that needed an hour or so of deep cleaning.

Photo manipulation by Courtney A. Liska

Crostata di Marmellata

3 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbs. grated lemon zest
12 Tbs. butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 cup blackberry or prune jam
1 tbsp. lemon juice

Sift together flour, sugar, and baking powder into a large bowl, add lemon zest, and stir to combine. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add butter and eggs to the well. Using 2 knives, work mixture into butter and eggs until dough resembles coarse meal. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, lightly flour your hands, and knead just enough to make dough smooth. Press dough into a rough ball and flatten slightly to make a flat disk. Wrap disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Heat oven to 350º. Allow dough to sit at room temperature to soften slightly before rolling out onto a lightly floured surface to a 1/4″-thick round. Lay the bottom of a 10″ or 11″ false-bottom tart pan on top of dough. Using a small knife, cut around the edge, saving the scraps, then remove tart pan bottom and carefully transfer dough round to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Gather dough scraps into a ball and roll out again on a lightly floured surface into a 1/4″-thick round. Cut eight 1/4″-wide strips, then, using the palms of your hands, gently roll each until edges are rounded. Discard remaining scraps.

Combine jam and lemon juice in a small bowl, then spread over center of dough, leaving a 2″ border around edge. Fold dough edge over to just meet edge of jam. Arrange dough strips on top of jam in a lattice pattern, trimming off any overhanging dough. Bake until golden, 35-40 minutes. Cool before serving.