May 2015

// NEWS

RESTAURANT DELIVERY

NYC Competition For Restaurant Delivery Intensifies With Ubereats And Maple Debuts A duo of well-heeled meal delivery options launched their operations in New York City late last month.

T

he well-known Taxi alternative app Uber is getting serious about its meal delivery service and is expanding its UberEats pro-

gram. While noted celebrity chef David Chang has teamed with Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital to launch in Manhattan.

Uber The company had been test-

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ing the service in Los Angeles (under the name UberFresh) and in Barcelona prior to the Gotham rollout. UberEats, which allows users to order delivery

from a pre-set menu of one or two options directly from the Uber app.

UberEats promises to bring users "curated" meals from popular local restaurants. There will be a couple options per day but there is no guarantee of a vegetarian choice and the menu will change daily. Purchasing a meal through UberEats is a very similar process to ordering an Uber car, but instead of meeting your ride at the curb,

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// MEET THE NEWSMAKER

WITH RICK SMILOW

Rick Smilow, President & CEO, The Institute of Culinary Education

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hat was it like winning the prestigious 2015 Award of Excellence for "Culinary School of the Year" from the International Association of Culinary Professionals?

It's certainly very gratifying, timed as it is on the eve of our move to Brookfield Place. It's also very sweet because it's also my 20th anniversary and the school's 40th anniversary. It's very nice to be recognized for doing good things in our space even before we moved, because our new facility is really going to be spectacular. You do get a sense, when you step back, wow, a vocational culinary school in here?

It's quite unusual, and a win-win for Brookfield.

It is an amazing combination – a really special school with some really interesting dining going on in that same space, with all that synergy and energy.

We moved to our brand-new, expanded 74,000 sq. ft. home at Brookfield Place, overlooking the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan (225 Liberty Street) this month. Le District is going to have French items, and it's going to be educational for the students. It's a beautiful destination all year with the Winter Garden Theater and Hudson Eats. There are a lot of nice spaces to be in and the students and staff will like that.

What does it take, from an educational standpoint, to create a school

Rick Smilow, is the President & CEO, The Institute of Culinary Education

like this? How have you been able to do this?

I'll tell you what it takes. A lot of hard work! You have to focus. There's a lot of growing with the field. It's been helpful because I have a consumer marketing background. There's a lot of black eyes in culinary education and they would be the first to admit they weren't focused. They worked from different offices, had different programs. With the Wall Street mandate to grow quickly, none of that has been the reality.

Tell me about the team you've built.

That's been a tremendous factor in the journey of being an entrepreneur, having a great team. One of the key things – it's a hard thing and some people get it quicker than others – but you have to get the sun, the moon, the stars to align in terms of hiring great

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people. It's probably challenging for every entrepreneur but that has taken time. And then there's the people you need and the people who are available which, as you grow, also changes. It's a lot of moving parts and the moving parts move even when you have them settled down!

Do you think you would have made this move if you weren't forced to?

The whole idea of having to move the school? Three years ago, I didn't know for sure we'd need to. But there's a silver lining. It forced me to make a very huge, expensive investment but I'm very optimistic that it will be a good one. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been forced to, but when you are, then you figure, let's make the best of it.

Some people have to move the business and say, well, I'm not going to make a 20-year bet but sometimes you have to. It's been amazing how, a lot of times over the last 20 years, we've had to make changes.

Expanding within the building, now this to Brookfield Place. Let's face it, this is a place/space business. Without the place, there's no business, and when you fill up your space to grow, and need more, it's a difficult thing to navigate in a big city like New York – a city that's grown and gets more expensive and then the areas that are available aren't always where you want to be. Some places we looked at in the 70s, West End Ave., that's pretty far from the action.

Recognition of the Institute of Culi-

nary Education (ICE) is growing. One of your instructors also won an award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Yes, our Culinary Arts Chef Instructor Chris Gesualdi was named 2015 "Culinary Educator of the Year." During Chef Chris' 10 year tenure at ICE, he has made a lasting impact on thousands of students through his commitment to excellence in the kitchen.

Chef Chris has worked at some of New York City's best restaurants, including Le Bernardin, Tonic and Montrachet (where he received 3 stars in the New York Times and a James Beard Award nomination for his work as Executive Chef). This guy just loves to teach. I wanted him to go accept the award, but instead of doing that, he said he'd rather be teaching. He'll develop a class on hydrocolloids as professional development. He'll go to other kitchens, where other instructor chefs are, and take the meat scraps to make salumi. We're using more recyclable, inexpensive plastic items instead of disposable paper for staff tastings, because of him. What a role model.

By happenstance, before Thomas Keller went to French Laundry, he was chef at Raquelle and Rafael. He wasn't famous then but Chris was his righthand man and he wanted Chris to come out to California with him. It's a nice win. To have my school win for any two things, especially these two, that's pretty cool.

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// NEWS

HEALTHY EATING

Edible Schoolyard NYC Assembles Last of Top Toques for Its Spring Gala With Edible Schoolyard NYC assembling its annual spring gala, board members Fernanda Niven and Lela Rose talked about the nonprofit’s mission to teach kids about healthy eating—from the ground up.

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ow did you get involved with Edible Schoolyard NYC? Fernanda Niven: I had seen a story on 60 Minutes about Alice Waters and Edible Schoolyard NYC in Berkeley. I used to have Lyme disease and needed to be very carful about what I ate, and I had also worked for Organic Avenue [which sells organic coldpressed juices], so it was this perfect storm of understanding about food.

A friend who is on the board of Edible Schoolyard NYC in Berkeley said to me, “We are thinking about starting one in New York City. Do you want to be involved?” I said, “One hundred percent; absolutely.”

Lela Rose: I always loved good, healthy food, and it’s something I care about with my own kids. We originally thought my son had attention deficit disorder, and I wondered what he was eating in school. So when Fernanda spoke to me about Edible Schoolyard NYC, I was like, “That’s right in my wheelhouse.”

How does the program work?

FN: We started with one school, PS 216 in Gravesend, Brooklyn, where we built an organic garden. All the

some of the children had never eaten a slice of watermelon. She thought, What kind of world is this where a kid doesn’t have a slice of watermelon on a hot day? So she implemented change in the school’s snacks—the cookies with high fat and sugar were replaced with fruit.

LR: Teachers are so frustrated with

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Main Office: 282 Railroad Avenue Greenwich, CT 06830 Publishers: Leslie & Fred Klashman Advertising Director: Michael Scinto Creative Director: Ross Moody Contributing Writers Warren Bobrow Laurie Forster Morgan Tucker Fred Sampson Cindi Avila Staff Writers Deborah Hirsch Intern Alexis Robinson

ESNYC Executive Director Kate Brashares (center) with the chefs from last year’s spring fundraising dinner, including David Chang (back row center, in gray apron), Ruth Rogers (to brashares’ right), Michael Anthony (back row right, in gray shirt), and Justin Smillie (front row left, in light blue apron).

children have garden time, so they learn how to grow food—actually grow it—whereas most of these kids go into a store and think food is magically there. Then they go into the kitchen classroom and make dishes from what’s been grown in the gar-

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den.

LR: They take it home, and this influences what goes on in their home lives; hopefully they want to have salad for dinner.

FN: I heard a story about the former principal of PS16. She realized that

Phone: 203.661.9090 Fax: 203.661.9325 Email: tfs@totalfood.com Web: www.totalfood.com

Total Food Service ISSN No. 1060-8966 is published monthly by IDA Publishing, Inc., 282 Railroad Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830. Phone: 203.661.9090. This issue copyright 2015 by IDA Publishing Inc. Contents in full or part may not be reproduced without permission. Not responsible for advertisers claims or statements.Periodicals Postage paid at the post office, Greenwich, CT and additional mailing offices. Additional entry at the post office in Pittsburg, PA. Subscription rate in USA is $36 per year; single copy; $3.00. Postmaster: Send address changes to Total Food Service, P.O. Box 2507, Greenwich, CT 06836

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// TFS 25th ANNIVERSARY Total Food:

Now & Then How is an idea born? A successful one is normally rather organic, grown out of love or true interest in a subject or product.

WITH CINDI AVILA Red Sox or Bruins, which were the only things in life that I was interested in.”

Before Total Food Service though there was hockey at Colorado College, followed by sports public relations and Radio/TV advertising sales. Klashman especially loved that with radio advertising he could create ideas to help customers solve their needs. After switching over to the TV side though he found advertising lost its appeal, as it was less about content and more about price and packaging.

This is when Klashman decided to build his own business (with guidance from

Cindi Avila, Green Goddess, Public Relations greengoddesspr@ gmail.com

T

hat is exactly how it happened for Total Food Service Publisher Fred Klashman. As Total Food Service marks its 25th year anniversary my curiosity was piqued. How did the industry publication start? Klashman says to understand the story you have to go back to his days growing up, “My family had a dress store near Harvard University in Cambridge MA. We would go to the store to visit my Grandma and my aunts and uncle Louie. I would sit and wait for my Dad, and of course there were no phones in those days so I needed to keep myself occupied. He said to pass the time he would grab the trade papers: Womens wear Daily (WWD), Footwear News and Daily News Record.

They were tabloid size and the original TFS - Total Food Service logo actually looked like WWD. So it must have been one of those things in life that becomes ingrained. I was always struck by how interesting the papers were even though they had nothing in them about the

What makes it different than other industry publications? "Curiosity. Since neither of us had ever worked in a restaurant, we were incredibly curious about the industry.

That curiosity has continued to grow and it has led to what we do differently: we ask great questions" says Fred Klashman (R) with Leslie Klashman (L).

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his wife Leslie), a business where he could use all his skills. He came up with an idea for a trade publication to combine the days of sitting and reading at the family store with the creativity that I loved from radio. Though he didn’t know much about restaurants and food service at the time, he knew it was something that interested him and wow has that interest continued over the last 25 years.

I got a chance to ask Klashman a lot more about the publication that so many in the industry love.

What makes it different than other industry publications?

Curiosity. Since neither of us had ever worked in a restaurant, we were incredibly curious about the industry. That curiosity has continued to grow and it had led to what we do differently: we ask great questions. It’s like peeling an onion with layer upon layer. We soon discovered that there was a never-ending bank of fascinating stories.

From going to Newark airport and watching thousands of meals being assembled for airline dining to watching how Sloan Kettering attends to its patients and the endless creativity of the city's club managers and school food service directors.

From a sales standpoint, those very same curiosities create a unique relationship with our customers. In many cases the answers to our questions turns into an exciting layout that can be used in print and on-line.

How has TFS evolved since its start?

Fax machines and no Internet...need I say more? As with the world we live in, technology has completely changed how we produce the publication every month. Twenty-five years ago, you hung pages on the wall and proofed them.

The printer would then have to come

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// THE WINE COACH

WITH LAURIE FORSTER

Great Wines to Sip This Spring Austria might not be the first country that comes to mind when you think of wine but it should be. The combination of Austria’s long history of winemaking and the foodfriendly style of their wines make them a favorite with sommeliers around the world.

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uring Spring on our way to Summer, thoughts of red wine tend to wane.

Instead the wines that we find most appealing are fresh, bright white wines that are perfect for relaxing on the deck or a cookout with your closest friends. Here are some great whites to have on hand that are perfect for spring sipping and to freshen up your wine list.

Make Your Spring Sparkle!

Prosecco is a sparkling wine made in the Veneto region of Italy. Traditionally it is softer and fruitier than most Brut (dry) Champagne or sparkling wines. A great starter for wine tastings or dinners, Prosecco is also extremely food friendly and appeals to a wide range of wine drinkers. In all the years I have been leading corporate and public wine tastings I have never met someone who does not like Prosecco!

Soft, sparkling with fruit flavors of apple, pear and citrus, Prosecco is a great Spring sparkler. What’s even better is that most quality Prosecco usually retails $25 or under.

Not Your Mother’s Soave Soave, also from Veneto, is another refresher not to miss. The biggest challenge for this wine is overcoming its history. In the 1970s, the region was expanded to include some lesser vineyards and many unscrupulous

ter the town it hails from rather than the grapes, Garganega and Trebbiano, which are blended to create the wine.

For the finest examples, look for Soave Classico (wines from the best Soave vineyards) or Classico Superiore (aged more before release).

Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach, is a certified sommelier, award-winning author and media personality. Forster is the host of her radio show The Sipping Point and her mobile application “The Wine Coach” was listed as one of the Top 8 Wine Apps in Wine Enthusiast. To find out more visit: www.TheWineCoachSpeaks.com | @thewinecoach | facebook.com/winecoach

producers churned out unremarkable wines. This is the same reputation that Chianti had to overcome after the basket-bottomed days of the seventies. It is no surprise that Soave literally translated means “smooth” since many of the best wines from this region have a rich smoothness with aromas of almond, citrus and a hint of white flowers. Soave is named af-

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Drink Like a Somm If you asked sommeliers from around the country what their favorite white wines are, you would no doubt hear Grüner Veltliner over and over again.

Pronounced GROO-ner VELT-leener, in Europe they shorten the name and simply order a glass of GrüV (pronounced groovy). An indigenous white grape from Austria, Grüner Veltliner, is my secret weapon at Spring get togethers. Grüner Veltliners are known for aromas of white pepper, citrus, granny smith apples with a sometimes spicy finish. The bright fruit flavors with balancing acidity, make Grüners a great match for lots of dishes.

Spring Brews Too It wouldn’t be Spring without an ice cold brew which in some cases can be more refreshing than wine. There are two special types of beers that are great in the Spring, Pilsner and Weisse.

Pilsner or Pils is a light golden lager with a dry malty flavor typically accented with the floral flavors of hops.

It is one of the most popular styles of beer in the world. Another great Spring beer called Weisse (or Hefeweizen) uses malted wheat instead of barley for the main ingredient. This beer is cloudy with a yeasty quality accented by a tart finish. Weisse is known for its spicy flavors of orange peel, banana, vanilla and believe it or not bubble gum! To get the sweet and sour effect, these beers are sometimes served with either a lemon or an orange slice although it is not traditional or necessary to do so.

So if you need to find the perfect wine to kick off Spring try one of these: Bisol Prosecco Crede Brut NV, Veneto, Italy Named after the soils in this region called crede, this wine has the perfect foundation for Prosecco grapes to flourish and create this amazingly fragrant, refreshing sparkler, with flavors of apple, peach and a note of floral.

This food friendly wine only has 11% alcohol—a perfect starter or brunch wine! Retail: $18 Other brands to look for: Botter, Carpene Malvolti, Nino Franco “Rustico” or Canella Prà Soave Classico, Veneto, Italy Looking for a great white for your next backyard gathering? This handcrafted Soave from Prà tastes nothing like the 1970s jug versions. Citrus fruits dominate the palate of this rich white and finishes with food friendly crispness— great paired with seafood, salads or just to get things started. Retail: $17 Other brands to look for: Pieropan, Anselmi, Inama or Gini For the full story visit totalfood.com

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// NEWS

ONLINE RESERVATIONS

How NYC Based Resy Is Changing the Online Restaurant Reservation Game Consider the last time you made a restaurant reservation online. Did you muddle through a restaurant's website and then an online reservation site for a table?

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id you eventually succumb to a time slot that left you less than happy? Show up to find you'd been given a mediocre table? Or what about the last time you canceled your reservation? Did you cancel online without notifying the restaurant — even if it was the same day you were supposed to dine? Worse yet, did you no-show?

Ben Leventhal (who made his name as the co-founder of restaurant news site Eater) believed the online reservation process left a lot to be

desired. And so he teamed up with Gary Vaynerchuk and Mike Montero, both vets of the tech space, and set out to create an app that would provide a better experience for the diner and cut down on the no-shows (and, therefore, lost revenue) for a restaurant. In 2014, they launched Resy in Manhattan; they've since expanded to Los Angeles, Miami, and, as of last month, Brooklyn.

"There was a lot of opportunity to improve the experience for the restaurant and consumer, and to improve platform for the restaurant,"

"There was a lot of opportunity to improve the experience for the restaurant and consumer, and to improve platform for the restaurant," says Leventhal. "We wanted to put the right customer in the right seat."

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says Leventhal. "We wanted to put the right customer in the right seat."

And so when you enter Resy, you find a list of carefully curated restaurants, listed in order of what's closest to you. You may have to pay a fee to book a table; how much, Leventhal

says, depends on demand. "We work with the restaurants to set pricing," he explains.

"We really strive for it to be an accurate representation of demand.

Demand is driven by a variety of factors: seasonality, day of the week — we're looking at all those things, and attaching what we feel is a fair price to the reservation. On Monday or Tuesday, 70 percent of the reservations are free. On Saturday, 70 percent are paid." In some cases, you get a free glass of wine with that fee.

Or you might be able to guarantee a booth, or outdoor seating.

And, because Resy is open only to

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// FOOD IS FASHION

WITH FAITH HOPE CONSOLO

A World Tour in Queens Mind the wait times and prices for dining in Manhattan? Bored with all your favorite eateries in Brooklyn? Try Queens, the borough for foodies who want real-people cuisine from just about every country on the planet, and is rapidly growing its retail scene, too.

I

t’s easy to find delicacies from various areas of China, bread from Brazil and food from Russia, Mexico and more, while also checking out new retail.

Astoria has expanded beyond its history as a Greek neighborhood to offer cuisines from around the world.

After years of operating food carts, The King of Falafel and Shwarma is opening its first brick and mortar location this month at 30-15 Broadway.

Tea & Milk is serving its various types of teas (bubble, chai and more), as well as light food at 32-02 34th Avenue. Korean fried chicken chain Bonchon will open at 25-30 Broadway.

Find affordable and delicious Brazilian cheese balls and burgers at Pao de Queijo at 31-90 30th Street. The Shady Lady Tapas Bar & Restaurant 34-19 30th Avenue serves up global comfort food and is the best for brunch.

You know an area is becoming trendy when a gastropub is opening – and that’s exactly what’s happening in Long Island City. The owner of LIC Bar is planning The Gantry LIC at 47-02 Vernon Boulevard, in response to bar patrons’ request for food. And with ever more residential towers being built in the neighborhood, expect

Faith Hope Consolo, Douglas Elliman Real Estate fc o n s o l o @ e l l i m a n .c o m

even more dining to open. Coming soon to 46-10 Center Boulevard will be Maiella, with pizzas and cured meats. Russian café Stolle will come to 31-00 47th Avenue later this year with both a café and a production facility. Mu Ramen at 1209 Jackson Avenue remains one of the busiest restaurants in the area.

Flushing remains the headquarters for Asian cuisine. Happy Food, at 40-28 Main Street gives you a tour of China, with dishes from many different regions – as well as some from Malaysia. Biang! is a fine dining experience at 41-10 Main Street. Stop in at the Golden Shopping Mall at 41-28 Main Street for various options, including Tianjin Dumpling House and the original Xi’an Famous Foods.

Newcomers to the area include Spicy

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Flushing remains the headquarters for Asian cuisine. Happy Food, at 40-28 Main Street gives you a tour of China, with dishes from many different regions – as well as some from Malaysia.

Tibet, at 75-04 Roosevelt Avenue, and the New York Food Court at 133-35 Roosevelt Avenue. End of the Century Bar features interesting cocktails at 104-08 Metropolitan Avenue.

For shopping, check the offerings at the ever-growing Shops at Sky View Center, which shortly will get the first Uniqlo in the borough, joining Target, Nordstrom Rack and a Nike clearance store. Continue your cultural education at the New World Mall (136-20 Roosevelt Avenue), the largest indoor Asian shopping center in the city. Or get fine Danish furnishings at a great price at the BoConcept Outlet at 13620 38th Avenue.

With restaurants spilling over from nearby Williamsburg, Ridgewood is becoming a new scene for dining and socializing. Julia’s, a beer garden and eatery, has recently opened at 818 Woodward Avenue. Or try Bierleichen, at 582 Seneca Avenue. Guadalajara de Dia II combines a grocery store with a table for a full menu at 566 Seneca Avenue. Another sure sign the area is attracting the young and the hip – craft cocktail (made from beer and wine) bar Onderdonk & Sons has opened at 566 Onderdonk Avenue.

And beachgoers are finding a burgeoning dining scene in the Rockaways, particularly during the summer season. The Playland Motel’s restaurant at 97-20 Rockaway Beach Boulevard is being reoriented to family cuisine. Get great tacos this summer at Tacoway Beach at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club on Beach 87th Street, from a former owner of Rockaway Taco.

Happy Eating!

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// TABLE TO SHELF

WITH MARJORIE BORELL

Can Family-Owned Restaurants Get In On The Restaurant-To-Retail Trend?

An Interview with Van Woods of Sylvia’s, Harlem, New York

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etailers are eating up restaurant-branded foods because today’s shoppers want to bring the restaurant experience home. Products from chains like P.F. Chang’s and California Pizza Kitchen can be found in supermarkets everywhere. Not so much for independent, family-owned restaurants.

Says Darren Tristano, Executive Vice

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Marjorie Borell, Real Estate Broker s t ra t e g i c c o pya n d c o n t e n t @ g m a i l .c o m

President of food industry research firm, Technomic, “our findings show a strong customer demand for restaurant-inspired food products at retail.

As long as the quality is there, customers are willing to pay for it.”

“However, restaurateurs should proceed with caution,” notes Scott McCutcheon, Executive Director of the Restaurant Marketing Association. “It’s a great way for a restaurant to continue branding themselves, but for smaller owners, going retail can be beyond their expertise. “ If you are an undeterred Metro New York restaurateur thinking of taking your brand for a walk down the aisle, read this now because transitioning from table to shelf takes know-how

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// Q&A

EXCLUSIVE FOODSERVICE INTERVIEWS

Marc Murphy, Chef and Owner of Benchmarc Restaurants

S

o how did you end up at the Institute of Culinary Education? What impact did that have on your career?

I didn't do well in school, I'm very dyslexic. My high school counselor looked at my grades and said: “Well, son, we think you should just go get a job. We don't think any colleges are going to take you.” I thought, well, if I learn how to cook, I'll be able to eat.

The one thing I didn't want to be was hungry! So I decided to go to a cooking school and I ended up getting addicted to it. And then you just had to go out in the restaurant -- and get yelled at by chefs every day, to truly learn how to do it right.

How did your career as a chef evolve?

One of my old cooking school teachers set me up at Prefix. I worked there about a year and a half and learned every station. At that point David Casternacht told me, you're done here, buddy. It’s time for you to move on. You've learned everything here. Now you’ve got to go learn everything in another kitchen.

So I moved back to Paris, where I bought a Michelin Guide and started walking door to door to each of the top restaurants to see if any were hiring. One chef said, “No French kid would ever do this.” He says, “You

could come and work for free.” Ha! So he sent me to a couple people for an interview and I ended up landing a job in a one-star restaurant. I was actually going to just stay there one year but the executive sous chef wanted to take a vacation so they begged me to stay, promising me a partnership with Andre Dugart. So I stayed and moved down to the South of France. Then the chef from Le Cirque heard that I was coming back to America and he hired me. It was so weird. I had this French guy on

the phone, saying, “Where are you, you're supposed to be at work.” I'm like, “What are you talking about?”

He tells me he's the chef at Le Cirque and Dugart told him that I was supposed to be coming here to work.

What happened after that?

I ended up working for that guy off and on for almost three years. After that Joey Fortinado called me back up and said he was opening a Middle Eastern Mediterranean restaurant, in Tribeca and he needed a sous chef.

I’m just a line cook. But I worked for him for about six months and met a consulting chef there who ended up becoming the back-of-the-house general manager for Windows on the World. And he calls me up and aks if I want to be chef of the Cellar in the Sky on top of the World Trade Center.

I thanked him but told him I'm not a chef. I've only been in this job for six months and it’s my first sous chef’s job. I'm having a great time down

Ask Chef Marc Murphy where he grew up and he’ll fire off a list of cosmopolitan destinations — Milan, Paris, Villefranche, Washington DC, Rome and Genoa — “and that’s before I turned 12,” he’ll explain.

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here. So I turned him down I think three or four times. Then, finally, he calls me and tells me to meet him downtown. We get in the elevator, up to the 107th floor, the Cellar in the Sky. He writes down on a piece of paper what he would pay me. it was literally like getting double what I was getting paid as a sous-chef. But I did it and it was my first chef's job.

What did you do after that?

After I left there, I worked with Abraham Merchant on the Upper East Side. I helped him get South West New York going, which is down by Brookfield Place. Then we did a restaurant called Chenoisis together.

And then I met my wife and we ended up putting our money together and we bought a little building in Tribeca to open Landmarc.

As you were going through all of this, did you ever think that you would want to own your own place?

The whole time I always thought, if I work for really good people and I learn really well, things will work out. I love what I do. I never really had a plan. My plan was just to have a job. But wow, I like what I do. And I'm enjoying it. And then, they pay me for it. That is a real fun thing.

You grew from a single unit into a multiple restaurant company. So, at some point you had to extricate yourself from the kitchen.

All of a sudden I’m running a business. And I wake up every morning and keep saying, what the hell?

I surround myself with really good people. I've got a great CFO. I've got a great director of operations who keeps everything going. And I've obviously learned a lot over the years, both in making things happen, and screwing things up. I mean, that's

the only way. That's the way chefs do it. We screw it up, and we go back and we do it right the next time.

You've done some TV, some celebrity show stuff. This kind of thing seems to have had an impact on the role of a chef, the ability to grow your business, your brand. What are your thoughts on that?

First of all, it's great for my brand. I don’t dislike anything that brings the customers in! It's fantastic. The Food Network’s “Chopped” is just bringing more awareness to food and the food industry and everybody is getting more educated. I do hope people are getting healthier when they start realizing what you can eat and how they can cook and not just buy stuff in boxes and open them up and eat them. Somebody sent me a video of a pilot. And they said, you want to do this thing called “Chopped?” I was like, sure, what the hell. And now we’ve just shot our 315th episode.

I just treat people like human beings, giving them a job that they love to come to. If something's going wrong, I always ask my management staff, did we give that person the right tools to be able to do the job?

When we hire people, let's hire nice people and teach them how to work.

Because people who know how to work are nice. I don't know how to

What do you think is most important about running a good restaurant?

The people. Hiring good people. For a restaurant with a 300-seat capacity, the one I have at Time Warner, I've had three general managers over the seven years it’s been open. And one of them is now my assistant director of operations.

Profit sharing? Pat on the back? Respect? What are the pieces that go into treating people properly?

I just treat people like human beings, giving them a job that they love to come to. If something's going wrong, I always ask my management staff, did we give that person the right tools to be able to do the job?

Maybe they don't know how to do the job. And maybe it's our fault that we didn't train them the right way.

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teach people to be nice. So you start by hiring people who already are.

You've seen a lot of changes in the city through the years. What's your read on the role of the New York City restaurant today in a local economy relative to landlords, relative to the city? What’s the role? Where are we?

Right now we seem to be heading in the direction of a lot of Starbucks.

Nobody comes to New York City for Starbucks. People come here because they want to go to Cat Food Deli, to Landmarc, to WD50. They want to go to places that are interesting. But the interesting places are going away. The Korean bodegas are all being replaced by the big chains. Anthony Bourdain recently did a piece on the Bronx on Parts Unknown.

That's what New York was like. All these little shops. Between the regulations, between the rent, it's driving a lot of people out. The fabric of this city and the restaurant business is going to change. There's no doubt about it.

Tell me about your work with the City Chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association.

We're constantly involved with government agencies, trying to work with them, because there's only one way to work with government. You’ve got to get in the sandbox, and play with them. If you want a change in the health department, you’ve got to do it. Yes, it takes months to get the conversation with the health department but you have to work up to these relationships. The NRA now has worked its way up to quarterly meetings with the health department. It's taken years to get to this point.

Is life better or the same, going from Bloomberg to DeBlasio?

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// EYE

METRO NEW YORK'S FOODSERVICE EVENT COVERAGE

J. Kings Culinary Spectacular EYE enjoyed our visit to the annual J. Kings Culinary spectacular last month at Hofstra University.

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e are always struck with J. Kings outreach for the greater good of the community. Whereas the industry has recently latched onto the concept of local/farm to table, it has been a way of life for the Holtsville, NY based distributor for some 40 plus years.

In 2012, J. Kings took over a former plumbing supply facility in Baiting

Among the highlights of celebrating J. Kings entry into wine spirits and craft beer distribution was an appearance by the much talked about Roscoe Beer team led by Josh Hughes (C)

The J. Kings legacy has always been to look towards the future so the firm welcomed some of the best and brightest of the next generation: Mineola NY's Chaminade High School culinary club

Hollow on Long Island's East End and converted the facility into a center of cooling and packaging vegetables, storing wine and distributing the many diversified product of Long Island's farmers.

EYE loved visiting with J. King's always energetic corporate chef Chris

Neary and Star Academy toque Lenny Messina. EYE spotted Nathan’s Sen Roemig, James Brukly of Hormel, Con Agra's Foods’ John Santangelo, Jason Butler of BSE Marketing, Frosae's Ben Amato, Nancy Agoado of General Mills and Mondelez's Mark Marciano.

Some three years later the facility aid-

ed in J. King's goal to become a leader in the distribution of Long Island's wines as well as the hottest craft beers with its new Grapes and Greens division. The show also served as the debut of the firm's new exclusive pact to handle the distribution of Polar's line of seltzers, mixers and soft drinks in Metro New York.

This year's show took on a number of key issues that are facing today's Tri-State food service operator with a theme of "Focus." These issues include "Labor Costs," "Actual Food Costs," "Meeting Your Customer Needs," and "Maximizing Beer and Wine Sales."

Crescent Duck's Doug Corwin personifies J. Kings commitment to local products with his full line of Long Island based duck delectables The J. Kings's annual show brought a huge outpouring to Long Island's Hofstra University field house. Many of the nation's most prestigious manufacturers of food and beverage solutions had the opportunity to share their latest with some of the Tri-State's leading foodservice professionals

J. King's John King (R) welcomed guests from throughout the Metro NYC area whom look to his firm for creative menu solutions

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The Polar sales team of Richard Plue and Lawrence Monegro brought a full line of mixer solutions to the celebration of J. Kings new Grapes and Greens beverage division

The manufacturer and brokerage communities work tirelessly to ensure the success of events like the J. KIngs extravaganza. (L to R) Tom Deegan of Ken's Foodservice and the firm's local broker Mike DiTommaso teamed to showcase the latest fare

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// SCOOP 8th Annual New Taste of the Upper West Side Features Over 80 Restaurants and Star-Studded Talent Scoop says the 2015 New Taste of the Upper West Side kicks off again this May with an exciting lineup of new and returning restaurants, worldclass chefs and celebrity hosts for an unforgettable three-night culinary celebration.

The annual event, which was created by the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District donates all net proceeds to the local community for neighborhood improvement and beautification projects such as the Columbus Avenue BID’s Sustainable Streetscape project, and other benefi-

INSIDER NEWS FROM METRO NEW YORK’S FOODSERVICE SCENE

ciaries as the Wellness in the Schools program, Greenhouse Classroom, Citymeals-on-Wheels and Theodore Roosevelt Park.

“This amazing three-day event has enabled our BID to give back to the community in so many important ways,” says Barbara Adler, Executive Director of the Columbus Avenue BID. “Now in its eighth year, it has been crowned New York’s top neighborhood food festival and continues to be a boon to our local restaurants and businesses.”

The festivities begin with Soirée in the Park on Wednesday, May 27th, an outdoor cocktail event that celebrates and raises funds for New York City’s beautiful Theodore Roosevelt Park,

“This amazing three-day event has enabled our BID to give back to the community in so many important ways,” says Barbara Adler, Executive Director of the Columbus Avenue BID.

surrounding the American Museum of Natural History. Guests enjoy live chamber music under the stars with champagne and hors d’oeuvres provided by a host of local restaurants including Sarabeth’s and Luke’s Lobster.

All net proceeds from the evening are donated for park enhancements.

Jersey’s Table to Table Set To Honor Romano Scoop notes that two powerhouse

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chefs will cross the river this May to be honored at New Jersey’s premier food and wine events, Table to Table’s annual Dinners of Distinction.

Four-star chef Michael Romano, Director of Culinary Development for the famed Union Square Hospitality Group, whose extraordinary talent made the Union Square Café a part of the culinary world’s lexicon, will be honored at the Chefs Gala on May 7th at Alpine Country Club.

Later in the month, Michael Symon, award winning chef, restaurateur and co-host of ABC’s “The Chew” will fill the room with his charm and engaging personality as he is honored at the always fun and delicious, BBQ & B’Yond, on May 18th at Preakness Hills Country Club in Wayne, NJ. Serious foodies delight at the Chefs Gala where top chefs from New York and New Jersey each present a signature course, perfectly paired with fine wines coordinated by Carlo Russo’s Wine & Spirit World.

Participating chefs will salute Chef Romano by each preparing one of his signature dishes from the landmark Union Square Café. Along with

honoring Michael and savoring the creations of an incredible line-up of chefs, including Peter Kelly of Xaviars Restaurant Group, John Piliouras of Orama and Ben Pollinger of Oceana, the evening will feature a fabulous live auction expertly conducted by celebrity auctioneer and Antiques Roadshow regular, Nicholas Lowry, of NYC’s Swann Auction Gallery. For a more informal, but equally mouth-watering experience, guests will have the opportunity to mingle with Michael Symon while sampling dishes from New Jersey’s top-rated restaurants, including Village Green, River Palm Terrace, Café Amici, and Picnic on the Square. With a theme of BBQ, Bacon, Burgers, Bourbon and the Blues, there is truly something to arouse everyone’s gastronomic fantasies. While feasting on outrageous food, sipping fabulous wines and listening to great music, there’s an opportunity to extend the good times by bidding on one (or more!) of the unusual travel, food and entertainment experiences featured in the silent auction. Viewed by many as the official kick-off to summer entertainment, this event sets the bar high!

Chef Gabriel Kreuther Opens Eatery in New York Scoop notes over the past two de-

rebirth. Also in play: Kreuther’s signature tartes flambées. “Everyone asks about them,” he says. “I’ll be doing four different kinds, including a classic version and one with sea urchin and horseradish.”

Smart Chef Invents Recipes To Suit Your Taste Gabriel Kreuther has cooked in some of Midtown Manhattan’s great dining rooms: La Caravelle, Jean-Georges and The Modern

cades, Gabriel Kreuther, 45, has cooked in some of Midtown Manhattan’s great dining rooms: La Caravelle, Jean-Georges and The Modern. This month, the Alsace-born chef opens a restaurant bearing his own name on Bryant Park. “I want to combine my New York experience and my heritage,” says Kreuther, who considers the French region’s cuisine the original fusion food.

“There have always been touches of French, German and Austrian,” he says. Kreuther’s 90-seat space was designed using salvaged beams from a 19th-century barn, the deep green tiles that covered the traditional hearth ovens (kachelofen) of his youth and prominent stork imagery—a local symbol of creativity and

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Scoop says tired of eating the same thing for dinner? This computer will invent hundreds of new recipes to suit your tastes, as long as you tell it what's in the fridge.

Watson, IBM's artificially intelligent computer system that famously beat humans in the TV quiz show Jeopardy!, has taken up cooking. The idea is simple. Users identify key ingredients and the type of dish they want, and Watson creates a recipe. IBM is working on a phone app but for now struggling chefs can try out the service by registering at Chef Watson.

It scans thousands of known recipes to figure out patterns, using algorithms to pair ingredients and suggest which dishes would work. "You pick the kind of dish you like - it could be a dumpling, a burrito, or you can remain vague and say you want it to be an appetizer," said Florian Pinel, a senior software engineer at IBM. Say you want a burrito. Watson will figure out it needs a wrap, vegetables,

grains, and so on. The digital chef also takes into account information on taste and chemical compounds to find possible combinations that work well together. "If you said you wanted an Indian burrito with eggplant, it will focus on Indian ingredients that go well with eggplants," said Pinel.

After creating thousands of recipes, Watson narrows the selection to 100, sorting them based on preferences, dietary constraints and other require-

Watson, IBM's artificially intelligent computer system that famously beat humans in the TV quiz show Jeopardy!, has taken up cooking.

ments defined by the user. This kind of process is called "cognitive computing" - meaning the computer is simulating human thought and gaining knowledge over time. Unlike humans, Watson can go through billions

of pages in seconds. Since winning Jeopardy!, Watson has shrunk from the size of a master bedroom to three stacked pizza boxes and it is now accessed through the cloud. It's also learning from its mistakes. "Some foods have wedges, such as lemons.

Raspberries, on the other hand, don't have wedges, and Watson had to learn you can't cut a raspberry into wedges," said Pinel. So could Watson be the next Masterchef champion?

Charlie Palmer Hires NYC Vet Levi Mezick For NoCal Post Scoop notes that Charlie Palmer is

currently ramping up Harvest Table, his forthcoming restaurant in St. Helena’s Harvest Inn, which he bought last year. As he approaches an opening this month, Palmer has hired a chef: Levi Mezick, who was last seen earning three stars down at Monterey’s celebrated 1833 Restaurant.

(Seattle transplant Jason Franey is now running the kitchen at the revamped 1833.) More recently, Mezick transitioned to a corporate chef role at Coastal Luxury Management, which owns 1833 and a handful of other restaurants across California and Vegas. His resume also includes time in the respective New York fine

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dining empires of Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud.

At Harvest Table, Mezick will work with the property’s “culinary horticulturalist” Laura McNiff to create a casual menu for the brick-lined 110seat restaurant.

America's Most Exclusive Restaurant Has Opened A Location At Mets' Citi Field Scoop says America's most exclusive restaurant has come to an unlikely ally: The New York Mets.

Yes, the second-most popular baseball team in New York City has somehow managed to haul in a relation-

Rao's reservations typically work like season tickets: Patrons pay between $1,000 to $25,000 every year to lock down a weekly reservation

ship with Rao, a local restaurant so tough to get a reservation for that it

basically functions as a private club.

Patrons have virtually no shot at getting a reservation just by calling - instead, networking and friends are the most common ways people manage to enjoy a meal there.

That's because Rao sells off the rights to its tables a year in advance. Rao's reservations typically work like season tickets: Patrons pay between $1,000 to $25,000 every year to lock down a weekly reservation at the restaurant. Among the diners to pony up this cash are film directors Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, as well as former president Bill Clinton. Oh, and that reservation fee doesn't in-

Among the diners to pony up this cash are film directors Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, as well as former president Bill Clinton.

clude the cost of the meal itself. Rao has since expanded beyond its original location, including a restaurant in Las Vegas at Caesar's Palace. Now, it plans to open another location in Citi Field, the Mets' home stadium. Rao's at Citi Field opened last month and it sets a new bar for the rapidly evolving food culture at baseball games.

While other professional stadiums go for crazier, sometimes hazardous creations, the Mets are giving the masses a shot at some of the world's most renowned foods. Oh, there is one last obstacle to getting into Rao's: you have to be a premium ticket-holder.

OK, so not everyone can go. But it's still a rare opportunity to try the restaurant's famously light meatballs

For the menu, Chefs Moreira and Hall prepared more than 200 delicious dinners Scoop sees that Chefs Marco Moreira and Jason Hall of The Fourth delighted homebound elderly New Yorkers last month with meals they prepared as part of the Chefs Deliver for Citymeals program

or its simple-but-celebrated salad of golden raisins, pine nuts and red pepper. It might be worth a one-time splurge.

Chefs Marco Moreira and Jason Hall of The Fourth Prepare Special Meals for Homebound Elderly in Manhattan Scoop sees that Chefs Marco Moreira and Jason Hall of The Fourth delighted homebound elderly New Yorkers last month with meals they prepared as part of the Chefs Deliver for Citymeals program. Chef Hall and Ashley Bradford, Special Events Director at One Five Hospitality, which includes The Fourth, delivered a handful of these meals in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan.

A Citymeals initiative, Chefs Deliver brings together a rotating cast of culinary stars who, once a month, lend their talents to Citymeals - cooking and often personally delivering the meals to the doors of New Yorkers who are too frail to shop and cook for themselves. Chefs Deliver was launched in January 2014 by Citymeals Board of Directors CoPresident Chef Daniel Boulud and Citymeals Board Member Chef Charlie Palmer.

For the menu, Chefs Moreira and Hall prepared more than 200 delicious dinners of Moroccan-spiced braised

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of Moroccan-spiced braised chicken with peas, carrots and Israeli couscous.

chicken with peas, carrots and Israeli couscous. Jason Hall and Ashely Bradford then hand-delivered some of the meals to Citymeals recipients living in Stuyvesant Town.

Also on hand for this special delivery were Vivienne O’Neill and Emily Smith, Director of Volunteer Programs and Associate Director of Special Events at Citymeals-onWheels, respectively. The remainder of the 200 meals was delivered to frail aged residents of the Lower East Side.

“Chefs Deliver brings together some of New York City’s most talented chefs who generously prepare restaurant-

quality meals for our most vulnerable neighbors. Our recipients are so appreciative to have a meal cooked just for them,” explained Beth Shapiro, Executive Director of Citymealson-Wheels. “Thank you to Marco Moreira, Jason Hall and Ashley Bradford for taking the time to remind our isolated older neighbors that someone is thinking of them.”

Is This Club Chef NYC’s Most Underrated Toque?

Scoop joined his fellow Partridge Club members at their annual lunch last month at the famed Knickebocker Club on Manhattan's East Side.

The delights from chef David Paulstich and his team included Scallop Ravioli, Vela Saltimbocca and a palette popping Washington State Rhubarb soup with strawberry gelato.

One wonders whether Paulstich's talents are among the City's hidden gems. The Partridge Invitational Scholarship Foundation has been raising money for scholarships to benefit students at a diverse lineup of schools including City Tech, the CIA, Johnson and Wales and Paul Smith College.

President Marc Fuchs (L) expressed the Partridge Club's appreciation to Chef David Paulstich (R) and his team during the club's annual visit to the Knickebocker Club

// NEWS

CHEFS

Chef Marcus Samuelsson Opens Pop-up Restaurant at The Fairmont Hamilton Princess Acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson has opened a two month pop-up restaurant, Samuelsson at HP, from June 3rd to August 3rd 2014 at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

T

he pop-up previews his new signature restaurant, which is set to open at the hotel in May of 2015.

Chef Samuelsson has crafted a vibrant menu that celebrates Bermudi-

an culture and history, and is executed by chef de cuisine Leo Marino and chef de cuisine Justin Levine, both hailing from Samuelsson’s acclaimed Red Rooster Harlem in New York City.

“I’m excited to create new flavors in-

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spired by the rich, vibrant culture and history of Bermuda,” says chef Marcus Samuelsson.

“From fresh-caught, local fish to an array of Caribbean and Portuguese ingredients and traditions, there is such

a wealth of inspiration to bring to the table.” Samuelsson at HP boasts a 42seat indoor dining room in addition to expansive outdoor seating for up to 60 additional guests with a bar, dining area and lounge terrace. Handcrafted design elements showcase geometric patterned pillows and flooring, nautical elements, Scandinavian-inspired wood furniture and subtle, yet bright pops of color.

Marcus Samuelsson is the internationally acclaimed, Ethiopian born, Swedish raised chef/owner of Red Rooster Harlem and its sister speak easy and jazz lounge, Ginny’s Supper Club. He is the youngest chef to ever receive two three-star ratings from The New York Times, has won mul-

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// LITTLE M. TUCKER

WITH MORGAN TUCKER

The Future of Food Through Social Media “They say life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans. But sometimes in New York, life is what happens when you’re waiting for a table.” – Sex and the City

O

n a great day, I have breakfast at The Standard Grill. I take the 15 block stroll on The Highline from my midtown apartment to the Meatpacking District, and receive my latte and oats on a beautifully curated Villeroy and Boch setting of Artesano, La Scala, Petite Fleur, and Universal. The flatware is styled and substantial, Filet Toiras from Sambonet. Before I can get to my to-do list, my inbox is already flooded with tens of urgent emails.

New York City is the single greatest hospitality destination, immersed with culture and emerging neighborhoods. At Little M Tucker, we are on a constant search for the next influential food trend that capitalizes on our iconic spirit. From here, we can predict the future of tabletop.

We thrive on the opportunity to help tell your unique story, in a beautiful ceremony that celebrates neighborhood, history, freedom, geology, and imagination.

The corner of 9th Avenue and 13th Street confirms our success. Serafina loves Steelite, Bagatelle prefers Oneida, Bill’s Bar and Burger has Homer, Catch chose Bauscher, Fig and Olive selected Rosenthal, and each of them partnered with Little M Tucker.

I am inherently a nomad, and not because I spend the majority of my day in NOMAD (NOrth of MADison

Morgan Tucker, M. Tucker m p t u c ke r @ m t u c ke r.c o m

I am inherently a nomad, Square Park), NYC, but because I adore the glamour of a journey and travel. The walk to my offices at 230 Fifth Ave serpentines from Chelsea Market to the Union Square Farmers Market and then by Madison Square Park.

A prompt in the middle of the morning notifies me of today’s Instagram image. The subject is @cardinalinternational and we have featured Arcoroc Glassware, flatware, and dinnerware with Tiger Glass accessories. These artisanal accents, handmade in a variety of shapes and colors, allow any operation to affordably update their presentations… and I believe our post explains that.

Foodies are everywhere, and I am never the only one taking a snapshot

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and not because I spend the majority of my day in NOMAD (NOrth of MADison Square Park), NYC, but because I adore the glamour of a journey and travel.

of my spread. The future of food is through social media. The cost of taking risks is extremely low, and the rewards can be huge. Thanks to the internet, we have the most educated consumer base in history. Little M

Tucker revels in the responsibility of sourcing unique items that connect with people. We use everything available to us and now share our discoveries online.

By late afternoon, it’s likely I have already paid a visit to the “tabletop mecca”: Forty-One Madison. We are in the memory-making business, and it’s a lot easier to bring experiences to life when the products are at our fingertips.

We started a Pinterest at Little M Tucker. (Pinterest is online scrapbooking without the commitment.)

We feature our clients’ locations, their table settings, and our team member’s interests…. for New York City refinement: work with Katie, International influence: Silena speaks your language, Opening in Brooklyn: Tess is your trendsetter. And for farm to fork charm, it’s my privilege to support your mission.

My days are fast-paced and fly by.

Time is the only thing we can’t get back. I am reminded of this each evening as I continue to work well into the evening. Am I motivated to adventure downstairs? It’s now passed dinnertime and I hope to be sipping a Start Me Up (whiskey, rum, lemon, spiced ginger syrup and Strega, served over an enormous ice cube) and dining on carrot tartare at the Nomad Bar on my way home, appreciating the Libbey Glass and custom Jono Pandolfi dinnerware. Tomorrow will be a new adventure and the journey won’t end tonight. Now about that to-do list… To learn more about Little M Tucker, visit www.littlemtucker.com.

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// NEWS

DISPENSING SOLUTIONS

Former Space Industry Designer Teams With Jersey’s TD Marketing To Bring Value Added Soft Serve Dispensing Solutions to Tri-State Operators Today’s food service operator selling soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt understands the investment that goes into purchasing or leasing the correct equipment to ensure the appropriate ROI.

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any operators, have seen soft serve evolve through the years. What used to be solely an item served by the operator staff has been firmly established as a product that the customer themselves dispense.

Leave it to a former space industry engineer to simplify the process and maximize a foodservice operator's return. David Brown of Spaceman USA, has brought space age technology to soft serve. “We’ve got three patents on how the barrel is constructed and essentially we use a capillary, a very thin vessel, inside the barrel cylinder and our design allows us to put the Freon, the cooling gas, only millimeters away from the actual product,” he explains. “We have these drilled capillaries that are very thin and get very close to the product so the cooling is the most efficient it can be. You can go from the machine not plugged in to plugging it in, putting the ingredients in and having a frozen product in eight minutes. It’s the fastest – and most energy-efficient -- I've seen, in the industry.”

When Brown and his SpacemanUSA team looked at the foodservice

Leave it to a former space industry engineer to simplify the process and maximize a foodservice operator's return. David Brown of Spaceman USA, has brought space age technology to soft serve.

industry they saw an opportunity.

“There are some big players who have really enjoyed a high-margin existence for a long time. But there's no real good reason why a frozen yogurt or ice cream machine should cost $15,000. Brown says the company’s competition has designs based on 1930s technology. “Their designs are based on flooded cylinders, so they just make a refrigerated box that looks like a picnic box, with the cyl-

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inders inside it and they flood it with gas,” he says. Essentially, what we’ve done is provide a very high-precision machine that is reliable and also uses high-quality components, with American-based support.” Brown says Spaceman provides a machine that’s every inch as good as the higher-priced models. “But for about 40% off, with the same level of quality, why not? There's simply no reason for prices to be so high."

“We have a sealed vessel. Inside the vessel are the cylinders with the capillaries drilled into the metal itself, like channels, so that Freon can be close to the product,” he says.

Spaceman USA has also designed its line of machines with an eye towards how the soft serve marketplace changes. "We do have chains who swear by the self-serve model but we also have tons of customers who don't want people touching the machine. Today we live in this kind of strange netherworld where we figure out the easiest way to let a staff person, or people in the public, use the machine.”

He adds that the company tries, with its design, to keep it as simple as possible. “We want to make it exceedingly simple and we try to keep

it easy enough that the guest in our customer’s shop or a brand-new employee, who’s never worked on this machinery before, can use it to produce a premium product. We want everybody who breathes air and drinks water to be able to use this machine.”

As for cleaning the equipment, Spaceman advises customers to do it every six days, no matter what. “We have shops in New York and Los Angeles and big cities, where those inspectors want that machine cleaned every 24 hours. We've created a design that makes that easy for our customers to accomplish.

The company is crafting future enhancements by continuing to listen to its customers.

“The feedback helps us learn how to put the machines together to make what people want,” Brown noted. There's no question that many of our competitors are looking to maintain their margins and enable the operator to program their machines in pajamas and slippers. Our goal is simply to keep the price of the machine down by creating machines with mechanics that enable the average person to use them. But, at the end of the day, someone has to clean that machine and put it back together. You can get as high tech as you want, but at a certain point, someone has to paint that canvas.

An artist has to mix up that paint and paint that canvas. That’s what we’re helping the industry do.”

“What it boils down to is that, in just eight minutes with SpacemanUSA you’re going to pour me a nice swirled ice cream,” Brown concluded.

The product is represented in the Metro New York area by New Jersey based TD Marketing.

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// NEWS

KITCHEN INNOVATIONS

Designed for the Sharp, NYC Based Boldric Offers Chefs a New Take on the Traditional Knife Bag and Apron What started out as a simple hobby creating a bag for his good knives has turned into a booming business for Ali Loukzada, an executive chef who has worked at many of the top restaurants in New York City.

T

he co-owner of Boldric, whose brother, and partner, does all the manufacturing in India, now designs not only beautiful knife bags but aprons and gym and tote bags that are prized wherever he sells them.

Ali Loukzada, who now runs the cafe at the Rubin Museum in Manhattan, started out as a young boy in the culinary world in India, where he was born and raised. “I began cooking in school programs,” he says. “I had a choice, either computer science or the culinary arts, and I decided I wanted to do the latter. So I started making some of my mom’s recipes at the schools. I learned from my mom how to cook (I serve one of her meals in my cafe) and at 17, when I moved to the U.S., the first thing I did was to check out culinary schools. Everyone in India wants you to be a doctor or engineer, it's super-common over there.

But I wanted to be a chef.”

Graduating in 1999, Loukzada went looking for a job. But his career didn't take the ordinary route. “My first job was at Le Zinc,” he recalls. “It was very famous back then. I worked there on weekends because I had a full-time

What started out as a simple hobby creating a bag for his good knives has turned into a booming business for Ali Loukzada, an executive chef who has worked at many of the top restaurants in New York City.

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job as a runner at Pershing Square in Manhattan. I worked as a runner for four years and then I went to work at Le Zinc full-time, and from there, I got a real good opportunity and started at Tabla, Danny Meyer's restaurant, where I worked for 2 ½ years.”

While at Pershing Square, going to culinary school and doing his internship at Le Zinc, Loukzada moved up to line cook, then sous chef. “I moved to Tabla for 2 ½ years and then I became a sous chef there, and went on to Steven Starr restaurants and was at Buddakan for six years as a sous chef in New York as well,” he says.

Here's where the knife bags come in. “On one of my trips to India I wanted to make myself a bag,” Loukzada says. “I ended up making a knife bag.

I designed it over there, sitting down, in a room. I didn't know if my knives would fit because I didn't have them with me, so I bought one and then brought the bag back to the U.S., and a bunch of my coworkers were superimpressed. They all said, 'I want one of those,' and it actually started, wordof-mouth. Franklin Becker bought one of my bags and tweeted about it. All my friends started buying these bags.”

Because he'd been able to make the bags at low cost, he only charged $250.00 per bag. “And I made $2,500!” he says. “That's how we launched our site. It wasn't even much until I got some feedback from other people, and friends giving me ideas, and I started working on new designs. I left Buddakan, in 2011, and that's when I went to Starr and I'm still there, the executive chef at the Rubin Museum. It's an Indian-inspired menu, since I am Indian and trained in Indian food. We do very laid-back comfort foods, in a very clean, flavor-driven way.”

Loukzada's original product was a 17-pocket knife bag, handmade in water buffalo leather, and then, in collaboration with his brother, a one-

buckle version was created. “I went back to India and this time I took my knives with me so we could measure all the bags up so they could handle the width, and we looked at the different materials I could use, and came up with this very chic bag,” he says. “It has a good price point, not too high, and that was the second bag.”

Why stop there? The brothers went to work on a third bag. “This one was a little cheaper,” he says. “What you see now is a different bag, but we decided to make a tie version, a Japanese-style bag, because I shopped at Japanese knife shops and they're very expensive so I wanted to keep them in something that's worth the dollars that I paid for the knives,” Loukzada says. “It used to be two ties but now it's a Double D hook. It's got seven pockets and I designed it for what someone can afford who's just starting out, because I've been there. I was a runner, a bus boy, a line cook, a prep cook. I knew what I could afford down the line. But I wanted to build a line from highly-priced down to the least expensive, $50 for a six-pocket bag.”

Loukzada got his first big break at the International Housewares Show in Chicago. “We got some super good feedback. JB Prince saw us and, along with Bowery Kitchen supply, was the first to sign us on. They said they'd give us a shot and they’ve been our hugest

supporters. I'm a local chef from New York who's done this stuff in the area.

If New Yorkers won't support me, who will? That's how we started.”

He looks back on his experience in New York with wonder. “It's amazing. I was just a teenager when I came here and I didn't think I would be doing any of this stuff,” he says. “I started from scratch, washing dishes and running food and to work at some of the best restaurants in New York, maybe the country, to be here doing my own thing, it's unbelievable.”

Now the company has moved over into aprons. “I have worn a million aprons throughout my career, and I know how they start out and at times how bad they could be,” he says. “It's due to the material, the strap, how thin it is, how it digs into your belly as you stand there all night. That needed to be changed.”

Another flaw in the aprons he was forced to fix was having the pockets in the back, rather than in the front, where they could be much more useful. “You have your side towels, your napkins, and you're wiping your hands on them. Everything you do, they get drenched in water, and they're dragging your entire apron down, hurting your neck because it's dragging that down, too,” he says. “So I decided to put a D hook on your right side, and weave your napkin through

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it and tie a knot in it. And the two lap pockets? When I used to be a cook, I knew people who put spoons in their back pockets. That was pretty gross.

Then they put their towels on the belly so they looked pregnant. They would only get a limited amount of towels a day so, not to lose them, they would stuff them up inside the belly of the apron. I decided to make a way to put a side towel in the two lap pockets. If they stay in the front, you can put your spoons, your side towels in front, and with an adjustable strap on your neck, you're all set. They're small features but they really help.”

Tweezers for garnishing can go on top in the pocket, while pens and notepads can also rest there. “For a restaurant owner, that's a real opportunity to make waiters more efficient. And when the health inspector comes in and says, ‘what's going on with these aprons,' that's never a good

thing. This way you don't have to worry,” he says.

Loukzada says he even has a friend in California who makes handcrafted knives from scratch and the business uses his aprons to protect the employees when grinding and sharpening their knives.

The whole operation has become a family affair. When thousands of yards of canvas were left over last year, that inspired Louksada to think about different designs. He came up with ones for jujitsu, in which he competes, and boxing, and then a gym bag, while the tote bag was his wife's idea. “We all chipped in with different ideas, and that's how we branched out,” he says. “I know the bags are great. We get feedback every single day.”

For more information on Boldric’s knife bags, aprons, knives, and other accessories, please visit www.boldric. com or call 1-844-265-3742.

// EVENTS

METRO NY FOODSERVICE EVENTS

First Annual Mediterranean Diet Roundtable Brings Together An Entire Spectrum Of Decision-Makers In The U.S. Food Industry The “Big Apple” seemed to be the best stage to bring the first Mediterranean Diet Roundtable event, which registered a full house for its inaugural event at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City on April 9th.

O

ver 120 professionals of the food and nutrition industry gathered from all over the U.S. for a lively discussion about what the Mediterranean Diet really is and how it could work into different commercial and noncommercial food service operations.

Many experts were featured at the event. Opening remarks were offered

by Sara Baer-Sinnott, president of Oldways (a non-profit organization that focuses on heritage and health that launched the first Mediterranean Diet Pyramid in the 1990’s), followed by world-class scientist Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., who presented the importance of omega-3 fatty acids, citing the traditional Cretan diet as a prototype of the diet. The rich scientific panel included researcher Giovanni Scapagnini, M.D., Ph.D. and Dr. Tara Narula, M.D., a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital and a CBS Health Contributor, explained how medical professionals are shifting away from focusing on single nutrients, but rather on the diet as a whole and its effects on longevity.

A special “hands-on” discussion was offered during the Colleges and

using produce from their 109 acre farm. Johnny Curet, Executive Chef from Rice University explained how

Rafi Taherian, Executive Director of Yale University Dining stressed the importance of flavor as a way of “seducing” students to healthier options

Universities segment: Ken Toong (Ex. Director of University of Massachusetts Amherst Auxiliary Enterprises) lead this discussion among chefs of small and large colleges focusing on food experiences with global influence, healthy, local and sustainable foods. Rafi Taherian, Executive Director of Yale University Dining stressed the importance of flavor as a way of “seducing” students to healthier options, noting how a Mediterranean diet is simple in its preparation but also colorful and attractive while Craig Mombert, Executive Chef at Davidson College addressed the importance of avoiding processed foods with 90% of dishes made from scratch

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everything served to the students is homemade and works with Mediterranean chefs for a genuine experience.

The event then covered non-commercial menu development and procurement process. This crucial panel was moderated by John Lawn, a foodservice authority with a 25 year experience. Veronica McLymont, Ph.D., RD, CDN from the Memorial Sloan Cancer Center described the initiatives taken to improve the health and wellbeing in their hospital, with strategies such as having only low calories food and beverages in vending machines, and providing easier access to fresh produce for the staff. Debby Kasper, RD, LD, SNS from Premier, discussed the challenges of applying a Mediterranean style diet such as

government regulations, distribution, cost and purchasing alignment with tangible, technical data on the operations they have to face every day. Gina Zimmer from Restaurant Associates discussed various health promotions to excite clients about the Mediterranean diet such as “Guess the Greens” and “Super Salads." Tina Reddington from Sodexo explained how government regulated corporations such as the military does not allow for much interference in terms of nutrition decisions.

After a Mediterranean lunch, with tasting of Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Greek cuisines, the event continued with Elena Paravantes, RDN, nutritionist and writer specializing in the Mediterranean Diet describing the misperception of the diet in the American population and the practical application of the diet. Following, Susan Reef, President of U.S. Food

Ken Toong, Executive Director of University of Massachusetts Amherst Auxiliary Enterprises, led the MDR discussion among chefs for colleges focusing on food experiences with global influence

Safety talked about how the media and advertising guides consumers decisions in regard to food buying and nutrition habits.

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A presentation by a team of Italian wine, cheese and pasta producers from Molise, Italy (Nicola Di Niro, Pasquale Catabbo, Giuseppe Sacco),

described the process of producing artisanal products using Digital Identity and Food Fingerprint to secure the origin of their products. The event ended with an overview of the role of pasta in the Mediterranean diet by Barilla Nutritionist Anna Rosales, highlighting the nutrition value of pasta as a low glycemic index food to be enjoyed in moderation.

“The organizers did a masterful job, bringing together a varied group of people, to tell an interesting and inspiring story of bringing the good health and great tastes of the Mediterranean Diet to new audiences,” commented Sara Baer Sinnott. “We are building upon a solid start: after this very successful pilot event, we are already planning for next year,” said Daniela Puglielli of Accent PR, founder and producer of the event.

Additional information available at www.mdrproject.com

// MEET THE NEWSMAKER

UP CLOSE WITH METRO NY NEWSMAKERS

Alan Gottlich, Executive Vice President of Party Rental Ltd.

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lease give us a quick background and history of Party Rental?

Party Rental Ltd. is a family owned business established in 1972 and headquartered in Teterboro, NJ. Party Rental Ltd. is dedicated to serving the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regions with the largest selection of linens, tables, flatware, china and catering equipment in the country. They pride themselves on their service,

quality and variety of rental products for any occasion. You may know them by their iconic pink hippo trucks. For more information visit www.partyrentalltd.com.

Many of our readers see the trucks with the pink Hippos driving on tristate highways. What do the Hippos signify?

It’s actually quite a funny story. The owner had his daughter draw a picture

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Alan Gottlich, Executive Vice President, Party Rental Ltd.

of a camel for a yellow page ad back in the early 80’s. The camel signified carrying and moving products. Yellow pages lost the original picture of the camel and offered a stock picture of a Hippo. That is how the now iconic Hippo was born.

It's pretty difficult to attend a major function in NYC and not see tables and chairs that have been rented from Party Rental. What are some of the trends that you are seeing in terms of what our readers would call "front of the house"?

New bar looks as opposed to traditional tables with Linens.

Creative bar stools / linen-less high tops and low tops / creative station equipment / lounge furniture. Organic looking décor (example the last

event had country wood wheel barrow with metal wheel as a mobile station and plant bakers racks as “tiered stations" and “Steampunk” mixing organic looks like wood and metal.

Signature trays/ platters / bowls for stations and family style items (platters-bowls) with creative serving equipment (spoons, ladles, spatulas etc.). Blush Wedding Linens are being requested. Hollywood Glam is back.

There are lots of shimmery fabrics and different types of metals used in centerpieces and the rose gold is popular in both flatware, chargers and linens.

Farm to Table or Farm to Fork is still very much in trend and the clients who are focused on minimizing the “carbon footprint” of an event are especially keen to it. Utilizing local products (produce, cheese, meats, etc) has been very popular. The use of our farm tables, cross back chairs and rattan ties into this theme. Another trend that is popular is utilizing chalk tables and chalk trays to display food, the caterer will write directly on the table/ tray what they are offering the guests.

Do culinary trends and menus drive your business? For example for a number of years, we were seeing "cooking stations." How did that impact what clients were renting?

Yes, menus drive everything from sta-

tions and supporting equipment for Table Top. Example-soup requires a bowl and a spoon but what design of soup bowl and spoon to achieve “flow of design and functionality?”

As far as Stations go it is 100% customized based on the event menu.

Culinary trends always drive creative theme stations but classic ethnic trends are firmly in place be it Asian, Tuscan and French. However, right now South American food is very trendy, so the clients would be looking for vessels that are traditional to that cuisine to serve the food in. They would also want to incorporate linen colors that are traditional to that cuisine.

Farm to table and fresh food has become the focus. How has that impacted what your client base is looking for? Do you still see food warmers and/or chafers at events?

Farm to Table has driven more organic looks like using the farm table and riser as a station or rattan linens and runners. Food warmers and chafers are still king but creative chafers and stands with larger aluminum pans and cooking equipment like Paella Pans and wrought iron pots and pans are emerging. The oldest challenge in station design is creative replacement

Neva Tangerine Linen, Whisper White Plate, Smoke Pandora Tinted Glassware, Lexington Flatware

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Dyana Glassware

of the chafer while still staying functional.

It must be tremendously challenging for your sales force to help today's Party Rental client understand how to read both the aesthetic needs of an event and the reality of food service execution. How does your team stay on top of the changes in the needs of their customer base?

Our team is constantly engaged with our clients and the industry trends; most of us have a culinary and event industry background. We are at events, meeting with industry leaders, seeing design, creativity and living it every day.

To be a top sales executive requires extensive knowledge on culinary, design, logistics, both front of house and back of house. Sales always needs to communicate with the diverse markets we serve, so this knowledge is crucial.

Many clients need “expert” advice as to what their orders may or may not need. Large clients with production teams may have well thought out orders but smaller clients and non-event professionals may require more guidance.

Nobody rents more mobile food cabinets than your company. You've been on the cutting edge of food safety for many years. What trends are you seeing from manufacturers in terms of making food safety compliance simpler?

The trend today has not changed very much with regards to the mobile food cabinets. These warming cabinets along with refrigeration units are

pretty basic with the sole purpose of maintaining foods at the proper temperatures and simplifying transportation until they are ready to be cooked or served. The manufacturers are focusing their efforts on creating all different types of vessels to maintain needed temperatures while cooking or serving with an eye catching presentation in front of guests. The concentration today is to beautify the so called "chafing dish" which has been the staple unit for decades to keep foods fresh.

From craft cocktails to craft beer, there's never been more focus on the beverage menu at an event? How does Party Rental help its customer base create and execute the right beverage presentation from portable bar equipment and glassware?

Craft cocktails are now getting some of their inspiration from food items such as fresh herbs, berries, mushrooms, etc. and with that in mind, it is fun to try and incorporate a colored glass or different shaped glassware to marry with the look and feel of the cocktail.

Having many of our event experts with backgrounds in culinary and beverage service paired with the trust developed over years with creative and functional input positions us as a go-to expert for these types of consultations. We take them on a case by case basis as every client and event is totally different.

Who can our readers call at Party Rental for assistance in planning functions at their restaurant, hotel or catering facility?

We have a dedicated staff of event rental specialists available 7 days a week to assist you with planning your next event from start to finish. Just dial 201-727-4700 to reach us! Also, please visit our website at www.partyrentalltd.com to view our products, build your own quote, and much more!

// INSURANCE

FIORITO ON INSURANCE

Avoiding, Mitigating and Preparing Your Restaurant For A Cyber Security Breach According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, cyber security events increased by 27% in 2014 to reach 5,029 data breaches and as many as 675 million records compromised.

Bob Fiorito, Vice President of Business Development at Hub International Robert.Fiorito@ hubinternational.com

A

ccording to the Identity Theft Resource Center, cyber security events increased by 27% in 2014 to reach 5,029 data breaches and as many as 675 million records compromised.

Their scale and sophistication have led many organizations to conclude that their cyber-security programs don’t match the technological sophistication of today’s attackers.

Here is a four pronged approach to minimizing cyber risk: Avoid, Prevent, Mitigate and Transfer.

1. Avoid cyber risks by making sure anything sensitive is encrypted, including employees' Social Security numbers, health care information, passwords, etc.

2. Prevent intruders by deploying strong firewalls and intrusion detection systems as well as developing robust policies and procedures about document handling, storage and destruction. For example, get rid of personal information in a way that can’t be recovered, such as shredding paper files and deleting personal records, and smash-

Therefore, firms need specialized cyber insurance forms that provide liability as well as first-party coverage for breach expenses, regulatory investigation, non-physical interruption and extortion. ing or acid-bathing hard disks.

3. Mitigate your potential cyber risks by developing an incident response plan in advance. Don’t wait until a cyber breach occurs to create a response and continuity plan.

Speak with attorneys, put in place a notification vendor, and public relations firm to mitigate the financial impact on the company.

Do table-top exercises annually.

4. Transfer your risk by examining all vendor, cloud and partner contracts. Do liability agreements ensure that you receive indemnities from them should they cause a breach of your data? Are the damage caps too low for the potential losses? Have you demanded proof

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of insurance?

New Forms of Cyber Crime Criminals are endlessly creative when it comes to monetizing breaches.

They exploit easily guessed or re-used passwords, lost or stolen laptops and human error. And more and more, they trick people into giving them money.

For example, a new form of social engineering attack eludes most crime insurance policies. Hackers breach a computer and send fraudulent emails directing others—in the name of the breached victim—to pay them monies at new accounts. Who loses? Not the bank but rather companies with minimal internal controls and weak cyber insurance coverage.

One of the most effective ways to

determine if an organization has adequate controls is to complete an application for cyber insurance coverage.

Your insurance broker can help determine if you have adequate internal controls and protection of individual information.

Not All Cyber Coverage is Created Equal

Businesses should not assume that their business owner’s policy will cover a potential breach. General liability policies do not cover cyber breaches.

Crime policies do not cover spear phishing. Therefore, firms need specialized cyber insurance forms that provide liability as well as first-party coverage for breach expenses, regulatory investigation, non-physical interruption and extortion.

First-party expenses can add up fast, including breach-event expenses like notification required by law and credit file monitoring required by prudence. Should identity theft result, you will need to provide identity restoration services to victims and hire a privacy attorney to guide you through the complex legal landscape of laws and lawsuits. You will need to hire a data forensics team to identify where the breach occurred. You might need to cope with network extortion or reimburse for payments made under duress. You might face network business interruption that leads to a loss of income and extra expense. You might need to restore, recreate or recollect data that has been corrupted, altered or destroyed.

Following a breach, you will also face regulatory challenges. Although there are only a few federal laws on the books for data privacy— Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPAA) - you will be dealing with 47 state laws as well as

with their attorney generals and the Federal Trade Commission. Since most firms have workers’ compensation data and employees enrolled with health insurers, you are also likely to deal with federal and state healthcare laws such as HIPPA, Cash Management Improvement Act (CMIA) and their regulators: the U.S. Office of Civil Rights and Health and Human Services.

Thus, businesses should work with a broker who specializes in cyber liability to identify exposures and tailor coverage to their specific organization so they buy the right cyber policy for their business and value chain.

Watch out for the following potential gaps when purchasing cyber coverage: 1. Know your limits. Make sure you have regulatory coverage

limits that match your specific business needs. For example, if your business has a healthcare exposure, HIPPA will govern any breach and drive remediation measures, defense and investigation costs and could produce expensive fines. As a result, it is critical that your insurance coverage not be limited. Some forms can extend limits by placing breach costs outside of the aggregate. Finally, ask yourself: How might a breach event affect third-parties and how much would you need to defend and pay damages?

2. Understand any exclusions. Cyber policies often have exclusions for unencrypted mobile

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devices, like laptops, phones and backup tapes. Good brokers address exclusions by having clients improve controls and then arguing that insurers remove or narrow them. For example, clients can remedy unencrypted mobile devices to remove this exclusion mid-term.

3. Examine your needs. Make sure you are purchasing coverage that matches your business risks. For example, if you have a website, you may need media and content liability for infringements of copyright and trademark. Similarly, if you sell a technology product or provide any kind of service, attending liabilities can be wrapped

into a cyber policy. In this way, you save money over separate policies as well as avoid possible conflicts between insurers about insurance coverage issues.

Compare potential breach costs to reimbursement payment plans. Cyber policies come in two flavors: duty to defend or duty to indemnify. The first is the most common. Insurers handle your defense. In some forms, they can also handle all of the incident response.

The latter form allows you to manage the breach, defense and vendors. Some firms prefer this approach when they want to choose counsel or the IT response team.

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// KITCHEN DESIGN

WITH NEW JERSEY RESTAURANT EQUIPMENT CORP

Building a Better Kitchen Chef Michael Gershkovich prior to opening his eponymous fine dining Kosher restaurant in Manhattan knew he needed design help for his upcoming move.

C

hef Mike’s restaurant was located on the Upper West Side and now he was relocating to Midtown East. His schedule was extremely full; running a successful restaurant as well as his other endeavor Amsterdam Burgers, there was not enough time in the day.

A trip to Northern New Jersey brought the CIA educated Chef to NJ Restaurant Equipment Corp in Fairview, New Jersey. There he met and started speaking with Michael Cinosky, NJRE’s Senior Project Manager and Designer. “You could tell right off the bat that Chef Mike has such passion for what he does and he is crazy talented,” Cinosky went on; “We both went to the Culinary had some of the same Chef Instructors and I could tell he was doing things the right way.”

In fact Mr. Cinosky cooked in commercial kitchens and managed full service restaurants and catering businesses his whole career including hotels and center of the plate restaurants. The challenge for this particular project that Chef Mike was setting up a kosher fine dining restaurant which presented its challenges for Cinosky: “Here you have a chef that doesn’t take short cuts, that does everything from scratch and now you have to take a Manhattan kitchen space and turn it into essentially three different kitchens. It was a learning experience for me and not only were we successful in fitting all of the important

derstands the way I operate.

“When you are opening up a restaurant or any business for that matter, you are juggling so many different aspects of the project and there are vendors with whom you work that add to that stress and make your work more

A trip to Northern New Jersey brought the CIA educated Chef to NJ Restaurant Equipment Corp in Fairview, New Jersey. There he met and started speaking with Michael Cinosky, NJRE’s Senior Project Manager and Designer.

When you set up a kitchen it’s not easy or even feasible for most to just change out the plan if it doesn’t work, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

elements for chef Mike, we had room to spare and made the kitchen ultra efficient understanding not only quality but price,” laments Cinosky as he remembers the revisions and the constant productive dialogue he and Chef Gershkovich went back and forth for a few months setting up the space.

“It was nice working with someone that used the equipment most of his career, someone that I could tell what it was I was looking for and he got it.

Working in a kitchen is difficult and unless you have been there in the same type of environment you can’t possibly imagine what we go through.”

In fact having a Chef’s help has proved to be a winning formula for NJRE with Cinosky in charge of over 25

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designs in the last two years in not only the tri-state area but beyond. “Currently I am working on a butcher shop/restaurant in Lancaster County PA, a kosher chicken restaurant, an empanada bar, a craft beer establishment and the beginning of this year I finished a Pizza Restaurant in Peducah, KY, Broadway Italian Grill.” With all of the projects under management, Cinosky is already working on Gershkovich’s next location for his Amsterdam Burger venture.

“When you are working with a Chef as talented as Mike, and as intense I might add, it makes the project more fun. Also, Chef Mike understands that in my heart I am a kitchen guy so I have no qualms about giving my opinion and as long as I can back it up, he un-

difficult. Working with Cinosky was actually the opposite of that. I knew that I could give him a conceptual idea and he would put it on paper and make it work,” Gershkovich says as he thinks back to the project and now looks forward to the next.

When you set up a kitchen it’s not easy or even feasible for most to just change out the plan if it doesn’t work, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

It is paramount to get it right the first time however as we all know there are no guarantees and it seems as though Chefs and restaurateurs feel more comfortable with a Chef helping design and build-out their space. NJRE is located at 51 Broad Avenue Fairview, NJ 07022. www.njresupply.net 201.313.3334

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// NEWS

LETTER GRADE STRATEGIES

Pecinka Ferri Teams With Family Of Manufacturers To Create Easy To Implement Letter Grade Strategy For NYC Operators For many years foodservice operators were guided mainly by customers – how they liked the food. Was it fresh enough? Was there enough variety?

T

oday that’s no longer the story. Restaurants in the tristate area now must make the grade.

The Health Department in Manhattan conducts unannounced inspections of restaurants at least once a year. Inspectors check for compliance in food handling, food temperature, personal hygiene and vermin control. Each violation of a regulation gets a certain number of points. At the end of the inspection, the inspector totals the points, and this number is the restaurant's inspection score—the lower the score, the better the grade.

"Refrigeration equipment that stacks up, that meets the tough standards set by local health departments, is Pecinka-Ferri’s strength," according to Joe Ferri, COO. Equipment suppliers and specifiers, the company provides appliances that meet the latest mandates.

Operators, consultants, dealers and reps work cooperatively to follow Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point protocols. “This means identifying all of the handling points of the food

Pecink-Ferri's (L to R) Ed Pecinka and Joe Ferri are two of the Rep Industry's most respected professionals

in a prospective commercial kitchen layout,” says Ferri. “And, we’ve now identified new areas of concern. This in turn has spawned a new equipment category: production holding. It is simply not enough to control temperatures in receiving, storage and serving. We’ve had to grapple with moving from and keeping food products out of the danger zones during meal assembly times as well.

Some of the equipment Pecinka-Ferri supplies that meets the strict health department requirements include Continental Refrigerator, which tested

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at 100 degree ambient for rugged duty; Carter Hoffman, for its warming drawers for both moist and crispy products; Irinox, which needs refrigerators for the preservation of fresh food with a longer shelf life, higher nutrient value, and better taste; Blodgett , for its programmable Combi ovens; Server Products, which use solid- state refrigerated-portion control pumps, and Hatco, which manufactures air screen production warmers that do not dry out foods.

“We’ve worked with both our refrigeration and our warming equipment factories for compelling solutions and have field-tested many iterations,” Ferri says.

Rapid chilling and freezing is being recognized as an essential element of any plan to maintain freshness, he notes. “NSF-7 approved standard refrigeration products that perform under the stresses of the high-volume, tightly packed kitchens in our area are an irreplaceable component of today’s kitchen designs,” he adds.

And there have been notable successes. “We were fortunate to work with M.

Tucker as dealer and Next Step Design as consultants in the Melt Shop projects,” Ferri points out. “This progressive grilled cheese concept was challenged by needing to quickly heat a wide selection of additions to their signature sandwiches and assembling them in an uber-volume mid-town location. We proudly worked alongside all of the parties to create an equipment- based solution. ” But the challenges keep coming.

Active equipment (designed to move food temperatures, rather than maintain them), such as the latest combi ovens and blast chillers, now have controls that mimic mobile communication devices. “Microprocessors imbedded aboard our cooking and chilling units lead the charge to the online monitoring of things. We will soon be able to remotely communicate directly with these products ‘out of the box,’” says Ferri. “Currently, firmware updates and recipes can easily be uploaded through thumb drives.

Dispensing equipment has progressed as well, using Peltier effect thermoelectric cooling systems (with minimal moving parts) to hold condiments, dairy products, sauces and other products at safe temperatures, according to Ferri. “Innovative products with features crossing over from retail and especially from consumer electronics will forever change the way we think about food safety,” he says.

“We are fortunate to have hosted many of the leading operators at our ‘Gastro Lab’ test kitchen facility in Little Falls, N.J., and extend the invitation to all who need to validate their products and methods,” Ferri says.

For more information, email sales@ pecinkaferri.com.

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// NEWS

RESTAURANT INNOVATIONS

What Would You Think If An Application Could Simplify Your Ordering Process – And What You Pay – For Every Product You Buy For Your Restaurant?

Today, independent restaurants use a multi-distributor purchasing strategy to get the best price for an item, splitting orders for each product category between several distributors, according to Andreas Koutsoudakis, Co-Founder of TradingTable.

O

perators are ordering blind, and distributors are chasing orders the old fashioned way – pen, paper, fax, and

phone calls.

It used to be that restaurants often divided up their orders between two or more distributors to see who charged the least. But operators only found out the price after the product was delivered.

But, no more. Along with his CoFounder, restaurateur Gus Plaitis, the TradingTable platform they built allows restaurant operators to source products, connect with their choice of distributors, and access true realtime pricing from their distributors and submit all of their orders from one platform online, making the process far more efficient.

“As an attorney representing restaurants, I saw what was happening in the industry, from a regulatory standpoint, from a food cost standpoint, from rising rents and overhead,” says Koutsoudakis. “Comparing them to what it was like in the ‘70s, when our

The TradingTable platform allows restaurant operators to source products, connect with their choice of distributors, and access true real-time pricing from their distributors and submit all of their orders from one platform online, making the process far more efficient.

fathers first came here from Greece, it’s a totally different picture today,” says Koutsoudakis. “Back then, the margins were so big because labor was cheap, rent was cheap, and food cost was low. You didn’t need to be a good operator to make money. You had room to make mistakes and still go home with a profit.”

That’s no longer the case. “The cowboy days are over,” he says. “Today, you have to be at the top of your

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game to stay relevant and in business. The only way you can do that is if you’re keeping up-to-date with all the different solutions out there. Our solution helps operators, distributors and suppliers with the glaring inefficiencies currently inherent in the purchasing process between distributors and restaurants,” he says.

Enter TradingTable.

“In the past, distributors’ sales reps would walk into a restaurant, hope

to get its business, and basically say, ‘give me your order sheet and I’ll get you pricing,’” says Koutsoudakis.

“Now, all they need to do is build a relationship with the restaurant, then connect with them on Trading Table.

You won’t have to do anything with your order other than enter what you want. There’s complete transparency and visibility into the relationship and complete exposure into all the products that a distributor has.”

Right now, the average independent restaurant owner doesn’t have buying power, Plaitis says. “If you’re Hilton or a large national chain, you can command your pricing. But an independent operator, who has one, two or three restaurants, doesn’t have that kind of buying power. So the way they keep distributors on their toes is having multiple distributors for each product category, three guys splitting your produce order, another two or three vendors for your grocery items, and so that’s how you end up with 15-20 distributors. Through that process you have sales reps who manage on average 40 restaurants, and restaurants who manage between 15-20 sales reps. They’re all left playing phone tag. ‘Joe, I’m ready to place my produce order.’ ‘Sorry, I’m with a customer, I’ll call you back.’ They call back, but now it’s lunchtime. Or dinner. It’s a $263 billion industry. That’s how much business restaurants placed with distributors last year, and it’s crazy that it’s done offline the same way it was done 50 years ago.”

The TradingTable platform, on the other hand, brings together operators, distributors and suppliers and streamlines the process of buying and selling for both operators and their network of distributors.

It also allows distributors to get

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// EYE

EVENT COVERAGE

Club Managers 21st Annual Show at Glen Island Casino After an annual trip to the Metropolitan Club Managers Vendor Show, you could make an argument that being a club manager may in fact present one of the most challenging and stimulating career opportunities.

F

rom the sustainbale grounds of a golf facility to Healthcare and food regulations, trends, governance, financials and strategic planning are all necessary parts of running one well.

To help club managers succeed at these, the 21st Vendor Show at Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle brought together 1,200 people from the private club industry for its annual one-day networking and educa-

tion event.

The Vendor Show has raised over $3,000,000 since its start in 1994 to support educational programs for club managers and to assist managers to further the club management

profession; provide financial assistance to individuals from the public sector, including minorities interested in the club and hospitality fields and, create a greater public awareness of professional opportunities; promote the club management profession through academic programs offered by (community) colleges, culinary schools, and universities both in New York and other states, and to cooperate in the dissemination of professional information to allied associations, academic institutions, and other groups involved with the hospitality field.

Foodservice suppliers, including 120 vendors showing club-specific products, exhibited their wares at the show. Attending were clubs from the Metro New York area, including Man-

continued on page 118

The Penn Club's Wesson Anderson displayed his cocktail creating prowess

Manursing Island Club chef John Krall had the opportunity to bring highlights of his newest fare from the club's newly designed kitchen to the show

The Capobianco family's HAFSCO firm had the show's largest booth filled with Club kitchen design solutions

The culinary talents of the Metropolis Club's Lorean O'Connell were among the many Metro New York Club chefs that were on display at the annual event

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JC Sales led by Lynette Rigdon (C) brought many innovative club furniture solutions

Sal Pesce (R) and his Big Apple Dessert team brought a exciting selection of new dessert solutions for local clubs.

Barry Chandler (C) brought a large contingent from Long island's Nissequogue Club

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// EYE

METRO NEW YORK'S FOODSERVICE EVENT COVERAGE

The Partridge Club Presents Kevin Zraly's One Hour Wine Expert For the past couple of years the Partridge Club has been making big strides towards updating the 75 year old's club look and feel.

W

hile the goal of the club continues to be to raise scholarship funds for TriState students to complete their culinary degrees, over the past two years, the club has unveiled a new logo, and will soon debut an updated web site and has added an exciting new schedule of events for its membership and guests. Under the leadership of current president Marc Fuchs and Partridge new membership chief Barbara Kane of Ecolab, the foundation attracted one of the industry's brightest stars: Kevin Zraly to a fund raising event last month. Restaurant Associates chief Dick Cattani secured the magnificent 8th floor space at the iconic Time Life Building in midtown Manhattan. Zraly brought his One

(L to R) Hobart's Dick Hynes and Steve Gatullo of the Food and Beverage Association

Hour Wine Expert show to the 150 plus guests. Between 1976 and 2001, Zraly held the position of wine director for the Windows on the World restaurant, on the top floors of New York's World Trade Center which he helped build into America's topgrossing restaurant. His illustrious career took off when the legendary Joe Baum hired him as a 25 year old. He is credited with introducing California wine to the American public. EYE could not get over the Zraly approach to teaching. The Partridge crowd was enthralled as he walked the group through the basics of wine. In cooperation with Lauber Imports Kristian Rex to secure such delectables as Dr.

Lauber's Kristian Rex and Distinguished Vineyards' Michael Metzger with Kevin Zraly (C)

(L to R) JP Morgan Chase's Barbara Boden and Matt Sher of Day and Nite

GAF Seelig's Wendy and Rodney Seelig welcomed their daughters to the festivities

Partridge member Morgan Tucker (C) welcomed the Patina Group's Eric Galkin and Jeannie Hamilton

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(L to R) Gotham Hospitality's Jennie Tannura, Maureen Cole of Minners Design and Erik Weiss of Gotham

The always animated Kevin Zraly had the Partridge Club gathering roaring as they learned

Frank Riesling 2014, Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc 2013, Mer Soleil Chardonnay 2013, Argyle Pinot Noir 2012 and Bedell Merlot 2012 the noted wine expert combined humor and simplicity. Some of the Zraly pearls included:

(L to R) TD Marketing's Peter Lociento, Michael Klatman, Frankie Doyle and Glen Tunis welcomed Larry Dubov of Aero (3rd L)

“We have only fours tastes but some 10,000 senses of smell, how at age

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32 our sense of smell is at its peak and why the presentation of a wine

cork is senseless. The Partridge Club was formed in 1935 at the Victoria Hotel in New York City. The membership was made up of leading purveyors to the hotel, club and restaurant trade. The Holiday luncheon brought the mission of the Partridge Foundation to raise scholarship funds for institutions of higher learning and to provide training for students pursuing a career in the Hospitality Industry. Partridge grants are presented annually to such noted institutions as the Culinary Institute of America, Johnson and Wales, Cornell University, Paul Smith College and the University of Massachusetts.

// NEWS

NYC EMISSION REGULATIONS

Emissions Control Devices Required for Char Broilers, Wood/Coal Ovens in Largest Update to NYC Air Pollution Code in 35 Years New York City Council and Mayor de Blasio passed a sweeping update to the air pollution

different than a regular cooking line.

They create heavy pollution and send live embers into the chimney, which can easily overwhelm many emissions control systems and even create chimney fires. That’s why we turned to developing wet scrubbing technology, which douses the embers in water and cools the flue gasses while eliminating particulate matter and grease.”

Previous studies by air quality re-

control code in April. Char broilers and commercial wood/coal fired cooking appliances are targeted to reduce the emission of particulate matter and its associated health risks. Emissions control devices will be mandated on new installations effective April 2016, with a grace period until 2020 to retroactively outfit all existing installations.

“We have been aware of

N

ew York City restaurants using char broilers cooking over 875 lb of meat per week, or cooking, grilling or smoking with solid fuel should pay heed. The Department of Environmental Protection is tasked with monitoring new and existing restaurants across the 5 boroughs to ensure their compliance in the next 1 to 5 years, and handing out fines to those who refuse to comply.

“It has been 35 years since New York City took a critical look at the quality of the air we breathe,” said Council Member Donovan Richards. “Air pollution has contributed to deaths, high rates of asthma and hospitalizations for respiratory related illnesses.

Clearly something needed to be done to address this growing public health issue as our city continued to fail national Ambient Air Quality Standards set by the EPA.” Effective one year from the law’s

the particulate matter date of passage all new wood or coal fired cooking appliances, such as pizza ovens, grills, and smokers, as well as chain driven-char broilers and char broilers cooking over 875 lb of meat per week, will not be approved for permits without the inclusion of an emissions control device approved by the Department of Environmental Protection. By 2020, all existing installations must comply regardless of installation date.

Some restaurateurs already made the decision to install emissions control devices years ago. “I installed the Smoke Zapper [emissions control device] in both of my pizzerias several years ago,” said Roberto Caporuscio, owner and chef of renowned Neapolitan pizzerias Kesté and Don Antonio.

“It reduces the smoke and odor for my neighbors. This technology has been required in Italy for decades and I knew the results. It’s the right thing to do for the neighborhood and city.”

Electrostatic precipitators were the

emissions control device of choice in previous decades, however, they are often prohibitively expensive and bulky, requiring thousands of dollars in maintenance. Smoki USA is the forerunner of a patented wet scrubber system which allows char broilers and wood/coal fired ovens to comply with particulate matter levels set by the EPA. They offer two discreet systems to specifically target wood/coal fired ovens and char broilers/solid fuel grills. The Smoki USA technology has already met with success in restaurants such as Danny Meyer’s Marta and Michelin-starred chef George Mendes’ Lupulo in midtown Manhattan.

“We have been aware of the particulate matter issue for decades, which led us to bring this technology to the USA and provide a more affordable and simple solution for restaurateurs,” said Peter de Jong, Smoki USA CEO. “Char broilers and solid fuel cooking appliances are very

issue for decades, which led us to bring this technology to the USA and provide a more affordable and simple solution for restaurateurs,” said Peter de Jong, Smoki USA CEO.

searchers from around the USA support the steps taken by the New York City Council. “Emissions from cooking hamburgers on commercial charbroilers are a very significant uncontrolled source of directlyemitted particulate matter... if left uncontrolled they emit more than

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// CHEFCETERA

UP CLOSE WITH METRO NY CHEFS

Michael Abbatiello, Executive Chef at City Cellar Wine Bar

Y

ou attribute your culinary knowledge from your time spent traveling regions in Italy. How did the Culinary Academy of Long Island help you hone in on your skills with the knowledge you already had? Would you recommend culinary school to inspiring chefs?

The program I attended was a local culinary school. As with most schools you learn the fundamentals and prepare yourself to step into a functioning restaurant kitchen where in my opinion is where the real learning process begins. I would absolutely recommend school to young cooks mostly for sanitation and health department purposes, which are always extremely important while running a kitchen.

You’ve worked under some greats such as Michael White and Jesse Schenker who have also been featured in this spotlight! What have you learned from your experiences working under them that have helped advance your career?

My experience at Ai Fiori as great as it was actually came about in an unorthodox manner. I ate there for dinner one night and asked if I was able to have the Chef’s business card because I would like to thank him for the amazing experience. In reality I was looking for an opportunity to get in the kitchen. I set up a stage on my day off from my job and they offered me a job on the spot. I politely turned the job of-

to constantly learn about all aspects from savory to pastry.

I'll never forget one of my firsts nights cooking on the line, I was extremely nervous and was constantly asking questions of what I should do and if it was what they wanted. The response from my Chef was... Mike, you know how to cook, correct? I answered yes.

He replied, then do what you know! It gave me the confidence in myself that every young cook needs and I've never looked back.

Michael Abbatiello is the Executive Chef at City Cellar Wine Bar

fer down however, I went to Ai Fiori on my days off in order to experience everything the restaurant had to offer.

In my mind that was the ideal way to learn and grasp as much knowledge as possible in a short period of time rather than working one station for months without being able to see the rest of the bliss that was going on.

I owe most of my drive for excellence and cooking at the highest level to my time at Recette. I was fortunate enough to work with cooks who were older than me and had been in some of the best kitchens in NYC. To me the greatest part of Recette was since it was a small kitchen I was able

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Talk about your experience at Prime Food Distributors and how your stint there has helped you utilize aspects of protein?

I was fortunate to meet Nick who is the head butcher at Prime through a close friend of mine. Once we started talking about food we realized we needed to get together on the production line.

He took many hours out of his day showing me each hanging cattle from beef to lamb and how each differs from each other by region and also the animals’ diet. Nick has an extreme passion for what he does and we would butcher and break apart full sides so he could show me his creativity for utilizing every aspect with very little waste. I use the knowledge Nick has given me every day by constantly experimenting with new ideas.

What culinary trends are you noticing nowadays and which of them are you utilizing at City Cellar?

I have been noticing that recently the

trends have been moving towards fine dining techniques while simplifying them as well as the small plates movement, rather than different types of cuisines.

For my weekly specials I constantly try to use techniques. I have implemented a snack section onto my menu, which is something I have seen many restaurants using. This is a great tool to start the dining experience while sharing and tasting a few different menu items rather than just ordering one appetizer per person. I am currently running a pork shank which instead of just braising how most would do I use a confit method. I cure the shank for 48 hours in mustard seed, fennel seed, and orange and then use lard to confit the shank for 4 to 5 hours. This is a great example on implementing a great technique to such a simply used item.

Walk us through a typical day at work. What are some of the challenges you face each day at City Cellar?

A typical day for me at work starts at 11am checking my email and overlooking the previous days sales and payroll. After that I input invoices because I bring in produce, fish, meat, poultry, and obviously bread seven days a week.

Once my office duties are done I start butchering whatever needs to be prepared and check over the line for lunch service. At this point I expedite lunch and think of what specials we will be doing for the evening. Once lunch is over I go over with the General Manager any problems and concerns we might have. After this point we have a pre service meeting with staff before dinner service. Then line check and expedite dinner service. Lastly go through my orders for the 11 purvey-

ors that I order from daily. Speak to my sous chef about the day and head home.

In every restaurant there are always challenges. The biggest ones I face here at City Cellar are training and overseeing a staff that is mostly here to make a living and not to achieve culinary excellence while still attempting to educate them. Also to help expand the customers’ palate while being smart with what I put on the menu.

For my weekly specials I constantly try to use techniques. I have implemented a snack section onto my menu, which is something I have seen many restaurants using.

On the equipment side, do you have a piece of equipment that you can’t live without that makes your job easier preparing dishes?

Vacuum Sealer. Nothing allows you to organize, maintain quality, and execute all at the same time.

What’s your opinion on local sustainability? And do you look for loyalty from your suppliers or do you go to bid each week?

I do not bid, I believe that is a way for you to just receive the price you want and never the quality.

I am very loyal to all my purveyors.

They understand that whether I purchase 5 products or 50 products from

them there is a reason why it is theirs.

To me local products are important for the reason that it is the quickest way to get a product from the farm to your kitchen. I receive daily sheets from Baldor and D’Artagnan based on local produce and meat and if it is possible I always try to incorporate them in my specials.

What role does the vendor community on both the equipment and food supply side play?

It is an extremely important role to have a great relationship with both.

Especially here where we are doing lunch and dinner service 7 days a week. I'm thankful that with most of them we have a respect level where when I need help they are always here for me and come quickly and solve the issue rather than pushing it onto another day.

There’s always talk of healthier eating, are your customers looking for that, and if so, how do you cater to the growing demand?

I’d say that isn't a major issue in our restaurant at this moment. However I would cater to the growing demands of any customers’ allergy restrictions.

Crystal ball… what lies ahead for you?

This is a very tough question to answer, because I am young, there are always so many different opportunities coming my way. There is always a struggle to think and understand which opportunity would be the best in the long run. All that I know is making pasta from scratch and by hand is something that I have such a passion for and is almost an "escape" for me so I hope that it can be a major part of my future career.

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// MEET THE NEWSMAKER

SONIC'S SR. VICE PRESIDENT OF FRANCHISE SALES BOB FRANKE

Sonic Franchise Offers Strength with Legendary National Brand and Warmth of Hometown Customer Experience

W

hat's the history behind Sonic®?

Sonic has been in business for over 60 years. It started as a “Top Hat” restaurant drive-in in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the '50’s. From there Troy Smith, who founded the company, liked the concept but altered it a bit. He added carhops and intercoms and in 1959, changed the name to Sonic Drive-In, building the original Sonic® in Stillwater, Oklahoma. We've taken it from there.

How many Sonic Drive-Ins are there?

Sonic began franchising in 1959 and has over 340 franchisees with 3,500+ Drive-Ins. All of our restaurants are equipped with the ability to drive traffic to 5 distinct dayparts: Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon, Dinner and Evening. With our delicious food and drink offerings, we’ve become a brand Americans love and love to indulge in with family and friends.

It seems like beverages have been a key element of Sonic®?

We often tag different beverages on our TV commercials highlighting different seasons and drink offerings.

Whether it’s our slushes or the ½ price afternoon Happy Hour, our frozen and fountain business is very important.

And, we have slushes with Nerds® candy in them that our customers love. We had a big summer push last

Our franchisees and our brand are successful because of the unique differences that set us apart from our competitors.

Where else are you thinking of developing?

We’re granting franchises nationwide, and now looking in urban markets. We've converted other restaurant brands and properties that were something else before, good real estate but which didn’t have the brand recognition we have. It's much less cost for franchises than starting fresh.

There are many opportunities in urban markets to achieve that.

year. We’re doing it again this summer – with summer ice cream and drink favorites. We have over a 1.3 million drink flavor combinations alone.

Drinks are about 30% of our business, ice cream, 10%.

What's the success behind your franchises?

Our franchisees and our brand are successful because of the unique differences that set us apart from our competitors. From our ability to deliver orders with our roller skating carhops, to our made-to-order menu that allows our customers to customize the way they like it, SONIC delivers to the varying taste profiles of Americans across the country. Given the extensiveness of our menu, it fits well in

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into the Northeast?

Sonic was a regional player with its roots in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, the drive-in concept had good play with great weather.

When the weather turns in winter, it’s tougher for people to stop by so we added the element of drive-thru for customer convenience.

Here's where the Northeast comes in.

We went there 10 years ago, and built a handful of drive-in restaurants. We learned that for us to be able to service customers in winter, we needed a different environment for them. So, a few years back, we added an indoor seating model to keep customers coming back week after week as we got into the fall and winter season.

We’ve also seen increased demand from investors and operators wanting to be franchisees of Sonic®, because we now have a model that keeps the signature brand stalls while also being conducive to areas in the Northeast.

We’ve been evolving because our customers always come first.

Bob Franke is the Sr. Vice President of Sonic Franchise Sales

almost every region.

You have a great presence in southern states. Do you think you'll expand

What do you look for in a franchisee?

As you know, the restaurant business is very hands-on. It’s all about the people and teams who service the customer. We look for franchise

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// NEWS

SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS

ITW Lands 6th Consecutive EPA Energy Star Partner of the Year– Sustained Excellence Award For the sixth consecutive year, ITW Food Equipment Group–North America (ITW FEG) has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year–Sustained Excellence Award.

T

he group earned the award for its continued leadership in protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency and was honored at an April 20 ceremony in Washington, D.C. “ITW Food Equipment Group–North America is thrilled to have won this award for another year,” said Chris O’Herlihy, executive vice president, ITW FEG Worldwide. “We are committed to increasing energy efficiency across our extensive portfolio of innovative food equipment products and doing our part to protect the environment, and we are proud to be continued partners with ENERGY STAR.” Five ITW FEG brands—Hobart, Traulsen, Vulcan, Wolf and Wittco—offer ENERGY STAR qualified equipment across many product categories. Over the past year, these companies continued to demonstrate their commitment to the ENERGY STAR program with significant investments of time and resources in the development and introduction of qualified products. As a result,

“I applaud ITW FEG for earning EPA’s highest ENERGY STAR award, the 2015 Partner of the Year– Sustained Excellence Award, demonstrating a strong commitment to energy efficiency and to preserving a healthy planet for future generations.”

ITW FEG now offers 374 ENERGY STAR qualified products.

“Through its sustained participation with ENERGY STAR, ITW FEG is helping Americans save money, save energy and do their part to reduce our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “I

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applaud ITW FEG for earning EPA’s highest ENERGY STAR award, the 2015 Partner of the Year–Sustained Excellence Award, demonstrating a strong commitment to energy efficiency and to preserving a healthy planet for future generations.”

Since its inception in 1992, ENERGY STAR and its partners have helped

prevent a total of more than two billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013 alone, ENERGY STAR and its partner provided more than $11 billion in societal benefits due to reducing damages from climate change.

In addition to offering ENERGY STAR qualified products, Hobart, an ITW FEG company, maintains its commitment to sustainability through the annual Hobart Center for Foodservice Sustainability (HCFS) grant.

This $5,000 grant is awarded to the individual or company that submits the case study judged as being the most innovative and impactful new concept and execution of a sustainable design project.

ENERGY STAR® is the simple choice for energy efficiency achievements.

For more than 20 years, people across America have looked to EPA’s ENERGY STAR® program for guidance on how to save energy, save money and protect the environment.

Behind each blue label is a product, building or home that is independently certified to use less energy and cause fewer of the emissions that contribute to climate change.

Today, ENERGY STAR® is the most widely recognized symbol for energy efficiency in the world, helping families and businesses save $300 billion on utility bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two billion metric tons since 1992. Join the millions who are already making a difference at www.energystar.gov.

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// ICE BUSINESS

WITH ROBERT IRVINE

How Does Ice Become Unsanitary?

It’s often human error stemming from improperly using ice scoops or placing foreign objects in the ice bin.

O

f course, if you’re not following sanitation guidelines for your commercial ice machine, contaminants can accumulate in the actual machine. But the main

culprit usually lies in the ice bin and the way ice is scooped.

Many businesses that have ice machines choose a standard hinged ice bin for ice collection instead of an

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ice dispenser. Ice bins are great if you need to scoop large amounts of ice into other vessels, like coolers (for freight companies, contractors, drivers, etc) or bar wells.

When you’re using an ice bin, the way you scoop ice and where/how you store the scooper is key to keeping your ice supply safe. Here are a few tips: • Never leave the scoop in the ice bin!

• Human hands should only touch the handle of the scoop, not the part that actually scoops the ice.

• Never scoop ice directly with your hands.

• Store the ice scoop in a harness.

• Frequently sanitize the ice scoop.

• Never store anything but ice in the ice bin (ice scoop, soda, beer, glasses, food, etc…)

Shockingly, our Health Inspector friends tell us they’ve seen raw meat stored in the same ice that is served

Robert Irvine is an English celebrity chef who has appeared on a variety of Food Network programs including Dinner: Impossible, Worst Cooks in America, Restaurant: Impossible, and Restaurant Express.

to customers in drinks! This is a huge health and safety hazard! They’ve also found glassware in the ice bin (to chill) and glasses being used as ice scoops.

This is doubly dangerous! Not only are you cross-contaminating the ice, but the possibility of a glass breaking and infiltrating the ice adds another hazard.

As our CMO and co-founder, John Mahlmeister, remarked “Not to make light of a serious matter, but do you remember where Mr. Chow spent the night in the movie Hangover 2?— Yep, in the ice machine!”

To keep your ice clean and safe, No Foreign Objects in the ice bin (people included)! Bottom line, if you’re using a hinged ice bin, only use a sanitized, properly stored ice scoop for removing ice.

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As our CMO and co-founder, John Mahlmeister, remarked “Not to make light of a serious matter, but do you remember where Mr. Chow spent the night in the movie Hangover 2?— Yep, in the ice machine!”

We recently read about cock roaches found in a university dormitory’s ice bin (yes, that’s gross!). How they got there, no one really knows. But our guess is they infiltrated through an open ice bin.

For better control of ice sanitation, an ice dispenser is the solution. This is the type of dispenser you see in hotels and convenience store soda stations.

For our friends at the dorm, a dispenser is probably a better option than a hinged ice bin.

And that’s the scoop on ice scoops.

For more ice safety and food safety tips, please visit: http://www.easyice. com/category/food-safety-ice-safety/

// EYE

METRO NEW YORK'S FOODSERVICE EVENT COVERAGE

DiCarlo Buying Show A sure sign of summer coming is EYE'S annual trip to the East End of Long Island for DiCarlo’s Annual Buying Show.

T

he show marked a celebration of 50 plus years of DiCarlo serving the needs of the NY, NJ, CT & PA food service communities. The two generations of DiCarlos have been able to stay ahead of the curve by keeping it local since 1963. With that local focus in mind, the show featured cheeses, vegetable, meats and seafood that were representative of the over 1000 local in-

gredients that DiCarlo offers its diverse customer base.

One of the industry's true icon’s Vincent DiCarlo Sr. was on hand to visit with the firms’ diverse base of customers from all over the Tri-State area.

EYE loved the commitment to the freshest ingredients. The aisles were lined with fresh pastas, cheeses and sauces and an extensive array of desserts. The magnificent Inn & Spa at East Wind in Wading River was a spectacular backdrop for DiCarlo’s guests to over 175 vendors to take advantage of ordering discounts, learn about new products and taste delicious samples.

EYE visited with notables including Tyson’s Bob Taney, South Bay Seafood's

Bob Sudano, Polly-O’s Frank Primiano and Heinz's Benjamin Quick. For 50 plus years, DiCarlo’s commitment to

(L to R) DiCarlo's John DiCarlo of DiCarlo and Acosta Food's Herb Reichenbach

(L to R) Liam Hudock and Greg Martin of Long Ireland Beer with Scott Pflug of Clare Rose Inc.

DiCarlo's guests were treated to fresh mozzarella being made at the show

The DiCarlo family welcomed hundreds of their customers and vendors and members of the vendor community

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service, quality and competitive pricing have made it one of the nation’s leading independent distributors. The show also saw the introduction of the firm's new commitment to technology.

DiCarlo will soon offer enhanced services to its customers to make sourcing and ordering even easier. The Holtsville, New York firm is housed in a modern distribution facility with over five million cubic feet of dry, refrigerator and freezer storage space giving them the ability to purchase in large volume and to offer the Metro NY food service operator the highest quality products at the best possible prices.

Ruggiero Seafoods' James MaGee brought seafood menu solutions to the annual event

(L to R) Adam and Kadie Russo of Dockers Waterside in East Quogue shopped the show to prepare for Summer '15

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// PEST SOLUTIONS

WITH HOPE BOWMAN

Patio Pests: Is Your Outdoor Dining Area at Risk?

Spring is in the air, which means patio season is about to commence for many restaurants and country clubs in the Metro New York area.

P

atio season means increased dining space – and hopefully diners, but without the right precautions, patios can also increase exposure to unwanted pests.

Outside, there are fewer barriers to block out pests, which means easier access to the food and water sources pests are attracted to. A few dropped

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Hope Bowman, Entomologist at Western Pest Services h b ow m a n @ we s t e r n p e s t .c o m

crumbs and a spilled soda are the perfect meal for a number of pests.

And, once they are drawn to your patio, there is a greater chance they’ll be drawn inside your establishment, too.

Diners may be a little more forgiving of a pest sighting outdoors, but it can still spoil a meal or cause them to think twice about returning. Plus, pests present a food safety and health risk no matter if they are inside or outside – even more reason to keep them away.

Here is a snap shot of the most common patio pests and the proactive steps you can take to help keep them away from your outdoor dining area.

Flies

There’s nothing worse than a fly landing on your food. House flies are capable of carrying over 100 different pathogens including typhoid, salmonella and tuberculosis. Each time they land on a surface, flies deposit feces. Help prevent fly activity on your patio, using these tactics: • Cover trash cans with tightly sealed lids to contain odors.

• Empty trash cans regularly and ensure trash is sealed in plastic bags and tied tightly before disposal.

• Clear plates as quickly as possible.

• Wipe down tables and chairs in between customers to keep crumbs to a minimum.

• Replace any fluorescent lights outside with sodium vapor bulbs. Flies are less attracted to sodium vapor lights.

Stinging Pests The mere sight of a bee or wasp is enough to send some people running – and for good reason. Though most stings results in only mild discomfort, some cause severe allergic reactions.

Use the following methods to help keep stinging pests away from diners: • Avoid planting brightly colored or fragrant flowers and trees near the patio.

• Choose umbrellas, awnings or outdoor décor with dark or neutral colors to further discourage stinging pests.

• Clean up all spills immediately, even water.

• Wipe up puddles formed by rain.

Crawling Pests Ants and cockroaches can be found wherever food is present. Cockroaches, in particular, are pests you don’t want hanging around your patio.

They are capable of carrying a number of disease-producing bacteria on their bodies, which can cause illness-

The mere sight of a bee or wasp is enough to send some people running – and for good reason. Though most stings results in only mild discomfort, some cause severe allergic reactions.

es such as diarrhea, food poisoning and pneumonia. To help keep crawling pests from finding a meal on your patio, follow these tips: • Pressure wash your patio each night to remove crumbs and debris.

• Keep parking and sidewalk areas free of trash and regularly hose them down.

• Eliminate any mulch in the surrounding area where ant nests or mounds might be found.

Work with a pest management professional to implement these tactics and keep pests from taking up seats on your patio this year.

Hope Bowman is a Technical Specialist and board-certified entomologist with Western Pest Services, a New-Jersey based pest management company serving businesses and homeowners in major Northeastern markets. Learn more about Western by visiting www.westernpest.com.

85 • May 2015 • Total Food Service • www.totalfood.com

// NEWS

FOODSERVICE SOLUTIONS

Target Technology Drives Postcard Comeback In Metro NYC You might not think that direct mail postcards could have anything to do with increasing your business.

B

ut according to Keith Goodman at Modern Postcard, they can help you exponentially increase the acquisition of new customers. Just, not in the way you may be used to.

Forget the annoying direct mail pieces piling up in your mailbox. His company has developed a unique way of using distributed data to create a demographic profile of the characteristics of potential and existing customers, then do a predictive model of how you get them, and more, using yes, high impact postcards and self mailers.

Not only can Modern Postcard’s direct mail system target new people in the area most likely to come – and come again and again -- to your restaurant.

It can also help you keep in constant touch with your bread and butter – those customers who come twice, maybe three times a week already, the lifeblood of your operation.

Modern Postcard started out 32 years ago by CEO Steve Hoffman as a company taking great full-color photos for the real estate industry, then blossomed into a turnkey business that took the photos and created brochures for companies selling very high-end houses. Along came Sotheby’s and the company did so well it deployed a national team of photographers around

Keith Goodman is the Vice President of Corporate Solutions at Modern Postcard

the country. “Steve bought a printing press and started doing a whole vertical type of program,” says Goodman.

“They would shoot the photos, do the scanning, everything, and when the market collapsed, the company decided to use its printing press and offer 500 postcards for $95, all-inclusive -- full-color postcards with no film charges, no scanning charges, no separating charges. They thought, we’ll build 32 postcards into one big sheet, charge $95, and make $3,000 for printing 500 sheets of paper. They revolu-

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tionized the print industry.”

So the company was reborn.

“This was back before the Internet, Photoshop, all that,” says Goodman.

“Back then, it would cost $1,000 to do the separation of film to do the color postcard alone. But within three months, they had sold 5,000 postcard orders and were off to the races.”

Modern Postcard continued to grow, adding mailing services in 1995, and marketing data in 1997. “Things just kept growing and they were really focused on the photographers’ and small retailers who were early adopters. Then the company decided to go after the restaurant industry,” he says.

“It was the perfect thing for small restaurant owners. ‘Oh my God, I could do 5,000 postcards for practically nothing. And it’s so effective,’ they would say.”

Goodman notes that, in 2004, he was brought in to take the company to the corporate level. With his background in data marketing, enterprise computing and content distribution, he was already involved with the National Restaurant Association, launching a Restaurant Mail which allowed retaurants to use the internet to create targeted direct mail programs. He also wrote a monthly column in its “Bread and Butter” newsletter, where he pro-

vided monthly marketing tips. “It went gang busters, and that’s when I really started focusing on the restaurant industry,” Goodman says.

“In 2004 I said, we need to get involved with restaurants in a big way,” he recalls. “So we started small, with mom and pops, then picked up some chains, and now we’re doing a ton of work for organizations like Jack in the Box, Sammy’s Wood-Fired Pizzas, and On the Border Grille. This year we’ll print almost 700 million cards across all industries.”

Goodman says that, while direct mail may seem very 20th century, “Every type of advertising will bring in a certain type of client. If you’re advertising in a high-end magazine, a luxury living magazine, you bring in that type of clientele. You won’t bring in someone who says, what’s your cheapest hamburger, but someone who wants to see the wine list. You might not bring in a lot of customers but the ones you do will be of high value. They won’t be coming because of a 50%-off coupon but because ‘That food looks amazing!’”

If you bring in someone with Groupon, Goodman points out, they’re going in to the restaurant only because they got $20 worth of food for $10.

“You end up not building a customer relationship, but a food transaction.

There’s a chance they’ll come back but they’re not going to ask for the wine list, they’re just going to want to know what the special is tonight,” he says.

Web-based customers do tend to be very price-conscious, and not to be as loyal as a customer gathered through other information, he says. “The thing about direct mail is that it gives you the opportunity to target those people most likely to be your best customers.”

Restaurants have customers who come in once a month when they run

a 30%-off special. “And then there are others who come in three times a week, with kids, the parents share a bottle of wine, they have entrees, appetizers, their average check is $150 and you say, we love these people, how do we find more people like that, not the two kids coming from around the corner for half-off pizza,” he says. “So you only send the mail piece to those who fit the profile of your best customers. That’s what direct mail can do that nothing else can,” says Goodman.

“You can’t target like that with any other kind of advertising. When we sell direct mail, we’re not selling postcards, we’re selling customer acquisition -- we’re saying, if I were to tell you I could bring families in who would eat here twice a week for the next five years, what is that customer worth to you and what are you willing to pay to get that customer in the door?”

A good white tablecloth restaurant with a significant marketing budget

is a perfect match for data profiling.

“Say they collect information on existing customers, and create a mailing list. Once we have that list, we can run a demographic profile on them and then do a predictive model, based on the 50,000 people within a five-mile radius. Here are the 5,000 that have the highest potential match to your best customers,” Goodman says. “We automate the entire process and we come up with ideas people would never normally think of. If I asked a restaurant, what are the attributes of your customers, they might say, they make more than $100,000, drive a luxury sedan, and have three kids. But what they don’t know is, they also like to travel internationally, have certain jobs, certain service levels, certain educations, there could be a charitable organization affiliation, they may like to watch sports on TV, or not watch sports on TV. These are all the different characteristics you normally

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would never be able to come up with that we’re able to dig up in these profiles and use in identifying those best prospects.”

But sometimes, restaurant owners don’t always see the ROI – at least, at first – which they’re expecting.

Says Goodman, “Most restaurant owners -- until they’ve been educated – are still very transactionally-oriented – they live and die by transactions.

Let’s face it, either you buy their food or you don’t buy their food. They say, ‘I ran this ad, got 19 people in, but only generated $1,200 of food and the ad cost $1,500. It was a failure.’ But six might come back twice a year for the next five years. You’re talking about acquiring lifetime value. You’re going to buy $5,000 worth of revenue over the lifetime of that customer for x amount of dollars.”

Say a restaurant has 50% food costs, and out of $5,000, they’re going to make $2,500 in gross profit off that

customer. “Most business models would be willing to spend 10% of the gross profit on acquiring the customer,” he explains. “So, if their average customer spends $5,000 and they make $2,500, a restaurant should be happy spending $250 to acquire that $5,000 in revenue.”

At that point. Goodman says, restaurants need to capture their information and this is the point at which email becomes a good tool. “Email is a great way to stay in contact with existing customers. For acquisition, however, it’s dismal. You’re unlikely to get a new customer as a result of an email campaign because people don’t read emails from people they don’t know. A lot of marketers will say, I’m getting a great open rate on my emails, a 25% open rate. "But what you’re saying is yes, 25% of the people who get your emails are opening them but 75%

continued on page 93

// HOW GREEN ARE YOUR WAYS?

WITH PETER KAPLAN

Making Sense Of Con Ed Pricing Con Edison already charges the highest electric rates of any big-city utility — wants more. A typical restaurant account will see their bills increase an estimated 3.9 percent under the rates Con Ed hopes to impose next January.

T

he final rate you pay will really depend on fluctuations in energy prices and on what changes the state Public Service Commission makes to Con Edison’s proposal.

This increase in pricing will hit the typical business owner in NYC hard.

Con Edison has publicly defended

Peter Kaplan, COO & President of United Energy Consultants peter@uecnow.com

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the increase by stating that it will be put toward enhanced security, reliability, and resiliency of the electric delivery system.

With natural gas and electric pricing at historically low price points, this is counterintuitive to where pricing should be going. The reason for this

increase is to increase Con Edison’s storm readiness and improve technology on the grid. Con Edison hopes that increase will create a more efficient grid, and also prevent the same level of damage that Hurricane Sandy created.

Our question is why the business owner should fund an increase that under current conditons will net Con Edison almost $370 Million in 2016?

Con Ed’s last rate increase was in April 2012. Then in late in 2013, the company and the Public Service Commission agreed to a two-year freeze on electric rates. This rate stabilization will run out at the end of 2015, when the new proposed rate hike will be effective.

continued on page 118

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// NEWS

SPECIAL EVENT PREVIEW

AJC Food Service Division’s Human Relations Award Dinner Set for Next Month in the Bronx The American Jewish Committee (AJC) was established in 1906 to safeguard the welfare and

given her the solid foundation to create Tri-State Marketing Associates, Inc. Bart Gobioff has been in the food service industry since 1987. Bart began his food service career with the dealer community, working for some of the most prestigious food service equipment companies in the tri-state area.

He subsequently joined one of the leading manufacturers' representatives firms in the area, where he worked directly with many of the major manufacturers in our industry, selling to dealers and calling on both operators

security of Jews worldwide. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations in the United States and has been described by the New York Times as “widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations."

Imperial Bag has

T

he American Jewish Committee (AJC) was established in 1906 to safeguard the welfare and security of Jews worldwide. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations in the United States and has been described by the New York Times as “widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations.”

Very early on, the foodservice and paper industries in Metro New York joined forces with the AJC. Once again on Tuesday, June 16th at the Bronx Botanical Garden, the Metro New York City Chapter of the AJC’s Foodservice and Paper Division will convene to celebrate.

This year’s list of honorees once again reads like a Hall of Fame roster of foodservice icons. Imperial Bag CEO, Robert Tillis, Lynne Shultz and Bart Gobioff of Tri-State Marketing and the Atlantic Beverage duo of Elliot Braun and Jeffrey Muhlgeier are set to receive the AJC’s Humanitarian of the Year awards.

Tillis, the Chief Executive Officer of

Jason & Bob Tillis of Imperial Bag and Paper are set to be honored by the AJC

Imperial Bag was previously the Executive Vice President of Ampac Packaging LLC. where he oversaw growth of 300%.

Prior to that Tillis was the owner of Interstate Packaging Corp. Under his tutelage, Imperial has become the largest independent distributor of foodservice products and janitorial supplies in the Northeast. The company has recently moved into a magnificent state-of-theart LEED Certified new home in Jersey City, as well as opening locations in Highpoint, North Carolina & Frank-

90 • May 2015 • Total Food Service • www.totalfood.com

lin, Massachusetts. Imperial Bag has tripled its business over the past eight years and is an established 80-year-old business that was purchased by Robert and son Jason Tillis in 2007. Since then, the New Jersey based company has increased its client count to 5,000 and has acquired six companies. Some of their clients include Zabar’s, A&P, Delhaize America, and Café Metro. About 15 percent of their clients are national and they include Modell’s and Party City.

Tri-State Marketing Associates is an independent manufacturer representative group that services the food service industry within the Tri-State metropolitan area.

Lynne Schultz has been in the food service industry since 1976. Prior to creating Tri-State Marketing Associates, Inc., Lynne was a sales manager for a leading manufacturer of commercial refrigeration. Lynne's national and regional exposure, experience in managing sales representatives, targeting and achieving sales goals, and marketing new and existing products has

grown its business more than 250 percent over the past five years and is an established 80-year-old business that was purchased by Robert Tillis & Son in 2007.

and consultants. The technical, organizational and communication skills he acquired during those years have given him the tools to create and grow TriState Marketing Associates, Inc. Jeff Muhlgeier founded Atlantic Beverage in 1974, It’s roots were a mobile catering and vending company with a wholesale beverage distribu-

continued on page 119

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TFS, from page 10 and pick up your pages in what looked like an oversized pizza box. They would then create film and plates and print.

Our daughter who came to work with us every day was in diapers when we began. Now the whole publication is created with Adobe InDesign on a Mac, and then hits a button to send the pages to the printer electronically. We’ve evolved from what was essentially a black and white product to an exciting 4-Color from cover to cover publication.

The basics of what we do everyday have not changed at all. It’s our editorial mission to talk to our marketplace and dispense that news and information.

The big difference today is that we do it across multiple platforms in addition to print.

Technology has enabled us to do a much better job for our advertisers. We can target very specific categories of buyers like chefs in Manhattan and create added value campaigns with outbound email and social media platforms.

We've also found ourselves growing into the event business. We worked with the Elliot Group on Biz Mix to bring young people in our industry together. Last year, we collaborated with TouchBistro and PayPal to create a signature event with Randy Garutti of Shake Shack. Most recently we held a wine tasting networking event with Wine Expert, Kevin Zraly.

Did you think it would be around 25 years later?

Absolutely, as long as people need to eat three meals a day, I knew the need would be there. My late Dad always told me to "Keep My Eye on The Sparrow.”

We have worked incredibly hard everyday and tried to keep that focus. Most importantly, we simply never would have gotten to this milestone without the incredible work of our teams, past and present, including our Director of Advertising, Michael Scinto who has been with us for nearly 16 years, along with our very talented Creative Director, Ross Moody and a group of truly wonderful contributing foodservice colum-

nists.

How has the food service industry evolved?

This could be a book by itself. There have been so many changes. The Food Network and its original set of super star chefs including Emeril Lagasse has had an enormous impact...especially in NYC. Everybody got stars in their eyes and headed for culinary school.

The next set of changes was what I call cultural and legislative. First we saw the end of smoking in restaurants, then the elimination of transfats, then Styrofoam and even the Bloomberg attempt to get rid of soda.

Technology has of course been fascinating to follow. For so long it seemed like so much of the technology we saw at trade shows was useless. Boy did that ever change with apps like Open Table for reservations and Seamless Web for ordering. Then companies led by TouchBistro came in and found a way for restaurants to operate their businesses with iPads. Most recently with the intro of the Apple Watch, we are seeing a boom in mobile payments.

Technology has also made restaurants more efficient with programs including Trading Table that enable the operator to compare pricing (Think Priceline/ Travelocity/Orbitz) to buy for their restaurants.

From a menu standpoint, we've seen that everything goes. Sure there's been a major push towards farm or local to table but at the same time with the growth of Shake Shack, Five Guys, Unami, Smashburger, the decadence of the burger is back with a vengeance. At the same time Mrs. Obama is screaming about cleaning up what we serve to kids in schools. So when I hear about healthier eating, I scratch my head.

There have been enormous changes in the adult beverage world. After the decade of the celebrity chef has now come the era of the superstar mixologist. I love reading Warren Bobrow's column in TFS every month. From craft beer to the

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signature cocktails this market seems to change monthly. It seems as if with the maturity of the wine market that every restaurant now has a certified sommelier. It wasn't that long ago that Alan Stillman's Wine Weeks at Smith and Wollensky were unique.

Now that we live in a world in which everybody has his or her face buried in a smart phone, I have found the role of the trade show has changed. Reminds me of when TV was introduced and everybody said that movie theaters would close. Quite the opposite and no more true than with trade shows. In many cases the shows enable restaurateurs to network with suppliers and friends.

Many of the educational opportunities include the opportunity to hear in person from the best and brightest and to test drive new concepts in person.

It’s been fascinating to watch how the city has morphed through the years. Incredible restaurant scenes have grown in both the Meatpacking district in Manhattan and more recently in Brooklyn.

What do you see for the future of TFS? Quicker, faster and more immediate.

The mission remains the same to dig for the latest news to present to our readers. It’s our job to build a team that can disperse that information through our print and web products while keeping an eye on the growth of mobile, Google glasses and whatever comes next. No question there will also be more video.

I also see our event business continuing to grow as we serve our communities.

What about the future of the food industry? What changes do you predict?

The future includes a number of issues that need to be sorted out. In many cases they are a reflection of the world we live in. Our view is that the disparity between rich and poor will impact what we eat, how we are served and who serves us. There's no question that fast food workers striking and McDonalds reacting with a $1 an hour increase is the beginning of that change. These

burger flipping jobs used to be for a high school kid. Today for many they are part of a couple of jobs that are used to feed a family. So then the question becomes as technology and robotics grow, will the restaurateur replace humans with robots? Please NO!!!

No question that what we eat is going to change. I see it cutting across demographic lines. The wealthier will look to eat healthier and fresher fare. While the economically challenged will continue to eat fried everything.

An aging population living longer will have more disposable income. Many of these folks have taken care of themselves and will remain living in their own homes. With this will come new fast casual concepts that will serve the boomer with healthier menus?

On the vendor side, a sales position at an Equipment and Supply dealer will become a valued role. Sales on the Internet will create more dealer consolidation, which will make the rep on the street even more valuable. Food service professionals no longer look to sales people to take an order but rather to provide service and "boutique" expertise.

Anyone Special You Want to Thank?

It’s been some ride. We owe special thanks to our beloved advertisers, many of who have been with us since the beginning and especially our readers, because without them, the presses would have stopped long ago. Total Food Service looks forward to another 25 years of keeping tabs on what we are convinced is the most fascinating industry.

Cindi Avila is owner of Green Goddess Public Relations, a firm that specializes in food. Her clients in the industry include Blossom vegan restaurants, Natural Epicurean Culinary School in Austin, Texas and 16 Handles (to name a few).

She is also a TV personality who has appeared on the Food Network, Bravo and more.

Modern Postcard, from page 87 aren’t so that 75% is going completely uncovered,” he says. “You’re just leaving them hanging for your competitors.”

And Goodman says, it’s the same 25% open rate every month, it’s not another 25% next month and the month after that. “You’re still leaving the rest of your customer base uncovered. Once a quarter, send a direct mail campaign to those who don’t open their emails.”

One of Goodman’s favorite stories is about a Mediterranean restaurant in Colorado. “They were having their grand opening and wanted to do a special to get people in the store,” he says. “My big thing is, give people something free, and get them in the store. What has to happen to make them come into the restaurant? Whatever you have to give away, give away.

Get people in the door, give them something aggressive, not so much they get full but enough to bring them in.”

So this restaurant offered free tapas.

“We sent out 20,000 postcards with free tapas, and the first night the place was packed with people eating free tapas. The owner said, ‘This is amazing, you’re a genius.’ The second night the place was packed again, people eating free tapas and alcohol consumption rocketing. They were converting seats from the restaurant to the bar,” he remembers. “They ended up having to shut the place down for two weeks to permanently convert the whole restaurant to a bar. The opening changed the landscape of the restaurant by the way we launched the direct mail program.”

To help restaurants learn the ropes, Modern Postcard is offering seminars: San Diego, April 29; Chicago, May 13, and New York City, June 18. “Call our salespeople and they’ll walk you through putting together a direct mail campaign,” he says.

Modern Postcard is just getting ready

to launch another direct mail campaign, Restaurant DM. With this, they’re taking best practice templates for restaurant direct mail and putting them online to allow restaurants to upload imagery of their food or use stock photos, add their own specials, then put maps into pre-fabricated templates, then acquire the data online. Mailing lists must be provided, but all the initial creative is done online.

Something else the company is putting out there is a birthday club and a new mover program, sending special postcards out for not only customers’ birthdays, but prospects as well.

“We’ve been able to identify households who have a birthday coming up within a month, and we send them a postcard saying we’d love to introduce you to our restaurant by offering you a free meal on your birthday,” says Keith Goodman. “It gets people into the restaurant. The restaurant can send these out every month. And for new people moving into a neighborhood, take 500 people moving in within a radius of the restaurant and have a neighborhood ‘free meal’ card go out.”

Finally, something they’re introducing at the National Restaurant Association in May is the ability to click on a code for a coupon and then transfer that coupon to a smart phone. “This allows restaurants to communicate from now on with that person over mobile,” says Goodman.

To register or get more information for the Chicago or New York seminars, go to www.modernpostcard.com/seminar or visit Modern Postcard at the upcoming Chicago NRA show at booth #5753

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Sonic, from page 76 candidates who have been in a retail situation or who have enough capital but may need to partner with a savvy operational partner. We have a lot of partnerships like that - someone who has financial capability but not necessarily the operational experience.

Mix those two together and you have a really dynamic team to grow. Nothing can replace a good hands-on operator who understands service and quality, but it doesn’t have to be restaurant experience. We do a 12-week training program that goes through our equipment, how to train employees, how to coach staff and management, supply chain and all the software we use.

All our employees and franchisees go through this process. As part of their training they learn the recruitment process through a series of hiring management systems, to look at what makes a great employee, a great manager. That training helps them coach so they as franchisees can make decisions that are right for their community. The powerful thing about a franchise business is that the local owner operators call the shots. They're the entrepreneurs. We give guidance but at the end of the day, it’s all about that local personality and how they fit in that community. We provide the tools and the coaching and the franchisee takes it from there.

Do you offer any other services to franchisees?

We have a very strong franchise advisory council, 64 members, who meet quarterly and work with our Sonic corporate team to drive the brand and keep us relevant in today’s society.

We're very engaged with our franchise owners on a quarterly basis to make sure the menu and marketing is right.

Our franchisees do a lot to help each other, we're one big family.

Do you support charitable causes?

From a national basis we have a chari-

table initiative, Limeades for Learning®. We think education is important and teachers really need the support.

We ask teachers in the fall to submit a project for essential school supplies.

During a voting campaign, we ask customers to vote for their favorite project and Sonic funds the top voted for projects throughout the US. On a local basis, our franchisees want to make sure they're doing what’s right for their local teachers and their communities.

Many work hard with high school and middle school parent-teacher organizations. Our Nashville franchisees annually sponsor a large golf tournament that raises funds for 50 scholarships that are awarded to worthy high school students. Sonic franchisees work together to do what’s right for their community.

Where is the menu today, from a customer standpoint? Healthy food? Fun food?

Customers come to us because of the experience. We have a very differentiated model. Carhops deliver food right to the stalls or patio and that becomes a unique dining experience for many of our patrons. With regards to our menu, we’ve evolved it through the years. We introduced a grilled chicken sandwich on a ciabatta bun that’s tasty and just 450 calories. We’ve also added a mini size to our shakes and slushes for our customers to couple with their favorite snacks like Mozzarella Sticks, Tots or Onion Rings. On our drink menu, there are well over 20,000 drink combinations that are less than 40 calories. We want to have choices for our customers. They can always customize their order on any menu item, take ingredients off, put them on. This is How We SONIC®.

What’s the time line on a build out on a franchise?

Once you contact us, then it takes us about three months of discussion for us to go through the process and for

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candidates to really understand Sonic.

Then we have them talk to various franchisees to see what it takes and how the restaurants really operate.

We send them out directly rather than hearing it just from us.

Then they come here to Oklahoma City, our corporate headquarters, and get to meet everyone on our staff who will work with them throughout their 20-year contract. They also get to see our new $1 million culinary kitchen for product development. Our candidates can take a look at our technology as we roll out our digitally interactive menu boards that really engage our customers. It's what we call “Discovery Day”.

Typically, they’re ready to go and we sign an agreement that they build their first restaurant within one year.

We have real estate folks and construction to procure that. Closer to the opening the franchisee goes through our training department and we expose them to other grand openings so they can see what goes on. There's a lot of news and buzz. When you see our commercials, there's always pentup demand. Usually it takes about a year for first locations and typically our candidates sign up for three to five locations because they want to build an organization.

Are there qualifications for opening up a franchise?

Yes. You need a capital outlay from half a million to $1 million in liquid assets, as well as a strong net worth. If you’re a restaurant operator now and want to run a Sonic, you partner with someone who has the financial capability and it seems to work really well.

Most of those details can be found at sonicfranchises.com What about the New York metropolitan area? Do you have any plans to move there?

We market all areas that are available for new franchise owners to look at.

We have a successful business right now in North Babylon on Long Island. And, one of our franchisees just opened a new Sonic in Newark, New Jersey. We're also working on the inline concept so we can grow in urban markets, like Manhattan. We want to be within a 10-minute reach of all our customers.

Your ad campaign with the Two Guys in a car, represents Sonic how?

Pete and TJ represent the fun this SONIC experience is meant to be.

We’ve been very happy with them. We just celebrated their 10th anniversary working with Sonic. We like what they do; it’s very Sonic-centric. We’re a fun brand, with great food and a unique restaurant experience everyone loves.

Marjorie, from page 24 and diligent prep. Below is an interview with Van Woods of Sylvia’s in Harlem, New York.

What made you believe your brand would succeed at retail?

Van Woods: My mother was known as the “Queen of Soul Food." For years, her customers would bring containers to take her rib sauce home. The Woods family believed that Sylvia’s Cookin’ Dippin’ & Moppin’ Sauce would sell, even at a premium, because it already had a loyal following and Sylvia’s restaurant is a Harlem institution.

When did you first begin?

Sales of the sauce began in 1992, 30 years after the restaurant was founded. We learned early on that getting on the shelf was the easy part. The hard part was getting our products off the shelf and into the cart.

What were some of the other hard parts?

First we had to get stores to believe in

our brand. Then we had to show them that we were prepared to actively support it with marketing and promotion.

Once they were on board, we had to negotiate well. Slotting fees can take a big chunk of change. We also needed to get food brokers and distributors to make our brand a priority, and finally, we needed to build the infrastructure to manage manufacturing operations – very different from operating a restaurant.

brokers and distributors, but our family will always retain control of Sylvia’s brands.

What are some other promotions you’ve created to help drive sales?

We launched our first “Sylvia’s Soul Tour” in Washington DC in 2004. Today it attracts hundreds of attendees wherever we go. It is an outdoor event incorporating food, music, en-

What would you say are the three most important requirements to succeed at retail?

1. Eye-level shelf presence and multiple facings is the recipe for success.

The more the product is seen, the better the chance of getting customers to stop and shop.

2. If the pricing doesn’t resonate with the consumer, no go. We offer “suggested retail pricing” but the retailer is not obligated to go along with our suggestions. Incentives like a “sale tag” for $1.00 off or 3/$5.00 catches a shopper’s attention and encourages multiple unit sales.

3. Package design is crucial for an independent entrepreneur. Shoppers need to instantly notice your products and recognize your brand image without spending large amounts on advertising.

Explain the difference between selling through national chains vs. independent food stores and groceries?

The independents know our products intimately and are more likely to recommend them to their customers.

Supermarket chains are more volume driven. However, we found that it pays to support our independent partners the same way we do the chains.

How do food brokers and distributors factor into your sales efforts?

You can’t rely strictly on brokers and distributors to pioneer a new product line. We also have internal representatives who call on supermarkets and independents as well as manage our 95 • May 2015 • Total Food Service • www.totalfood.com

tertainment and education to give the consumer an all-day experience and encourage local retailers to stock their shelves. We also support not-forprofits such as The American Cancer Society.

Have the restaurant and the food product line supported each other?

Because my mother was so well known in the community, we enjoyed

tremendous awareness for her restaurant and food products. She believed that if soul-foodies enjoyed Sylvia’s at home, they would also be inclined to visit the restaurant and vice versa. The restaurant also hosts retail buyers, distributors and supermarket executives regularly. People tend to relax over a platter of Sylvia’s crispy fried chicken.

Table, from page 66 more business because sales reps are no longer tied up in the timeconsuming tasks – usually 50 to 60% of their day -- of order-taking and price-setting. “In the offline world of foodservice distribution, the primary job of a sales rep consists of four tasks: order taking, price setting, collections and consulting,” says Plaitis.

“There is no time to meet with an operator and say, the price of avocados is going up next week, or Latin dishes are a really big trend for 2015. You’re sitting there, wasting time, just taking orders, not building new accounts for the distributor, or enhancing existing accounts, or helping the operator in any way, which is what operators really want. Our goal was to eliminate those first two tasks of order taking and price setting from the sales rep’s role in order to free up time to be a true consultant, improving a distributor’s ability to help operators improve their business, thereby improving the distributor’s business.”

Today, TradingTable solves that problem by automating order-taking and price-setting functions. “No one is doing that,” he says. “We created a pricing engine that’s controlled by the distributor, where he sets certain variables, parameters and a range of pricing for each one of his products.

What the proposed order from the operator turns out to be will determine the price per case for that operator from each distributor,” Plaitis explains. “Then the system optimizes that and tells the operator, this is the best order combination from your network of distributors. At that point the operator can select and modify his order. TradingTable goes within the operator’s network, retrieves pricing from each distributor, depending on the size -- cases, line items, and other variables -- and we provide real-time actual pricing, as opposed to directional pricing.”

Distributors will set their mini-

mum and maximum standards when they create their account. “This is what it takes to order from me, the total number of cases and line items, this is my optimal order, this is my best-case scenario. If an operator does that, he gets great pricing. From there, the platform engine reads and interprets, based on the total cases and line items ordered and says, this is your price on your proposed order from me,” says Plaitis.

Do sales reps need to fear for their jobs?

“The need for that human interaction and input from sales reps who are ‘in the know’ is how to understand the market and report back to operators. Those who are just focusing on order-taking and price-setting are going to have to find a way to enhance their consulting skills and market knowledge. It’s a really good tool for a smart sales person,” he says.

Another important way TradingTable helps operators is that it is the only platform connected directly to suppliers. “We don’t connect with the distributor for product information.

We connect with the supplier and we do that in a way that provides pictures of what the product looks like on the plate, in a case, on a palette,” adds Koutsoudakis. “We have nutritional information, point of origin, allergens, ingredients, recommended preparation methods and more. Any kind of data point is brought onto the platform for every product, not just the five products a distributor buys from Heinz, for example. Instead, we’re going to that supplier and saying, this distributor buys certain things from you. Why don’t you publish your entire product line on TradingTable for free so every operator can view that information? It expands the portfolio of both distributors and suppliers.”

“What TradingTable does is provide a platform for suppliers to publish

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“We don’t connect with the distributor for product information. We connect with the supplier and we do that in a way that provides pictures of what the product looks like on the plate, in a case, on a palette,” adds Koutsoudakis.

their products to TradingTable for free, where any operator in the world can see it,” Plaitis says. “Then, if you find something you like, and which distributor in your network can get it, or you want to get more information, you can do it all over the platform.”

And new products operators might like? “They can say, ‘I found this product, I want to buy it’ to the distributor, and it’s helping the distributor. You’re providing a catalog with 100s of 1000s of items that their sales reps don’t need to do a single piece of selling on.

It’s all there for operators to view and suppliers are publishing for free and getting visibility that just doesn’t exist anywhere else,” says Koutsoudakis.

It’s also a terrific resource for chefs looking to find new products. “Say you need gluten-free pancake mix,” he says. “You can view every supplier who makes it, then see if your network of distributors carries it. If not, you can request more information.”

He recalls a young businessman in the meat business. “He had 50 or 60

operators he was selling meat to in New York and he decided to take the business and make it into a regional broad liner. He went from 50 skews to 2,500 skews but operators still only saw him as a ‘meat’ man. ‘How do I expand that to, I also carry all the other things you buy, why don’t you let me compete and see what I can offer you on those?’” he says. “It was an easy way for him to explode his business.”

And what about the businesses who have a relationship with their distributors that goes back years? “The value for that operator is to have access to what else is out there,” he says.

“You’re buying blind on a good chunk of items you expect to stay static,” Plaitis says. “The pricing system as it is now is, ‘what are you ordering from me, then I’ll go back and put a price on it, and you’ll see it when I put it on the invoice.’ You have to make the decision before you see the price.

With TradingTable, that same process happens in a structured way, and you see the price and modify your order, all upfront. It’s true transparency.

"It’s what’s already happening, except now, it’s happening much quicker, right in front of you,” says Koutsoudakis. “As far as sourcing goes, there’s nothing else like this out there.”

For more information, visit www. tradingtable.com.

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Resy, from page 16 restaurants the team feels confident about recommending, you'll theoretically get a better guarantee that you'll have a good night out than with picking a restaurant blindly. "Usually, you launch a webpage and get a thousand choices," says Leventhal.

"We do the opposite - we provide users with the best choices. These are restaurants that deliver an amazing experience every time. We've turned down some restaurants that we weren't confident enough in." He adds that Resy does offer many different kinds of dining experience, so that it can function for you, whether you're looking for a casual night at the bar or an appropriate date spot.

Restaurants, in turn, see many fewer last-minute cancellations and no-shows, especially if you had to pay a fee to book a table. And Leventhal says Resy drives a "mobileconscious customer" to these restaurants, which can be an asset in spreading word-of-mouth buzz.

The team launched Resy in Brooklyn last month, keeping the borough distinct from Manhattan because they believe Brooklyn is a dining destination in its own right. "To have been in Brooklyn as part of launching Manhattan would not be maximizing the value for users in Brooklyn," says Leventhal. "That would have been a misrepresentation of the landscape. We decided to wait until we had our ducks in a row, to have an opportunity to figure out what the right restaurants were."

The lineup includes some big perks — Lucali is on the app, for instance, which means Resy is the only way you can skip the line at the pizzeria, which has long been walk-in-only. And at Battersby, you can reserve a two-top but still order from the à la carte menu. Traditionally, you had to commit to the tasting

menu there if you wanted to make a reservation. Other restaurants on the roster include Maison Premiere, Do or Dine, the Pines, Littleneck, and Noodle Pudding.

Look for more perks to launch with the app in the coming weeks.

Leventhal says the team is working on unique experiences for early

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and late seatings. He cites, by way of example, a forthcoming deal with Barchetta, for which you'll be able to score a lobster roll and a glass of wine for $25, so long as you accept a 6:30 reservation. "This is an opportunity to create something really valuable on both sides of the marketplace," he says. "You can grab something on

the early side and not go through the full experience."

Resy plans to launch in the Hamptons on May 1, just in time for summer. After that, the team will be working on Washington, D.C.

Samuelsson, from page 38 tiple James Beard Foundation Awards including Best Chef: New York City, and he was tasked with planning and executing the Obama Administration’s first State Dinner. A New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef, Samuelsson was also crowned champion of television series Top Chef Masters, winning $115,000 for UNICEF, and he won Chopped: All Stars, donating $50,000 to C-CAP. He has most recently served as a mentor on season two of ABC’s food competition series, The Taste.

On behalf of the Green family, owners of the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, Andrew Green says, “To have Chef Samuelsson join us in bringing to life our vision for the signature Gazebo restaurant is truly an honor. We are very excited to introduce the chef

and his exceptional and unique cuisine to Bermuda. As plans for the new restaurant unfold, we look forward to sharing those details.”

The Samuelsson at HP experience is part of a more than $90 million renovation and restoration of The Fairmont Hamilton Princess that includes the guestrooms and suites in the Poinciana wing of the hotel, a new resort infinity pool and a new marina featuring an expansive harbor side restaurant, 1609.

"It's going to be really spectacular—from the windows overlooking the harbor, to the gorgeous terrace and the wood burning grill, we have a lot of great visuals to match the beautiful setting," notes Samuelsson.”

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Q&A, from page 29 Edible Schoolyard, from page 6 kids’ attention span, but the kids are loaded up with sugar. They’re not linking the two? I once worked with a group of charter school students for a weekend program. I brought in grapes and oranges, and there were maybe two out of 12 of those kids who had actually seen fresh fruit before. It was shocking.

During kitchen classes, do the kids prepare dishes like salads, or do they cook hot meals?

FN: We have this amazing kitchen.

It’s a happy, friendly place with ovens and stoves and washing and prep stations. The kids are part of the whole cooking process from beginning to end.

Do city kids find it difficult to relate to a gardening program?

LR: Every once in a while we’ll hear, “I thought that looked gross, but I tried it and loved it.” There’s a lot of enthusiasm. The kids in ESNYC want to eat the food they make, want to have it at home and say, “Mom, let’s figure out how to do this.” Which is exactly what we want to see—reaching into people’s lives.

FN: So as these kids become older they can make better choices.

LR: And they can be agents of change in their community: going into a bodega and saying, “I want an apple. I want greens for salad.”

Just asking their local bodega starts the people who work there thinking, “Maybe we should start carrying apples.”

FN: There is one example I love.

The principal of PS7 saw one of the kids who participated in ESNYC walking down the street carrying a McDonald’s bag. The principal was like, “Come on, McDonald’s?” The kid opened the bag, and inside it he had two salads. At McDonald’s,

kids want fries, they want burgers.

The idea that he would order the salad— LR: It’s a better choice than what he would have made without this education.

After just five years, is it possible to track the long-term benefits of ESNYC? FN: Kate Brashares, the executive director at ESNYC, has made program measurement a huge priority. The organization monitors changes in students’ attitudes toward healthy foods and their eating habits at school. ESNYC also works with their families to note how the program could be benefiting those at home.

LR: Anecdotally, the tracking that’s been done has been largely positive. We take quotes from the kids.

They have a better understanding of food, and you can tell that by what they are saying about it. One fourth-grader wrote, “The plants feed us so we’ve got to feed them.

You’ve got to give a little in return.”

What’s in store for your spring gala this year?

LR: What makes it so amazing is the caliber of chefs who participate. We get 25 to 30 chefs who each cook for two tables of 10 guests. The guests never know which chef will be cooking for their table until they sit down. It’s like going to a fantastic restaurant, but you have no idea which restaurant it’s going to be.

FN: We have the chef community of New York City behind us, which is amazing. They love this cause, so they donate their time.

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The biggest change right now is coming from the state level. I'm hoping people start understanding what's going on, deciding to raise the salaries of many employees from $5 to $7.50. Every one of my employees has to be paid $10 an hour. So right now the way it is, we have a tip credit. I pay my staff $5 an hour.

But if they don't make the $10, I have to make that up so they at least make minimum wage. Mind you, most waiters in our city make anywhere between $25 and $60 an hour, with tips. This whole minimum wage thing is more money out of my pocket. And that doesn't allow me to give anything to my back-of-the houseguys. I would love to be able to give that money to my back-of-the-house staff. They're always getting the

short end of the stick.

And then my managers are looking at me and going, wait a minute; the waiters are getting a raise? Where’s mine? How am I ever going to make it up to everyone? It's not like there's more money at the table. I already had to raise my prices a dollar or two to cover Obamacare. At a certain point, there's a breaking point. Eventually we're going to become like France and Italy. We're going to just pay our waiters 25 bucks an hour.

And there won’t be a line for tips anymore. We're a tipping culture. It demotivates the wait staff. There's no other way to say it.

What about the catering business?

When I have a catering event at Benchmarc, we hire three sales

people and all of it comes out of Time Warner because we have a big enough kitchen for that. And that was a learning experience, too. At the beginning, I started off with Landmarc Catering. And we didn't go anywhere with it. Because everybody just thought we could only get Landmarc. But we can actually make anything, basically. So then we changed it to Benchmarc Events and so my Benchmarc Events’ sales team pri-

marily concentrates on selling all of my restaurants. The banquet spaces at Kingside, at Landmarc, Time Warner and Ditch Plains and Landmarc downtown. It's great because we can offer other places. For example, as we did for the past two years in a row, all the catering for the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. We did 45 parties in 22 days. We bring in extra staff to help out with things like that. We'll do whatever you need.

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What does the future hold?

I just want to continue down the road I'm going. I get up every morning.

And I love what I do. I think that I'm probably the luckiest person in the world. I truly enjoy what I do. And I truly enjoy taking care of people. Not only the customers, but also my 500plus employees. It’s a great life.

// MEET THE NEWSMAKER

WITH LYNN WHITE

Lynn White, Sales Manager of Restaurant Products & Services at IHMRS

W

hat brought you into show management?

It was purely by chance. I had a friend who was working for a trade show management company and during one summer they were looking for some help. A full-time position opened up, they offered it to me, and I fell into the industry.

When you began with the IHM&RS show, what were the needs of the exhibitors?

They were very similar to the ones today. Exhibitors are looking to grow their business. They want to be part of a cohesive marketplace that focuses on hospitality now and hospitality moving forward as it’s changing and evolving every year. They want to be part of an event where they know there’s a diverse audience and that audience comes to see products, designs, trends, and services. IHM&RS provides this.

As you look at the opportunity to come back and do it again, what really brought you back? What can you bring to potential exhibitors?

It was a chance thing again. I would say, though, that I always enjoyed being part of the show having worked on it for five years. I had great rapport with the exhibitors, loved the products at the show, and liked the design focus the show offers. The attendees who come are quite interesting, rep-

Lynn White is the Sales Manager of Restaurant Products & Services at IHMRS. Call 212-754-7938 to talk about your brand's booth at IHMRS.

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resenting so many different facets of the industry itself. It’s very fast-paced, and I just enjoy working in hospitality.

When the position opened up, here I am again.

How has the role of the show changed with social media and the internet?

Can it reinforce how important the show is?

Both are great tools we can’t live without. They do and should serve a role in any company’s marketing strategy. For us, the show is once a year for three days but our website now extends our show 365/24/7, access all the time for everyone. Exhibitors can use the tools on the site to market their participation in the show.

One example we offer to exhibitors is our online listing that is live all the time, which allows attendees to find them and contact them directly, go directly to their website where they can see a complete company profile, publish press releases through us, and highlight new product introductions through a product gallery we offer – anywhere, any time.

The show is offering things to exhibitors to get them engaged and get their messages out there. We have strong social media campaigns, we’re active, we use them strategically to promote the show, everything that’s happening at the show, as well as news about the exhibitors. But nothing really replaces being at the show, where you see products up close, live demonstrations, networking, and all those important marketing interactions that can only be accomplished by actually being at the show.

As you look at all the other industry shows, why is a trip to IHM&RS as an exhibitor or attendee vital and still

One example we offer to exhibitors is our online listing that is live all the time, which allows attendees to find them and contact them directly, go directly to their website where they can see a complete company profile, publish press releases through us, and highlight new product introductions through a product gallery we offer – anywhere, any time.

relevant?

I consider us a one-stop shopping experience. We cater to both foodservice and lodging, and that makes us unique as it relates to other shows in the marketplace. Our show is comprehensive in terms of the products and services offered because we are catering to both sides. For foodservice, we do attract the end user, but we also cater to the dealer and consultant and those are two very important groups within the industry and having them at the show gives us added value.

For new exhibitors, of course, you have to have a great product, but it’s only as good as your ability to create distribution in the marketplace, connect with those contact points, with reps and dealerships and consultants to be able to build your name within the trade. The show can do that, too.

The show has always had strong educational programs. What types of programs will we see this year?

We’re in the beginning stages of planning this component. The programming was very robust last year and that’s in our plan for 2015. This is another reason people value the show.

You can come and get that education, whether you’re an exhibitor or attend-

ee. Stay tuned!

What can showgoers expect to see on the floor this year?

You’re going to see established companies looking at innovation, giving more for their clients to see. We will have new exhibits that means new product offerings, new ideas as related to business solutions, strong programming. We had some exciting experiential components last year and we want to continue with that.

How can an exhibitor project ROI on show investment?

Exhibitors who do best at shows and get the best ROI are those who don’t just show up, but make a connection, a contact. Any connection you make at the show is vital to measuring the

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success of that show. You have to make an actionable marketing plan with consistent messaging and deliver that through as many channels as your budget allows – PR, online advertising, whatever you can do to get your message out there. Then an exhibitor needs to take advantage of the suggestions offered by show managers to gain visibility at the show, to get your message out prior to the show, most offered at no cost. You also have to connect with the media. They’re advocates for our industry. Use them to get your message out there. Be involved and engaged while at the show, and follow up, follow up, then follow up again. It’s all about making those contacts.

Has the profile of the show’s attendees changed?

The profile of attendees is really evolv-

ing. They’re savvier and savvier every year and want more out of their trade show participation. Again, the main reason they’re coming is to see new proud introductions and take advantage of our educational and experiential components. But they’re there most of all to network, to see if there’s any potential for new partnerships, to make sure they’re on top of what’s happening in their industry. That’s why trade shows are and will remain relevant. These are the reasons people want to be there. They’re a very savvy group looking for information.

How can exhibitors and attendees reach you?

Call 212-754-7938, email me lynn. white@stmediagroup.com, or go to www.ihmrs.com and click on exhibits.

// MIXOLOGY

WITH WARREN BOBROW

Four Shades of Gin (and Tonic) I’m always thirsty for a refreshing gin and tonic. There is something about that smack of citrus, the oily darkness of the lime peel and the deep sensuality from the juniper berry against spicy grains- drinks like this make me thirsty.

M

y tonic water is equally important to the alcoholic element. I’ve tried many of them and I’m well published on my thoughts in this regard. If you are using corn syrup tonic water, well let’s just say that you’re covering up the integral elements of your expensive spirits with the same thing that goes in your gas tank. That’s not pretty.

Your tonic water should be as carefully chosen as your gin. And don’t even get me started on ice. I’m going to say that if you are using tiny broken cubes- it’s just all bad in the end. They melt quickly, leaving you and your guests with a glass of water when the idea is for them to actually taste what they are drinking!

I’ve recently received four different bottles of gin from craft distilleries around the country. Here are my tasting notes when mixed in a 1:2 ratio (1 oz. gin to 2 oz. tonic water, without ice- the tonic water was chilled) I used East Imperial Burma Tonic. It’s pretty esoteric stuff- and right up my

Warren Bobrow Warren Bobrow is a barman/author. He’s written for Whole Foods, Foodista, and Williams-Sonoma along with three books on mixology. Warren appeared in the Saveur 100.www.cocktailwhisperer.com

alley on the cool quotient.

Barr Hill Gin from Vermont. There’s the raw honey right up front in the nose and in across the tongue. This is such gorgeous gin, I hate to mix it because there is a veritable plethora of goodness in every sip- without a mixer. But where this gin really shines is woven into a gin and tonic made with

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the highest quality tonic you can buy.

Throw out that corn syrup stuff and find something that says cane sugar on the label. Find yourself a bottle of Barr Hill and add that to your glass first, then the ice and finally the tonic.

Sure, add some freshly squeezed lime juice too. You could use the vitamin c against the ninety proof heat!

FEW Spirits Standard Issue Gin from Illinois. Standard Issue means Navy Strength, and what that connotes is strong gin. How strong is this gin? How does 114 Proof hit you?

That’s certainly going to make splicing the main brace much easier when finely twisted on this brilliantly made, strong gin. I actually did a 3:1 ratio of this… 3 parts tonic to one part gin. Be careful with this one, it’s so deceptive in the cocktail- you have no idea that the gin is so potent until you try to stand up and whoosh…. You’re at the top of the mast in the pitching seas.

There is anise in the nose and a touch of citrus at the finish- the juniper is expertly melded into each sip.

Wheeler’s Western Dry Gin from New Mexico. You can taste the cosmic vortex in each sip of Wheeler’s

Dry Gin. Well not really, but this gin is such a breath of fresh air in a world clogged with anything but authentic gin. Wheeler’s is just gorgeous stuff, dry- aromatic- Western herbs weave a tale of hard tack and harder saddle leather across the palate. This is really drying stuff and it deserves a fuller bodied tonic to wash it down.

Rolling in at 80 Proof, the Wheeler’s almost becomes a session gin when compared to the mighty FEW Spirits Standard Issue gin. Just stop yourself before you have more than four.

Watershed Distillery from Ohio, Four Peel Gin. The sleeper of the tasting is the aptly named Four Peel Gin. This citrus bomb is in your face juniper berry and citrus along with aromatic herbs such as Quassia, coriander and Jamaica pepper. The citrus element makes this a most salubrious slurp of goodness that I went over my usual 2 sip per brand and moved on with four sips. I love this gin for the passion that goes into each bottle. At 88 Proof, it’s no 100 pound weakling.

This is serious stuff that is delicious!

You must find this gin and all the gins in this tasting!

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// INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

WITH FRED SAMPSON

American Tastes Are Changing American tastes are changing … so say The Wall Street Journal and the James Beard Foundation. Following are some of the reasons why.

Fred G. Sampson,

President of Sampson Consulting, Inc. fredgsampson@juno.com

T

wo recent articles, one from The Wall Street Journal and the other, announcing the James Beard Foundation nominees for this year, confirm what most of us “industry observers” have known for some time: the American consumer is welcoming good eating places throughout the USA and they are doing so big time.

For years most urban areas catered to a “bridge-and-tunnel” crowd, whereby suburbanites had to go into a nearby city in order to find upscale dining. That has all but disappeared in the last 15 to 20 years. Of the many reasons for this change, the one that stands out most is the availability of two- and four-year schools offering quality culinary training. They have become America’s apprenticeship programs. Exponentially their growth has followed the industry’s growth.

It all started about 20 years ago when casual chains such as Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bob Evans Farms, Cracker Barrel, Chili’s, Lone Star Steakhouse, and others realized their growth depended on a knowledgeable and trained kitchen staff. With national and local support from industry members, the National Restaurant

For years most urban areas catered to a “bridgeand-tunnel” crowd, whereby suburbanites had to go into a nearby city in order to find upscale dining. That has all but disappeared in the last 15 to 20 years.

Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF), and state restaurant association partners, the NYS ProStart Program came into being.

By bringing together the industry and the classroom, ProStart gives students a platform to discover new interests and talents, which opens doors to fulfilling careers. It happens through a curriculum that includes all facets of the industry, and sets a high standard of excellence for students and the industry.

Presently, more than 95,000 ProStart students attend 1,900 high schools across 48 states, Guam, and U.S. military bases. New York State has 52 high schools with over 4,000 NYS ProStart students, plus the thousands who have already become part of the industry.

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Some time ago, pursuing a career in the culinary arts was difficult at best.

Only a few schools offered programs, and apprenticeships were almost nonexistent. The thought of working on holidays, weekends, and nights, and the long hours in a hot kitchen were not the greatest aspects of the job.

Another overlooked aspect of a culinary career: It offers those with creative talent to shine, and also the chance of owning their own business. No worries about showing up on time for 26 years, only to be told, “As of tomorrow you’re no longer needed due to a merger.” If you have spoken at high school career day groups as I have over the years, you realize how many young people’s lives have been impacted by that kind of corporate indifference, and they want no part of it.

There is no question that America is a nation of foodies and social media is its town crier. Social media also has become a potential danger. While a new establishment would have a few days, and in some cases a few weeks, for the word about a new location to make the rounds, reviews now show up on Yelp and similar websites the same day.

In addition to social media, almost every newspaper, large and small, sets aside space to report on the local dining scene: introducing new locations, announcing a change of chefs, as well as publishing favorite recipes.

According to The Wall Street Journal article, the most dynamic food cities in the country right now are the two Portland’s (Oregon and Maine); Nashville, Tennessee; Charleston, South Carolina; Houston, Texas; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. All took off in the past decade, thanks to the arrival of a few gifted chefs who pioneered the new dining scene.

As a further indicator of shifting dining trends, the James Beard Foundation will hold its award event in Chicago. It is the first time these Academy Award equivalents will be held outside New York City.

The American culinary community is still in its infancy. Hundreds—no— thousands of inspired young women and men are looking ahead to growing their careers, and the best part of it is they are receiving expert teachings from the many professionals staffing today’s culinary schools.

The next time you enjoy a delicious meal while eating out, remember that it is the successful culmination of the efforts of dedicated individuals—the chef and his or her mentors.

Comments may be sent to fredgsampson@juno.com.

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// RESTAURANT TECHNOLOGY

WITH AMBER BROWN

Managing Generational Conflict For the first time in the history of restaurants, there are four distinct generations represented in workplace demographics. This presents challenges and opportunities for foodservice operations.

E

ach generational cohort group brings different skill sets and attitudes towards work ethic, workplace motivators and job loyalty. These differences can cause disruptive change within the restaurant environment as the industry catches up to technology. Restaurant managers need to juggle the differences of each generation to have a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Although the millennial generation makes up the majority of the workforce growth, it is important for managers to understand that there are at least 3 or 4 other generations still represented in the workforce. To best understand the conflict that can occur within these generational groups, managers must understand the common characteristics of the separate generations while avoiding common stereotyping.

Workforce generations are commonly separated into four groups: The Silent generation, the Baby Boomer generation, Generation X and Generation Y or Millennial generation. Members of the Silent and

Workforce generations are commonly separated into four groups: The Silent Amber Brown is currently a Senior Software Trainer with ChefTec and tours the country, and internationally conducting on site operational trainings, and food cost and food safety presentations.

Baby Boomer generations did not have the same access to technology, which the latter two generations were exposed. However, managers should not assume that the older generations are not tech savvy. Many members of these two generational groups have embraced new technologies and have remained relevant in the workforce. Many people are entering retirement later than in previous years,

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generation, the Baby Boomer generation, Generation X and Generation Y or Millennial generation.

and adaptation has been a key skill set that the previous cohort groups have learned to hone.

Much of the conflict that occurs in foodservice industry employees revolves around perceived respect

levels. Many older workers feel that younger workers disregard their ability to pick up on new technologies introduced into the workplace environment.

Managers must be sensitive to the fact that while there is more technology implemented in foodservice job functions, it does not mean that older generations are obsolete. Training programs that cover the basics of technology may be a good way to integrate technology for older generations, while allowing the younger generation to learn at a quicker pace.

Workers who pick up on technology faster than others can be placed into the training program that moves at a quicker pace.

Another common source of conflict occurs with the expectation of work ethic and work performance. Millennials and Gen Xers value balance between work function and socialization, however Boomers and Silent generation workers believe that work comes first. Younger workers feel that older workers are condescending, not taking the younger workers seriously.

One way to combat this is to pair an older worker with a younger worker in a mentorship program. Many organizations find that this type of a program is beneficial for both employees. The older employee is able to identify where they can employ more balance, and the younger employee prioritizes the work functions before socializing with other co-workers.

By understanding all generational cohort groups and their workplace motivators, foodservice managers can create a symbiotic workplace that capitalizes on all generational strengths.

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// NEWS

HOTEL OPENINGS

Baccarat Hotels & Resorts Debuts With Manhattan Flagship Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York Reimagines the Elegance and Perfection of the Legendary French Crystal Maker into a Luxury Lifestyle Hospitality Brand.

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tarwood Capital Group, the private equity real estate firm, announces the opening of Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York. Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York is the first hotel and global flagship for the 250 year-old Baccarat crystal brand. Directly across the street from the Museum of Modern Art and steps away from Fifth Avenue’s legendary shopping, the hotel occupies the first 12 floors of the split level tower that rises 550 feet above West 53rd Street.

Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York features 114 sensationally appointed guest rooms and suites and a new modern French restaurant, Chevalier, overseen by Michelin-starred Executive Chef Shea Gallante. Legendary New York restaurateur Charles Masson will curate style and service in Chevalier and in the hotel’s second-story lobby salons and bar. The Bar at Baccarat, just off the opulent Grand Salon, is an epic space featuring barrel-vaulted ceilings, a 60foot bar and an outdoor terrace overlooking the MoMA. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill served as architects for the 50-story tower, while New York-based designer and member of the Architectural Digest 100, Tony Ingrao, led the residential design. The tower’s sixty private residences are accessible through a separate entrance

Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York features 114 sensationally appointed guest rooms and suites and a new modern French restaurant, Chevalier, overseen by Michelin-starred Executive Chef Shea Gallante.

and will have access to all of the hotel’s amenities. Celebrated decorator Stephen Sills created the elegant setting for the street-level Chevalier, which also has its own separate entrance.

“We are so thrilled to bring to life the new ‘House of Baccarat’- to take this legendary brand which has for centuries stood for perfection in crystal, and has never been compromised, to create its first modern lifestyle hotel masterpiece. I wanted to celebrate light, and to produce a hotel that glowed, and was shimmering, sensual, elegant but still functional, fun, comfortable, and not overly formal,” says Barry Sternlicht,

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Chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, the parent of SH Group, a lifestyle hotel brand management company who will manage the hotel.

Baccarat SA is majority owned by Starwood Capital Group. Baccarat employs nearly 550 employees at its factory in Baccarat France near the Alsace-Lorraine border. Baccarat is a storied luxury brand whose artisans have produced custom designs since King Louis XV founded the company in 1764. Baccarat has created exquisite products for the world’s most discriminating figures including kings, queens, tsars, sheiks, emirs and sultans, modern moguls, de-

signers and rock stars. The opening of the hotel marks the brand’s new evolution into a perfectly crafted lifestyle and hospitality brand.

Starwood Capital Group is a private investment firm with more than 500 employees, with a core focus on global real estate and energy infrastructure.

Headquartered in Greenwich, CT, the Firm maintains twelve offices in six countries around the world. Starwood Capital Group has raised more than $30 billion of equity capital since its inception in 1991, and currently manages over $42 billion in assets. The Firm has invested in virtually every class of real estate on a global basis, opportunistically shifting asset classes, geographies and positions in the capital stack as it perceives risk-reward dynamics evolve.

For more than two decades, Starwood Capital Group and its affiliates have successfully executed an investment strategy that involves building enterprises around real estate portfolios in both the private and public markets. Starwood may perhaps be best known, for founding, creating and building Starwood Hotels and Resorts beginning in 1995.

SH Group, an affiliate of global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, is a lifestyle hotel brand-management company that operates 1 Hotels, a nature-inspired lifestyle brand that will launch in 2015 with the opening of exclusive properties in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Miami’s South Beach; and Baccarat Hotels & Resorts followed

by Rabat, Morocco, in 2016 and projects under development in Dubai and Doha.

Leveraging its marketing, design, operational and technological expertise, SH Group is the force behind some of the most groundbreaking and dynamic hotel brands in the world.

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// NEWS

WINE

Oceanfront Restaurant's New Wine Program Creates Big Waves in Jersey Ama Ristorante at Driftwood, the award-winning oceanfront restaurant on the Sea Bright beach, is pleased to present a totally revamped wine program with a new wine list, new specially priced monthly wines available at retail, and new monthly winemaker dinners.

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dditionally, Ama continues its popular Tuesday and Wednesday night specials: Half off all bottles on the entire list on Tuesday, and half-off all wines by the glass on Wednesday.

The man behind the new wine initiatives is Ama's Beverage Director Beau Keegan, a graduate of Johnson and Wales University's renowned Culinary Arts program and his class Valedictorian. Keegan also earned his sommelier degree from L'ecole de Savignac in France. He has since worked as chef, sommelier, bartender and manager at Michelin Star-rated restaurants in the United States and France.

Earlier this year, Keegan revamped the wine list at Ama, a 90-seat, oceanfront restaurant that offers a main dining room, full bar, private dining room and seasonal el fresco deck. The restaurant, which opened in Sea Bright in 2012, is owned by the Stavola family, which also owns the adjoining Driftwood Cabana Club. The restaurant offers spectacular ocean views and sunset views over the Shrewsbury River.

Using his extensive wine and food knowledge, Keegan has compiled what is arguably the best wine list on the Jersey Shore. It features a well-balanced

The man behind the new wine initiatives is Ama's Beverage Director Beau Keegan, a graduate of Johnson and Wales University's renowned Culinary Arts program and his class Valedictorian.

and progressive selection that prizes quality and sourcing and which is created precisely to compliment Ama's award-winning, Tuscan-inspired cuisine. The majority of these wines are not available in retail markets, but are offered for retail sale at Ama. As part of the new wine program,

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Keegan will also select two premium wines per month, which will be available for retail sale at discounted prices.

He also provides guests at Ama with insight and advice on selecting wines for their own cellars.

"Over the past 12 months as Beverage Director, I have worked to produce

an award-winning and prestigious wine program," Keegan said. "I have used my close connections with the wine world, where I've acquired unrivaled access to extremely low-produced boutique wines."

Additionally, Keegan will host monthly wine tasting dinners that will include attendance by the selected vineyard's winemaker or owner. The first of these featured wines from Oddero, located in Italy's Piedmont region.

One of the Oddero's winemakers - Luca Vaglio - appeared at the event.

The April 14 event featured Barbara D'Alba, Barbaresco, Barolo and Moscato varietals, which included the highly anticipated release of the 2010 Barolo that ranked #39 on the most recent Wine Spectator Top 100 list. A specially prepared four-course tasting menu was created by Executive Chef Charles Lesbirel.

Ama Ristorante offers an awardwinning menu of both traditional and newly imagined Tuscan inspired cuisine in a charming, elegant setting resembling a Tuscan seaside estate.

There are also unique and traditional ingredient driven cocktails and a boutique wine list filled with rare, premium wines that cannot be found in a retail market.

Ama has been recognized by local and national food reviewers and earned a Zagat rating of 25 (Food), 24 (Decor), 24 (Service). Most recently Ama has been named winner of Opentable.com's "Diners' Choice 2015" and Tripadvisor's "Certificate of Excellence 2014."

In the past Ama has been named "New and Notable Restaurant of 2013"

by New Jersey Monthly magazine, and has been awarded the No. 1 Italian restaurant in 2013 by the readers of Monmouth Health & Life.

// RESTAURANT EXPERT

WITH DAVID SCOTT PETERS

9 Things to Offer to Attract Good Restaurant Employees One of the key lessons I’ve learned over my years in the restaurant business is that not everyone works for you just for money. Money is a factor, but people are looking for much more.

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o how do you provide the “much more?”

Many years ago now, restaurant coach Fred Langley best articulated what you have to strive for if you want to attract and keep the very best people on your team. He said you have to become the “Employer of Choice.” So what does that mean?

Without going into the whole explanation behind clinical psychologist Frederick Herzberg’s, “Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory,” let’s cover the key factors beyond money that he says motivate people to work and work hard:

Supervision Make sure you have a management team that coaches employees to success, understands what makes each employee unique and is able to push their buttons to get the best of your people.

Fair compensation While you don’t have to be at the top of your market’s pay scale, you certainly cannot be at the bottom.

Advancement Remember money is not the only thing people are looking for when they join your management team. Many want to know that there is a clear path to promotion and advancement in your company. Whether it’s moving up the management ladder, moving into the next better paying line position or gaining the skills that make them more valuable in their career, there needs to be a clear path to advancement that’s based on doing a good job, not who you are sucking up to.

David Scott Peters,

Work itself

Restaurant Coach

I remember my first jobs in the restaurant business were washing dishes, and I hated it. It felt thankless to me, and I was probably not mature enough to want to work that hard as a young teen. Moving up in my career, I’ve always kept that in the back of my mind when managing employees. You need to make sure the job, no matter what level in your organization, is rewarding.

High employee turnover is expensive and disruptive to any business. With training and systems in place, you start with employees who know what their job is and what is expected of them. But to keep them long term, you have to be an “employer of choice.” If you properly address the majority of these factors, you’ll be one!

d av i d @ t h e re s t a u ra n t ex p e r t .c o m

Good working conditions Make sure you have a clean restaurant, that you have all the right equipment and tools for your employees to do their jobs, and make safety a priority.

Interpersonal relationships Avoid at all costs having a management team that thinks all of their people are stupid and treats them like crap. Remember, this is a people business and it all starts with your internal customers.

Recognition Look for people doing things right in your restaurant and give them kudos when you see it. It’s easy to find people doing something wrong. When you focus on the good things, you create

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positive impact on the business, they get a real sense of achievement, which makes them want more.

a positive work environment where people want to continue to please you vs. just waiting for the scolding.

Responsibility Sometimes you have great employees who have been with you for many years who NEVER want to be a part of the management team. Yet, they are willing to do more. Look to teach and assign them tasks that make the company better and get more done. Allow them to be a more valued asset on the team and they will be motivated to do more.

Achievement With responsibility there are often measurable results. When your team sees how what they do has a direct

// LIZ ON TABLETOP

TABLETOP SOLUTIONS

Creativity with Cocktails It amazes me on the creativity used with cocktails. Sweet, savory, hot, and cold. Not only are liquors being infused, but so are the mixers.

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t amazes me on the creativity used with cocktails. Sweet, savory, hot, and cold. Not only are liquors being infused, but so are the mixers.

Bartenders are now mixologists, and they study under the better known mixologists. The center of

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Liz Weiss, President, H. Weiss LLC ewe i s s @ h we i s s . n e t

the country seems to be the center of this movement, but rapidly moving east and west.

Having interviewed a few mixologists, they speak of balance of flavor and notes. Similar to how a sommelier speaks of wines. And while the vessels have not had the same importance for cocktails as wine; there is a movement towards the presentation. Feel in your hand is the most important aspect, not particularly mouth feel (although thankfully the square "dribble" glasses have fallen out of fashion). Height and volume showcases cocktails and allows for sometimes lavish garnishes.

We can imagine Bloody Marys

Uber, from page 2

with jalapeno garnishes, but what about bloody Marys with house made sausages or grilled shrimp prominently displayed on knotted bamboo skewers or colored straws.

Fresh flowers adorn tropical flavored drinks. Flavored sugars, Salts and herb mixtures rim the tops of glasses adding color and flavor. Most glasses seen are simple, straight sided or slightly curved. A short foot works nicely for the more delicate concoctions.

Lover glasses allow the mixologist to "float" liquors or garnishes.

Lover glasses allow the mixologist to "float" liquors or garnishes.

Simple pub glasses are reserved for beer. As Equipment and supply

sheered and polished wine bottles (in clear, green and blue), beaker styles glasses (Bauscher), colored stemware and margarita glasses (Cardinal), snifters (for a sophisticated cocktail look), bamboo stirrers with ingredients noted.

There are wood boards to serve tapas and small plates that compliment specific cocktails and desserts with after dinner drinks. But some of the most significant trends are shown in new and improved ice. Large balls and cubes. The best cubes are clear and hard which melt slowly; very different from the soft ice cubes used in soft drinks.

Many of the cubes are made in new icemakers by Hoshizaki and Koldraft, some of the more interesting ice cubes are made the oldfashioned way: in trays using flavored water and juices. And then there are stones! Talk about a different presentation! The best part of the new mixology movement is that there is not a big investment to start. Most restaurants have some liquor, infusing is easy. Juices and nectar are readily available. The rest is imagination and fun!

distributors, we ask how we fit in with the trends.

Of course we fit in!

Simple pub glasses are reserved for beer. As Equipment and supply distributors, we ask how we fit in with the trends. Of course we fit in!

We are here to show racks that display flights (with one reserved for the ice), glasses made out of 117 • May 2015 • Total Food Service • www.totalfood.com

you meet your lunch. UberEats meals will arrive in ten minutes or less and has its own dedicated drivers.

UberEats lunch and dinner options will fall between $9 to $15. Uber charges a flat $4 in New York City regardless of the number of meals you order.

There is also no need to tip.

The program which launched in NYC with options like an "exclusive sandwich" from American Cut, a lobster roll from Barchetta, and a kale caesar salad from Sweetgreen. In Chicago, there are choices like a short rib torta and salad from Xoco, a burger from DMK Burger bar, and a market salad from Freshii. In Los Angeles where there are also dinner options - menu options include a classic turkey sandwich from Stella Barra, a gyro plate from California Pita, and chicken vermicelli from Phorage.

Uber is slated to face stiff competition in the delivery space, especially in New York City from Chang among others. Maple plans to bring customers "restaurant quality meals" at a similar price point to Uber.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been telegraphing his attempt at delivery domination. "Once you're delivering cars in five minutes, there's a lot of things you can deliver in 5 minutes."

Uber's first foray into "things" began with courier service called UberRush tested in Manhattan. Next up was Cornerstore, a delivery service for household items beta-tested in Washington, D.C. that was renamed UberEssentials.

“In general delivery food is not that great,” says cofounder Caleb Merkl.

“The actual experience around reliability is pretty low with a lot of choices, and a bloated price point. We want to make delivery food exceptional at every touch point, and to do that we have to own the entire process. From sourcing ingredients to developing our own menus, building a back-end to get the food there.”

Maple plans to solve all those problems at once by “owning the process at

every touch point.” The startup sources its ingredients for menus designed to be delivery-friendly. Its chefs then prepare them in dedicated kitchens, offering three options each for lunch, which costs $12, and dinner, which will run you $15. Because Maple keeps delivery zones to within five-minute bike rides of each kitchen, the startup claims it will get the hot food to your door in less than 30 minutes from when you place your order,” says cofounder Akshay Navle.

The startup is counting on its food to make the biggest impact. It’s carefully sourced. The chicken in front of me is antibiotic-free and free-range, the sides of mushrooms, potatoes and spinach from local farms like those of Gotham Greens in Brooklyn. The tortillas in the vegetarian green chili enchiladas are fresh, as is the sustainably sourced baked filet of arctic char with roasted fennel, leeks and broccoli rabe.

“This is a restaurant concept outside of the restaurant’s four walls, and that’s what got David so excited,” says Maple’s executive chef Soa Davies. The former head of menu development at Le Bernardin and an author and consultant to top restaurants around town, Davies signed on thanks to Chang’s persistence, as the chef called her over and over on a vacation to Italy until she’d agree to take a meeting the Monday she got back. Now she’s looking forward to helping influence farmers to grow special crops and herbs for the talent in the Maple kitchens, who hail from restaurants like Esca and ABC Kitchen for the chance to work with Chang and Davies and reach a lot of diners every day.

As a result of UberEats and Maple, venture capitalists are salivating with hundreds of millions to invest in food delivery. Uber alone raised $5.9 billion in funding.

Look for the new funding to go into additional competitors including Arcade. which is also partnering with popular NYC restaurants and will offer diners just one dish per day from a menu that will change daily.

Smoki, from page 72

Club Manager, from page 68

twice than all of the heavy-duty diesel trucks,” said Bill Welch, air quality researcher at UC Riverside. “For comparison, the average diesel-engine truck on the road today would have to drive 10 miles on the freeway to put out the same mass of particles as a single charbroiled hamburger patty.”

What happens to city restaurants that don’t comply? “According to the new legislation, the DEP will be tasked with keeping an eye on restaurant exhaust across the city and maintaining records concerning each restaurant’s cooking equipment and in the case of char broilers, weekly meat consumption,” said Peter de Jong. “In other jurisdictions, air quality officials and sometimes even the local police force are trained to visually monitor the opacity of smoke for red flags. When the smoke is too opaque, that restaurant could be earmarked for particulate matter testing by a certified laboratory,” he said.

According to the legislation, if “…the results of [particulate matter] tests conducted… show that the equipment or fuel is in violation of this code, the commissioner shall order the owner to cure the defect within thirty days.” The Department of Environmental Protection could pursue fines or even the shutdown of the restaurant in instances of continual non-compliance.

“No one in the city wants to put a restaurant out of business,” says Peter de Jong. “That’s why these sorts of novel systems [wet scrubbing technology] are what’s going to make it possible to cost-effectively handle this health problem.”

To read the legislation, visit legistar. council.nyc.gov and search “Int 02712014” For more information on an emissions control device, visit smokiusa. com

hattan, Westchester, Long Island, the Capital region of upstate New York and lower Connecticut.

Once again the Club Chefs of Westchester stole the show with a spectacular early evening tasting. Kudos to the Associations's Chef Lorcan O'Connell of Metropolis and Shenorock Shore Club's Leonard Phillips for bringing eye popping taste of the industry to Glen Island. EYE visited with many local club chefs throughout the day including LI National's Chef "Snooze" Sherlock, Michael Bellacicco of Southward Ho, Knolwood's Michael Aguilar, Jan Hoffmann of Orienta Beach, Shelter Rock Tennis' David Fassano.

A talk on Greening trends in the club industry led off the day, with expert panelists from five different industries, who shared their observations and expertise on what’s hot, along with best management practices in renovations, compliance and risk management to help managers bridge the gap between good intentions and results. The food service portion of the program was highlighted by Jon Hansburg VP of Sales for Baldor Specilty Foods who moderated a session on Sustainable Harvest Cooking that featured Katy Sparks.

The former Tavern on the Green toque talked about enhancing how to use seasonal products to enhance menu planning and save money.

North Fork Wineries hosted a tast-

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Con Ed, from page 88 ing of world class Long Island wines.

Very interesting seeing the sparkling Point Vineyards look into the Future of Sparkling Wines.

At a dinner reception, club chefs of Westchester and lower Connecticut centered their presentation on sous vide cooking techniques. Locan O’ Connell from Metropolis Country Club and Lenny Phillips from Shenorock Shore Club chaired the dinner.

Very important to remember that the MCF's annual event raises funds to financially support its membership from a wide diversity of items from scholarship and education to hardship funding and charitable giving to community organizations.

The company’s one-year rate plan, which proposes lower price increases (2.9%) for commercial customers is masking the fact that energy prices have been lower or declining for natural gas and other fuels used by generating plants and are masking the real amount of money that Con Edison will gain through the rate increase. Its not unlike what is happening in the travel industry in which despite lower fuel costs, air travel tickets either remain the same or continue to rise.

Our hope is that the Public Service Commission will agree on a fair price increase for Con Edison and the Metro New York City restaurant and business customer. That price increase should enable Con Ed to maintain its cables, transformers and other equipment with the best possible state of the industry service.

AJC, from page 90 tion. In the fall of 1986 Elliot Braun joined the operation. Sales were rapidly growing. Gradually the company added new lines and expanded from a wholesale beverage operation, into a foodservice{File:"PROOFS"} redistribution. Many dry grocery, nonperishable national brand lines were added.

The partners moved the operation many times over the years. Metro NY sales expanded and Atlantic’s distribution grew to include New England, Upstate NY, Western Pennsylvania, and Baltimore Washington areas. More space was eventually needed to accommodate new lines as the business progressed.

At its corporate headquarters, in Edison, N.J. the company currently occupies 160,000 square feet of warehouse space. In October 2010, Atlantic continued to progress, through new department and operation additions. Atlantic Beverage Company’s Spice Packing facility and Importing Department was launched. Atlantic bought proprietary trade labels to sell along with its national brands. Atlantic is currently a full service imported and national brand importer and re-distributor.

Over the course of its long history, the American Jewish Committee has worked to safeguard minorities; fight terrorism, anti-Semitism, hatred, and bigotry; pursue social justice; advance human dignity; support Israel’s right to exist in peace and security; defend religious freedom and provide humanitarian relief to those in need. Through innovative programs, education, research and extensive diplomatic outreach and advocacy, AJC works to advance freedom, liberty, tolerance and mutual respect.

AJC is an international advocacy organization whose key areas of focus are: working to eliminate anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry worldwide; supporting Israel’s quest for peace and security; advocating for energy independence; and strengthening Jewish life.

The organization has regional offices in 22 American cities, nine overseas offices, and 32 International partnerships with Jewish communal institutions around the world. AJC was established in 1906 by a small group of American Jews concerned about Pogroms aimed at the Jewish population of Russia. The official committee statement on the purpose was to “prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution.”

The organization was led in its early years by lawyer Louis Marshall, banker Jacob H. Schiff, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, and other well-to-do and politically connected Jews. Most were from New York City while others lived in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Later leaders were Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, industrialist Jacob Blaustein, and lawyer Irving

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M. Engel. In addition to the central office in New York City, local offices were established around the country.

AJC took the position that prejudice was indivisible, and that the rights of Jews in the United States could be best protected by arguing in favor of the equality of all Americans. AJC supported social science research into the causes of and cures for prejudice, and forged alliances with other ethnic, racial and religious groups. AJC research was cited in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregated schools.

The AJC advocates global diplomacy and works towards eliminating antiSemitism and supporting Israel's journey towards peace and security. This year's Metro New York chapter award winners all embody that spirit.