ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - March 29, 2002

I'm back in Gig Harbor to enjoy a week of home time before it all starts again! I did have a good time on the last trip, however. Since last week's report, I did some consulting with a major industry vendor, spent a few days with my sister on Cape Cod, talked to a couple of hospitality classes at Johnson & Wales University and re-connected with some old friends at the Maine Restaurant Show.

LESS IS MORE
On this last trip I noticed a disturbing tendency for Caesar Salads to be grossly over-dressed. Now, I expect the dressing to be tossed in a Caesar Salad -- this is definitely an improvement over two ladles of dressing glopped into the middle of a bowl of greens -- but every Caesar I had last week simply had too much dressing on it, most of it far too mayonnaise-like. Not only does over-dressing raise hell with the food cost, but creates a poor product as well. It is also why so many people ask for the dressing on the side.

DIFFERENT IS MORE
Memorable salads are about balance, about all the ingredients complementing each other. Go too heavy on any one of them and the product quality spins out of control. I realize that lettuce prices have been at near coronary levels and the quality has been down. I suspect the last few months have tempted you to drop salads from the menu altogether. However, that is no excuse not to take your salads seriously. We are heading into prime time for greens. Perhaps you should re-visit your salad program and offer something a little more exciting than iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato with the same old boring choice of bottled dressings.

Talk to your produce people and find out what sort of interesting greens they can bring you. Mix them up with different vegetables, meats, seafood or freshly grated cheeses. Think taste. Think contrasts. Think colors. Do you think you could sell a salad with crab, bacon and crumbled blue cheese? How about a few touches from other cuisines? Phyllis Ann Marshall tells the story of a restaurant whose entire reputation was built with a signature Chinese Chicken Salad. I certainly know of restaurants that have made a business out of marketing their signature salad dressing. You won't become famous serving somebody else's bottled dressing, no matter how good it is.

MORE IS MORE
OK, since it looks like I am on a rant about salad now, let's talk about presentation. Serving a pile of salad on a flat plate is stupid! You can't mix it up without spilling lettuce all over the table. The next worst thing is a pile of salad in a tiny bowl. Same problem. What I love to see -- and it only happens when a restaurant is serious about their salads -- is a large salad bowl with plenty of freeboard to mix the salad around. I like those big glass ones -- like your Mom may have used to bring the entire family's salad to the table. When you bring out a generous single serving of an interesting salad in a bowl that size, you have a real "Wow!" presentation that will set you apart from your competition . . . and make you memorable in the minds of your market.

Still not convinced that salads could be the key to jump-starting your sales? Start asking people where to go in town for a great salad and see what the responses are. Either they will all mention one or two of the same restaurants or -- better yet for you -- no particular restaurant will come to mind. When that happens, it means there is a clear space between their ears for you to become the place with the best salads in town. Get serious. Get busy. It's about the food, stupid!

FINALLY
In response to several questions, there are still seats available for the Super Summit in Seattle on April 29-30. This unique event is only a month away, certainly not too soon to make plans. Registration is limited to 99 people . . . and frankly, we may not get there this year. But I can promise you that the people who attend will have a mind-stretching experience with nine of the leading experts in our industry presenting their newest ideas and an audience that has self-selected themselves as being unusually open to new ideas. The networking possibilities alone would be worth the trip! You can get the whole story online at www.hospitalitymasters.com.

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