10 Best U.S. Cities for Vegans

10 Best U.S. Cities for Vegans

by | Nov 27, 2015 | IndiNews

People choose to switch to a vegan diet for a handful of reasons, which include protecting the environment and enjoying a healthier lifestyle. Whether you’ve been a vegan for 10 years or are considering a vegan-leaning diet as a future possibility…

Here are 10 of America’s most vegan-friendly cities worth visiting:

Asheville, N.C.

Asheville’s claims to fame include its lively music scene and views of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, but its vegan-friendly options make it unique. The Asheville Vegan Society, hosted by Meetup, holds potlucks and dinners out, as well as encouraging sharing vegan recipes and meeting like-minded people. Plant is an all-vegan restaurant that features black pepper and herb tofu on the menu. Laughing Seed Café serves locally sourced vegan and vegetarian food.

Austin

The selection of vegan food trucks in Austin is impressive according to PETA. From vegan food at the Vegan Yacht to awe-inspiring guacamole variations at Guac N Roll, Austin has plenty of options. Find your sweet fix at Sweet Ritual, a vegan ice cream shop with varying daily flavors, shakes, and even a Glitterbeast sundae, made with salted caramel sauce, strawberry sauce, and e edible glitter.

Boulder

Boulder is home to a variety of vegan eateries, including Native Foods Café, which uses tempeh, seitan, and native chicken (made from free-range soy, wheat, and pea protein) for plant-based protein options. These are used to replace meat products in menu items like the Oklahoma bacon cheeseburger, nachos, and bacon and avocado club sandwich. Another local hotspot is Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant, which has options like vegan French toast and a vegan crab cake sandwich.

Las Vegas

Sin City is home to Go Raw Café & Juice Bar, a raw cuisine restaurant that includes enchiladas, “rawburgers,” desserts, and fresh juices on its menu. Simply Pure, opened by raw food chef Stacey Dougan, offers raw and cooked vegan meals, such as zucchini pasta, Thai basil spring rolls, and vegan lasagna.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is home to a host of vegan restaurants, one of which is Café Gratitude, where servers ask you what you’re thankful for each time you dine there. Try ordering the “I Am Grateful” for lunch – it’s a bowl of quinoa, kale, black beans, and garlic-tahini sauce. For an upscale dinner out, check out Crossroads Kitchen – owner-chef Tal Ronnen has cooked for Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey. Still not satisfied? The city’s Vegan Oktoberfest claims the title of world’s only traditional Oktoberfest celebration with both vegan food and beer.

New York City

The Big Apple has restaurant options for almost every type of diet, and many of them, at that. Try out Angelica Kitchen, an East Village vegan mecca where Dragon Bowls (made with steamed veggies, rice, beans, and tofu) are popular. For mock meats, head to Blossom in Chelsea, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village, where popular choices include pan-seared cutlets of seitan.

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine, and it probably has the most vegan options. Silly’s Restaurant offers a full vegan menu including menu items like the Tempeh of Doom Dinner, as well as vegan chocolate cake and vegan milkshakes. Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro, a hotspot for vegetarians and vegans alike, specializes in pan-Asian vegetarian fare and even serves noodles with vegan duck.

Portland, Ore

Portland is legendary when it comes to vegan venues. Stay the night in the Cherokee Rose Inn, an all-vegan bed and breakfast where your morning meal might incorporate tofu scramble and vegan cheese grits or pancakes with local blueberries. According to PETA, the city is also home to America’s only all-vegan strip mall, which includes a vegan clothing company, bakery, and grocery store. Voodoo Doughnut offers vegan doughnuts, like fruit cakes topped with maple frosting or toasted coconut.

San Francisco

Vegan-friendly restaurants in San Francisco include Greens Restaurant, which has a bay view and an all-vegetarian menu including fresh spring rolls and warm cauliflower salad. Also, make sure you head over to Golden Era, a vegan restaurant featuring entrée options like sautéed basil eggplant and mushroom.

Seattle

The number of vegan restaurants in Seattle is growing, and options include the Wayward Vegan Café, where the breakfast Mexi Biscuit is made with Mexican-spiced tofu and a fried chorizo patty. Chaco Canyon Organic Café also has a variety of vegan options, like a quinoa, kale, and yam bowl.

This article first appeared on The Daily Meal

Serving Hacks Part 4: Selling Wine

Serving Hacks Part 4: Selling Wine

by | Nov 24, 2015 | Career

For me, wine is a fun, elaborate sect of the food and beverage industry. From finding the right wine to pair with right food to the structures and characteristics of a grape, to the history and geography of different varietals, there is an endless amount to absorb. Most important to the server or bartender, is being able to get people to buy good wine without having a sommelier’s mastery of knowledge.

The Basics

First thing’s first: having basic knowledge of the varietals and characteristics of the wines will greatly improve your ability to sell. At the very least, become very familiar with one or two wines in order to show that you have some knowledge and are not only BSing your guests.

Before we get into selling, here are a few notes to use when selling wine:

  • Body: (Light-Medium-Full); this describes the structure of the wine on your pallet. Pinot Noir, for instance is a light-bodied red while Cabernet Sauvignon is Full-bodied
  • Tannic: Referring to the presence of tannins, this is almost all about the finish. The grippy, lasting taste at the finish is primarily caused by the tannins.
  • Acidic: having a distinct feeling and taste of acid, almost tartness
  • Dry vs. Sweet: these are opposites and a wine can not be both. A wine is either sweet and fruity or dry.

Other terms I like to use to indicate the character of wine include: bright, fruit forward, buttery (mostly for Chardonnay), peppery (Cab. Sav.), crisp, earthy, elegant, jammy, refined. These are mostly broad terms that will help you designate tastes and characteristics that are attractive and accessible to your guest.

Since wines differ so greatly by varietal (grape type), vintage (year produced), location (where wine or grape is made) and taste, there are countless ways to describe a wine and it is important to find what works for you.

Selling wine

1. Plant the Seed

When greeting a table, make sure to mention the ‘great wines’ you have to offer and indicate that you are there to help them with pairings or explanations.

Immediately, this plants the seed of drinking wine even if that was their initial intention. If you are convincing in your approach, you can use their eagerness to guide them toward a food and wine pairing that you are familiar with and have confidence explaining.

Mention the ‘great wines’ you have to offer.

2. Upselling

Upselling wine is crucial to your check average. If you can get a guest to buy a $13 glass of wine over a $9 glass, you’re on your way to a higher check average.

My style of upselling is to offer 3 different wines, explaining them in depth. The goal here is to not deprecate the cheaper glass but to simply use more elegant verbiage as you describe the higher-priced wines. Instead of saying that the $13 glass is ‘better’ than the $9 glass, explain that there are great qualities to the $9 and that $13 glass has these qualities PLUS many more.

My style of upselling is to offer 3 different wines, explaining them in depth.

For instance. If you have two pinot noirs ($9 and $13, respectively), the first one should be described as a “solid, light-bodied pinot with soft cherry flavors.” Easy, simple, to the point.

The second glass, however, “is a bit lighter and more finessed, with a much more approachable finish and a brightness that pairs well with everything on the menu.” Here, you see that you’re speaking vaguely and using words like ‘finesse’ and ‘approachable’ to express that, even though you said nothing bad about the first, the second is the clear winner.

3. Tastings

If you work at a restaurant that allows you to offer tastings, use this to your advantage! Tastings are the easiest way to gain a tables trust and get them to conform to the service that you are most comfortable with.

Again, using the 3-tier system, offer tastes of a cheap, medium and expensive wine. The goal here is to showcase your knowledge and get them to trust it. Always be sure to be well-versed in the wines you choose to taste and have a recited explanation for both.

Wine A is light-bodied with ‘these qualities’ and ‘this type of finish’ and goes well with ‘these food items’. Wine B has a ‘more complex body’ offers ‘these qualities AND these qualities’ and pairs with ‘these foods’. Wine C, however, has ‘great structure’, ‘these characteristics’, AND ‘pairs with almost anything on the menu’.

it is always easiest to sell something you actually care about.

It is crucial to show both knowledge and interest in the wines you’re selling. For me, it is always easiest to sell something you actually care about. If Wine C is a wine you would drink on your own time, it is a much easier sell to your customer. Show passion for your sales and they will respond to that.

4. Pairings

Pairing wines is a refined skill but there are some basics that are important to know as a beginner.

Start by trying to pair similar flavors of the food and the wine. For instance, a Sauvignon Blanc is a light, crisp varietal that usually contains some type of citrus (lime, grapefruit) and would do well with light, citrusy, acidic foods like ceviche, light fish, sushi.

On the other side, heavy food and heavy wines typically go well together. A Cabernet Sauvignon with a full body and peppery, tannic finish will do well with red meat like steak.

With this knowledge, it is easy to decipher which wines pair with which foods simply based on taste profile and the heaviness/lightness of the dish vs. the wine. One of the most important things to know is that a wine should not over power food.

Always opt for wine as an enhancer as opposed to a dominant flavor for your food.

Do not pair a big, oaky, buttery chardonnay with a light, citrusy cod because the wine will overpower your fish. Always opt for wine as an enhancer as opposed to a dominant flavor for your food.

Here they are, all my tricks for selling wine! Remember, the more wine knowledge you have, the better, so study up.

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Keys To Customer Service In The Restaurant Industry

Keys To Customer Service In The Restaurant Industry

by | Nov 23, 2015 | Management

The truth is that service is not really a transactional act, and therefore, it can’t be given. Service is a byproduct of consistently executing the other key processes that make a business successful—like hiring right, training well, suggestive selling and practicing servant leadership.

Hospitality or Customer Service?

Most restaurant owners and their customer-facing team members confuse service with hospitality, but they’re different: Service fulfills a need, but hospitality fulfills people. You can get service from an ATM or a vending machine, but you can’t get hospitality. Hospitality is the key deliverable that distinguishes great food service operations from average retail ones.

“Service fulfills a need, but hospitality fulfills people.”

For instance, if you buy a vacuum cleaner at a store—no matter how hard you looked for someone to help you, or how you were treated by the employees—you still have a vacuum cleaner when you get home. So even if there was no discernible service accompanying the purchase, you still have a tangible something after the transaction.

But when you patronize a restaurant, what do you have after you eat? Only memories. While menu, value, décor and cleanliness all play a part, it’s service and hospitality that makes that memory positive and drives customer loyalty and repeat business.

The Core of Great Customer Service

So what are the key drivers of customer satisfaction? Here are the three basics that every industry, not just the food industry, should follow.

1. Focus on ROC, not ROI
Repeat business is the linchpin of profitability in any successful business. Everyone is familiar with ROI, but a lesser-known and more critical metric is ROC—Return of Customer. “Will you come back?” and “Would you tell your friends to try us?” are the two most important questions relative to the customer experience. If the answer is yes to both, you’ve delivered on expectations and achieved ROC. If not, you haven’t. It’s that simple.

2. Hire Great People
Repeat business will always be dependent on the weakest people you allow on your teams. Make your customers’ experience consistently exceptional by hiring and developing great people. When you hire great people—despite the cost, despite the effort, despite the commitment—great things always happen. Compete first for talent, then customers.

When you hire great people—despite the cost, despite the effort, despite the commitment—great things always happen.

3. Consistency Is Key
Know what customers hate about patronizing your business? Inconsistency in quality, service, speed and accuracy. So when customer service problems reoccur in your business—before you blame your people—evaluate the likelihood of a short-circuit in a system or process. Bad service issues routinely arise when you hurry-hire the wrong people, cleanliness isn’t a priority, an understaffed or undertrained team messes up orders, or inefficient scheduling causes you to be short a server at peak hours. This makes customer-facing team members stressed, swamped and snippy, so they smile, serve and ultimately sell less.

Habitually consistent good service is the result of systems that:

  1. Foster a caring culture
  2. Make positivity and fun part of the core business practices
  3. Educate and encourage teams daily to be better than they were yesterday

Don’t forget that excellent service begins with leadership and the notion that, “My customer is anyone who isn’t me.” The fact is that the way you treat your team members determines how they’ll treat your customers. Model the way, every day. Apply constant, gentle pressure every day to improve.

Restaurant operators are stewards of special moments in customers’ lives. The food service industry’s shared goal of giving care and sustenance to strangers and regulars alike as part of our business model is what sets us apart from retail and manufacturers. Service is our invisible product.

Source

Chef and Brew 2015

Chef and Brew 2015

by | Nov 20, 2015 | IndiNews

The colors of Denver’s bursting restaurant scene shined brightly last night at the 2015 Chef and Brew Festival. The festival featured some of Colorado’s most prominent restaurants and breweries teaming up to form unique amalgamations of craft beer and fine food. From sour beers and ramen to pork belly and Gotlandsdrika, 21 local restaurants and breweries flexed their creative muscles to reinvent the art of food and drink pairing.

What made this event so unique was that it not only reflected the innovativeness of Colorado’s craft beer and food scenes, but also the daringness exhibited by the teams in pairing esoteric beer and exquisite food to accent the flavors of each.

Each restaurant offered both a savory and a sweet option, allowing for a variety of pairings with the breweries. The chefs and brewers flipped the conventional notion of food pairing on its head by meshing unlikely flavor profiles together, a stark contrast to the ever-so-predictable wine and cheese pairing.

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While beer and food pairings are nothing new, Chef and Brew took the game to a whole new level by introducing uncommon approaches to highlighting taste. Darrell Jensen, Executive Chef of Samples World Bistro, exemplified this edgy experiment. Teaming up with the Great Divide Brewery, Jensen prepared a dashi-marinated shrimp lettuce wrap to pair with the brewery’s Titan IPA. It may sound like an odd pairing; a light and fresh dish with a hop-heavy IPA? But however odd it may seem, it worked! The hops accentuated the dashi broth in the shrimp while the crisp finish of the beer combined with the dish’s bib lettuce, pickles and carrot made for a truly delicious experience.

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The pairing presented by Acorn and River North Brewery was the epitome of the night’s uniqueness, serving a chicken and pork belly ramen with the ‘Oud Bruin’ Belgian-style brown sour beer. Having won the contest last year, Chef Amos Watts and River North picked up where they left off by masterfully masking the dominant sour taste of the Oud Bruin with a hearty, savory ramen soup. Amos’ success in dismantling the structure of a sour beer with opposing, yet somehow complementary flavor profiles demonstrated the creativity illustrated at the event.

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On tap were some of Denver’s most experimental and new-age beers. Jagged Mountain Brewery provided two of the most intriguing beers, a Swedish-style smoked-malt Gotlandsdrika called “Men Who Drink from Goats” and a Grizzly Peak session porter. Teaming up with Anthony Smith and CY Steak, Jagged Mountain accentuated Smith’s pork belly and arugula dish, delivering a powerful blow of lasting smoky richness when combined with the Gotlandsdrika.

The session porter, a prime example of the event’s innovative beer technique, reflected the dynamic world of Denver craft brewing by taking a traditionally heavy beer and transforming it into a light, low-alcohol-content session beer to be paired perfectly with Smith’s sweeter dessert.

The inventiveness displayed by all of the participating restaurants and breweries most definitely showcased the bountiful talent and enormous originality of Colorado’s food and brew scenes.

For me, the Chef and Brew Festival opened my eyes to the developing identity of Colorado’s food and beverage industry. With a vibrant craft brewing community rapidly taking root here in Colorado, the local restaurant industry is taking advantage and leveraging peoples’ propensity for unique beers by catering their tastes to match. Festivals such as this clearly demonstrate that this is what the future holds for the food and drink scene. As a Colorado resident, I am eager to see this trend continue and watch as the restaurant and brewing industries form a new and intertwined culture.

Your Guide To Hiring Holiday and Seasonal Employees

Your Guide To Hiring Holiday and Seasonal Employees

by | Nov 20, 2015 | Business Toolkit, Management

For restaurant and hospitality businesses, the winter season means ramping up staff to handle the holiday rush. Hiring is hard in general, but when it’s the seasonal sort, things can go bad fast. So, we put together an easy guide that will help lighten the load.

Use prior year sales and current volume to plan ahead

To ensure a successful holiday season, carefully consider what your company’s needs will be in the weeks and months ahead.

Do this by comparing last year’s numbers to current data while taking into account growth and upcoming specials.

Start by reviewing your previous year’s traction prior to and throughout the winter months to give you a sort of baseline. Then compare it to the current year’s highlights that could impact your anticipated volume such as reservations, sales, events, social media presence, press, etc. Another aspect to take into account are any holiday promotions, events, and campaigns that may drive volume in the coming months.

Marry the data you gathered to plan ahead for potential gaps in coverage, departments, jobs, and days of week/times of day. This will then give you the information you need to successfully hire additional staff for the season.

Be diligent and detailed while hiring for the season

When managers, operators, and owners approach seasonal hiring as just a temporary adjustment, there is often little consideration given to the long-term effects this will have on the company, permanent employees, and customers. Although the positions and those filling them may indeed be temporary, making hiring decisions on the fly rarely works out well.

With coverage needs thoroughly identified, job descriptions and postings can be very specific and detailed in terms of the experience, qualifications, and skills required for each role you need to fill.

This helps to ensure that applicants are aware of your needs and if they are a match. This will inevitably lead to higher quality applicants thereby making it significantly easier on you and your hiring staff when making the final decisions.

When it comes time to actually hire, don’t be hasty in the decision. To be confident that your seasonal employees will only help your cause, not hurt it, get all the facts before making the call. As you would with permanent employees, check that their experience, skill-set, and personality are appropriate for the position and your company. It can be hard to do all this in the limited time you have to hire, so use all of the resources available to you.

Ensure fair treatment of seasonal talent

As the holidays approach and volume starts ramping up, it can be easy for both managers and long-term employees to get caught in the storm and lose sight of the fact that quality customer experiences are an outcome of employee experience, including those of seasonal employees. If seasonal hires are treated like machines and given little respect by superiors and coworkers, performance and profitability will suffer.

When employees are treated fairly, they can better focus on performing well on the job.

Avoid this by treating seasonal employees with the same care as their non-seasonal counterparts. To do so, cultivate a positive culture and implement the appropriate systems and solutions that acknowledge the importance respect in the workplace. This includes ensuring that permanent staff of all levels give the same support to seasonal employees as they would to each other, properly scheduling all staff as to allow for maintained work-life balance through the busy season, and being consistent in regard to managing the changes that come with the seasonal nature of the industry.

Think of the seasonal employee as a long-term investment

You’ve done all this great work in sourcing additional talent for the season, so don’t let it go to waste. Be deliberate about keeping in touch with your seasonal hires so that you can recruit them in following years, or, if the situation arises, you can hire them permanently in the future.

A great way to establish continued communication is by having an exit interview of sorts.

It doesn’t have to be formal, just a way to initiate a dialogue. Provide feedback on performance and ask for it in return. Inquire about their interests and potential availability in the future. If nothing else, it will reinforce the positive experience they had while working for you, which is the impression they’ll share with their communities and networks. It’s great press!