Starting Point

Gotta figure out the menu. Christ! Burgers, burgers... gotta have burgers. The place used to have a reputation for really good burgers and I know I can get that back. They just have to be damned good burgers... better than Big Kahuna Burgers (but we have no tasty Sprite beverages here with which to wash them down). I can't get any further until I put together a potential menu. Once I have that I can then figure out my pricing structure and see try to figure out where the ideal profit point is. Thank fuck for Professor Gigi having made econ courses interesting enough that I paid attention.

OK, so we have to have a really high-quality burger. Do I give a list of potential ingredients? Can those ingredients be used for other menu items? Do I cut choices an just offer three or four burgers with various shit on them?

Gigi taught me, among other things, the difference between sunk and operational costs in a way that let me better figure restaurant costs. If I have a full-time cook it's a sunk cost. He's getting paid whether or not he cooks anything. I therefore have even more incentive to keep the bastard busy, not hard to do in a place where I plan to promote fresh, home-made food. Having the bar staff also cook is possible -- especially with a piss-easy menu -- but completely impractical if the place is full. It also looks like shit to the guests. The barman pours beer and makes drinks. I need a cook.

Hot dogs? They'd probably go well with the Americans, and maybe the Aussies and Kiwis will like them. Should I also offer Bratwurst to give the Krauts what they like? They don't require that much space. But if I do that then maybe I should offer the very German standard "Currywurst" with chips? Except now I'm deviating even further and adding more items I have to buy and store and try to flog. Kitchen and counter space is limited.

Do I do hot dogs from the kitchen or offer them in one of those countertop display units on the back bar? Should I offer a tray of toppings or do I again make a few basic variants? Hot dogs are great because they're not too filling and offer something that the fried stuff doesn't without being a full meal. I could also do "beer and a dog" specials. Or "dozen dogs" for a tenner. A hot dog shouldn't take more than 30 seconds to serve but people are pretty fussy about what they want on them. Maybe a few "base versions" and a condiment tray.

Show me a non-Chinese restaurant with 100 items on its menu and I'll show you an owner bleeding money and facing bankruptcy. Non-Chinese because Chinese restaurants can cook more than 100 different dishes from a pool of around 25 ingredients. It's tempting to turn this place into a really good Chinese restaurant (and heaven knows we need one here) but the kitchen belongs to the building and can't be ripped out without incurring storage charges for all the old equipment he can't let go of.

Pies. Meat and veg pies. Home-made, easy enough. Fillings can be made in advance and portion-packed in the fridge or freezer. Pull out, pop into dough, seal, bake for seven minutes, serve with chips/fries. But what about Shepherd's pie? Steak and Kidney? Lancs hotpot? All simple enough but kidney? Steak and kidney pie is one of the penultimate classics but then I've got yet another ingredient which isn't used in anything else. Would there be enough demand for it?

You can't please everyone so there's no point trying. One mistake so many restauranteurs make is putting too much on the menu to ensure that everyone will find something he likes. What they end up with is a menu which is too confusing and impossible to actually prepare in a running commercial kitchen. Logistics. It always comes down to logistics. The kitchen has to be able to prepare and serve 1-12 different dishes concurrently. Meals for each person at any table must be ready at the same time.

If everyone orders something different not even the best chefs in the world can put it all together when the menu is too varied and complex. More importantly, a kitchen doesn't necessarily run orders in FIFO (first-in, first out). If my cook's making one spaghetti for a table with a couple burgers and another table wants nachos and two pastas, he needs to be able to optimise his work and make all three spaghettis at the same time along wiht the burgers and nachos.

Sandwiches? I guess I could do a grilled cheese for kids. What about tuna fish salad? Fuck. Yes I could use the tuna in a spaghetti sauce and maybe even a pie or casserole, but everyone likes tuna salad made differently and most complain bitterly if what they're served isn't what they grew up with. Fuck that. Maybe a grilled ham and cheese? I don't think I need ham for anything else, except maybe a breakfast fry-up... but that would be a different kind of ham. Bacon & cheese? The "bacon butty"? How much shit can I fit on a menu? How much shit should I fit on the menu? If I limit myself to what would fit on the front and back of a standard piece of paper that should be OK as long as I don't cheat and shrink the font. 20-point type for the names, 12-16pt for the descriptions.

I have competition, none of which are in a basement forcing their smoking customers to climb a rather long flight of stairs. None of them are prevented from putting tables outside in the summer. Who the fuck goes into a basement bar in the summer in Germany? Unless I can offer them something that they can't get elsewhere I'm hosed. I need more sports than anyone else, fair-priced food, cheap drinks, and good service. These I can offer but are they enough?

Fried food: chips/fries, chicken tenders (breast meat also used in a salad and as a sandwich, breaded with corn flakes), mozz sticks maybe, no fucking onion rings (too much effort) but maybe one of those onion blooms which never made it over to this country. But then I need to find a source for Bermuda onions. Proper Buffalo chicken wings with real blue cheese dressing and the veggie sticks. Blue cheese would be another unique ingredient but wings here suck and if I offer 'em, they will come. Except that the blue cheese could also work on one of the specialty burgers...

Then it's a trip to the commercial markets to price all of this out, figure portion sizes and costs, determine if I can charge at least twice my cost and slash another third of the items off the menu. And only once that's done can I try to figure out what pricing level will maximise profits while keeping in mind the sunk costs of rent, utilities, licensing and food/drink costs along with the possibly variable costs of labour. Will labour profit-share on the night's gross receipts as is so common in Germany?

The answer is a cross between a rhinoceros and an elephant: Fucktifino.

Whoops! This was supposed to run a few days ago before the sausages and steaks.