CURRENTS
Restaurateur Testifies On Needs of Businesses
in Gulf As Operators Begin to Re-Open
As some restaurants in New Orleans re-open with limited staff and menus and under curfew restrictions, a restaurateur with three of his own eateries in the city testified on ways Congress can help small businesses in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Ralph Brennan testified last month before the U.S. House of Representatives about the impact the hurricane has had on his own businesses. Brennan, owner of three New Orleans restaurants -- Red Fish Grill, Bacco and Ralph's on the Park -- shared his experience about the devastation of the hurricane.
"All of us left town expecting to return in two or three days and that our homes and businesses would be reasonably safe. They're not. We have to rebuild our entire city, especially the hospitality industry," said Brennan.
"Unlike many restaurants in New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast region, two of my three restaurants in New Orleans are now open, but with limited menus, partial staff and boiled water restrictions. One of my biggest challenges is finding employees to staff my restaurants. Many of my staff have not come back to the city or have found employment elsewhere. And one of the biggest short-term issues, particularly in New Orleans, is finding adequate housing for restaurant employees since seventy percent of the houses in New Orleans sustained water damage," he said.
Brennan said that some of the biggest challenges restaurants face today are a lack of employees, absence of customer base, and unresolved insurance issues.
He laid out an overview of the economic impact, saying that the areas most heavily hit had 6,800 restaurant-and-foodservice establishments, employing roughly 90,000 people. Annual restaurant sales for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama total about $12.4 billion, about 2.6 percent of the $476 billion of nationwide restaurant sales.
Brennan, who serves as the chairman of the Ernest M. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, also discussed the importance of reviving travel and tourism to the area. The industry represents more than 650,000 jobs in the three states and last year accounted for more than $50 billion in business activity in the region. Brennan says Congress should assist in the long-term recovery of the region by increasing the business meal deduction to 100 percent for expenditures in the hurricane disaster zone, and implementing a spousal travel deduction for business travel to the disaster zone.
Among the other provisions Brennan requested include: an employer deduction for costs associated with housing relocated employees; a housing credit/allowance/vouchers for employees from the disaster zone; tax deduction/credit for costs associated with housing an evacuee in a home or business; and temporary housing provided to Katrina-affected employees by their employers not treated as a taxable benefit.
Meanwhile, restaurants in the Big Easy started to re-open in mid-October, although with limited menus, hours of operation and shorter staffs. The Bourbon House, for instance, opened under limited hours until the curfew is rescinded. The Bourbon House is one of three restaurants owned and operated by Dickie Brennan, Steve Pettus, and Lauren Brennan Brower. Taken together, the operations employ more than 300 people.
"We're fortunate to be able to restore local flavor to New Orleans, but what's more important is to be able to restore the lives of the many employees who work in our three restaurants," Dickie Brennan said. "Many team members, just like other New Orleanians, have lost their homes. Their families have been separated, and some have even experienced loss of loved ones. Putting our employee-family back to work helps them to gain control over one more aspect of their lives. And in the process, they have the opportunity to do what they enjoy most which is serving others."
Siegfried & Roy Tap First Keg At Vegas Oktoberfest
Las
Vegas illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, better known as Siegfried
and Roy, heralded the Oktoberfest season last September at the Hofbräuhaus
Las Vegas, where they tapped the first keg of Hofbrau Oktoberfestbier. The German
natives officially opened the festival at the Bavarian-style eatery and beer
hall on September 17, the same day that the Munich beer festival Oktoberfest
began in the Bavarian capital.
Following a traditional parade through the Hofbräuhaus' beer hall, the honorary Bürgermeisters (or mayors) for the evening followed a nearly 200-year festival custom by tapping the first 50-gallon keg. "Last year, Siegfried tapped a keg during the festival, but not during our opening ceremonies. Since he is a regular, coming in every month or so and bringing 10 or 15 friends with him, we asked him to do the opening tapping this year," says Stefan Gastager, president of the restaurant. "And we were so happy to see Roy here as well, walking through the main beer hall with everyone cheering, and then tapping with Siegfried."
The restaurant is a reproduction of the Hofbräuhaus Munchen, replicating the Oktoberfest experience of the original, albeit on a smaller scale. Festival beer is served with Bavarian pretzels, about 10 to 12 inches long, with the accompanying sweet German mustard, radishes and Bavarian cheese. "The pretzels come in to us from Germany by ship, in frozen containers. The journey takes six to eight weeks. Our beer also comes in by ship in 50-gallon kegs," says Gastager. Dishes served at the restaurant included roasted pork shank, roasted chicken, and weiner schnitzel.
ANATOMY OF A COCKTAIL
BY GARY REGAN
I
was on a mission. A dangerous mission. I had back-up by my side, though. Chris
Gallagher, the guy who makes PUG! Muddlers, agreed to cover me on my trek.
We were headed to the Pegu Club on West Houston Street in Manhattan. The joint hadn't opened to the public yet -- we had managed to get invitations to a private party held there a few days prior to the grand opening. The danger lay in the cash register. It wasn't in operation. Drinks were free. I take enormous risks to report on events such as this.
Luckily, all went well, and Chris and I managed to get out of the Pegu Club relatively unscathed, though we did quaff three or four delectable cocktails apiece before we called it a night. I figure that you can't go to a bar such as Pegu Club, where the emphasis is on top-quality cocktails, and leave after just one drink. It's important to give the bartenders a chance to strut their stuff. And the bartenders that night sure knew how to strut.
Toby Maloney, Phillip Ward, Chad Soloman, and three other incredibly talented bartenders graced the other side of the mahogany that night, and watching them work was akin to having front row seats at the ballet. But nowhere near as boring. These guys shake, stir, and muddle as though their lives depend on it. And so would any bartender worth his or her salt if they were lucky enough to get a job working with Audrey Saunders -- The Libation Goddess herself.
I've known Audrey since she worked at Blackbird with Dale DeGroff, her mentor, and I've watched her grow and grow and grow as she relentlessly pursued her craft, letting nothing, absolutely nothing, get in the way of perfection.
And not only is Audrey a perfectionist, she's also a bartender who can conceptualize flavors like nobody else I know. I well remember telling her that she was crazy (which isn't too far from the truth, but not for the reason I was citing at the time) when she sent me a recipe for a drink called the Dreamy Dorini Smokin' Martini. The cocktail called for Laphroaig single malt Scotch, one of the smokiest drams on the face of the earth, to be married to vodka, and a few drops of Pernod. "Make the drink," she told me. It's a world-class potion. And it's something that very few people could have come up with.
The Pegu Club Cocktail From
The Joy of Mixology 2 ounces gin
Fill a cocktail shaker two-thirds full |
I picture Audrey at the breakfast table, carefully spreading marmalade very evenly onto neatly-cut toast triangles -- probably acute triangles, though she probably sometimes opts for obtuse triangles -- and sipping on a morning cup of tea, when suddenly she says to herself, "Hmm . . . I bet this tea would taste better if I had some gin in here." I have no idea how Audrey actually came up with this drink, but I do know that it's one of the very best new cocktails I've tasted in many years.
The featured cocktail in this column isn't going to be an Audrey Saunders' original -- the Earl Grey MarTEAni recipe has run in the Cheers "Drinks" column once before. We're going to focus instead on the Pegu Club Cocktail itself. A potion that's been around since at least the 1920s, and probably stretches back quite a bit further than that. The first printed mention of the drink that I can find is in the 1930 tome, The Savoy Cocktail Book. Author Harry Craddock notes that the drink had traveled, and was asked for "around the world."
The Pegu Club Cocktail is a drink that I put into the category of New Orleans Sours -- cocktails that call for a base spirit, and orange-flavored liqueur, and a sour agent such as lemon or lime juice. The Margarita and the Sidecar both belong in this family of drinks. Craddock calls for orange curaçao in his recipe for the Pegu Club Cocktail, and although I usually go with Cointreau, I've also used Mandarine Napoleon to make this drink. And I've found it to work very well indeed.
One of the beauties of New Orleans Sours is that they give the bartender a chance to figure out what special nuances a variety of orange-flavored liqueurs bring to a drink. Cointreau brings a beautifully sharp, dry sophistication to the party, Grand Marnier is sweeter, and a little rounder, Mandarine Napoleon, of course, offers mandarin orange flavors, and Van der Hum, a South African liqueur, brings tangy tangerine notes to the cocktail. It's all quite fascinating.
I've asked Audrey Saunders to hold seminars on how to think outside the box, but she seems reticent. So, as a mere mortal in the world of mixing drinks, I'll have to stick to playing with standard formulas to create new drinks of my own. I'll be keeping my eye on Audrey, though. And I'll keep you posted if she comes up with a Toast and Marmalade Punch.
LONDON CALLING
Raising the British Bar
BY BEN REED
Earlier
this year I was invited out to O.C. to speak on the state of the high end of
the London bar scene at the Cheers Beverage Conference. I have to say that,
despite feeling very proud at seeing recognition for the industry that I and
others in London have worked so hard building up, I did feel I was perhaps there
representing my country erroneously. Yes, at the (tiny) top end of the scale,
bars in London, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow were leading the way
with inventive cocktails, great service and even greater enthusiasm, but it's
the gaps left in the mid- to bottom-end of the table that were letting us down.
Let me expand on this; as I've mentioned in the past (apologies to those of you who attended the conference) if you walk into most bars (not pubs) on any street in the UK, the only thing you'd feel safe ordering if you possessed any level of discernment would be a beer of some shape, size or temperature. If it was a spirit and mixer you were after, the venue would invariably use substandard glassware (dirty, government stamped and very tacky), cheap mixer, a couple of cubes of bad ice and, if you're very lucky, a slightly browning garnish. I guess it's lucky that American tourists tend to prefer the taste of our beer to our spirits or cocktails.
Such is the rate of change in the UK at the moment however that now the mid level bars such as Living Room, Revolution, and Pitcher and Piano are devoting more and more time towards providing the same sort of training that would traditionally only be offered to the top end of the market place, the so-called style bars.
With the industry in a state of moral panic and strategic flux -- 24 hr. licensing is still being heavily debated, trial smoking bans are being implemented across the country, binge drinking amongst young women seems to be growing and cider's making a comeback (!) -- the mainstream operation seems quietly to be getting its house in order.
After talking to Tristram Hillier, marketing and academy manager for Pitcher and Piano, a 30-unit UK wide bar chain that aspires to "make premium mainstream," many of my suppositions were instantly reinforced. No only do they, like other brands, promote ambassadors in each site for cocktail, spirit and wine excellence (trained by spirit brands and training companies alike); they also implement a management development program to disincline any of those who feel they have outgrown the company from leaving. (This is a common problem in the UK: within the fraternity of very self-motivated bartenders, transience and a tendency to explore the "next best thing" is rife unless time, training and potential career options are invested in and explored.)
Significantly, from a consumer perspective, Hillier notes that as his back bar range has grown, albeit organically, so has his consumers' understanding of different brands of spirit and their willingness to drink cocktails has increased as the bartenders feel more confident promoting them.
This is a significant step for British bars; back in the day where pubs were your lot, you would be subject to a choice of six staples: a domestically produced vodka, a gin (usually Gordon's), rum (Lamb's), Bell's or Teacher's Scotch Whisky and Courvoisier Cognac. You'd seldom find tequila, although often lots of Dubonnet. This is the reason why the Brits tend to order generically -- we've just never had this much choice.
Slightly further down the hierarchy, large scale brands like Walkabout (you guessed it, an Aussie sports bar) and Bar Risa are being supported by drinks companies (notably the joint Bacardi-Brown Forman venture and Coke CCE) to provide training, and cocktail menu design packages. These tend to be carried out by experienced operators and trainers (in this case it was my firm, IPB). These packages are supported by auditing companies that provide before and after quantitative and qualitative reports, with multiple mystery visits. By the last reckoning, cocktail sales were up in both sites (owned by Regent Inns) by approximately 700 percent and service levels were improving as well.
These operators aren't ignoring their moral obligations either, within each of these training days, two hours are set aside to train responsible bartending (an in-depth look at alcohol, how it's made, how the body processes it and the laws that govern its sale and consumption). With a wary eye on the crackdown by the government on happy hours and two for one offers, it's probably a sensible gesture (although can we ever really control intoxication when we're cramming 300 to 400 people into a late night bar?).
The UK Marriott Hotel chain is taking a global initiative, too, and as a brand that employs many part-time as well as fulltime staff, it's a brave investment. Although internal training is no doubt rigorous, they appreciate the need to keep abreast of developments within other F&B outlets and are working exclusively with IPB on an incentive to put all their bar staff through a one day service and skills course, with two staffers from each site sitting on our four day professional bartending course (day one being a British Industry of Innkeeping (BII) accredited course -- the first practical course of its kind in this country).
The course offers greater emphasis on being a salesperson of alcohol (drinks), the service aspect, knowing your product and the responsibility of your job. It is this where IPB has noticed a lack of emphasis; product knowledge and cocktail making skills are improving rapidly.
At the Bacardi-sponsored Capital Cocktail Competition, High Street bars were competing alongside style bars and doing rather well. Unfortunately it's those sales skills that often seem to be lacking in all but the top establishments. Point of sale is greatly invested in to redress that imbalance with the head office belief that "If the staff aren't selling, we'll do it for them."
The British bar has generally become better at selling itself, its marketing and branding is more intelligent, the food, music, drinks and decor are always evolving and improving, and yet we're still working on the final piece of the puzzle, that thing you guys seem to do so well, service and sales (but not necessarily of cider).
Ben Reed is an author of many cocktail books and a director of ipbartenders ltd, the largest bartending consultancy company in the UK. He can be contacted at www.ipbartenders.com.
American Cocktail Museum To Host
Bicentennial Competition
In
honor of the 200th birthday of the American cocktail, the Museum of the American
Cocktail and the United States Bartenders Guild will present the "Cocktail 200
International Drink Competition" on May 13, 2006. This special bicentennial
competition and celebration honoring the cocktail will be simulcast worldwide.
The venue of the event will be announced next January.
The American Cocktail Awards, the Olives, will be presented in two categories: pre-dinner and best cocktail menu. The deadline for entries is January 15, 2006. The USBG Competition Committee will supervise the match. More information and submission guidelines will be available at www.MuseumOfTheAmericanCocktail.org/Cocktail200.
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