Chef Chatter
Chef Chatter: How to transform yourself into a 'business chef'
Making and keeping your franchise popular, relevant and unforgettable are certain keys to success that you must consider in great depth. Executive chef of Taboonette Efraim Naon gives the key strategies to keeping your brand on point, as well as your chef mindset.
October 5, 2018
By Efraim "Efi" Naon, executive chef, Taboonette
Editor's note: Chef Chatter is a series featuring chef-authored blogs. If you'd like to write a Chef Chatter blog, send your idea to editor@fastcasual.com.
As chefs, we are artists. We create with instinct and emotion. We chase after our own version of Mona Lisa — that ideal dish to which we present to a patron, perfect in its presentation, imagination, and taste. The chef that creates that masterpiece often soon enjoys rock star status in social and foodie circles, creating greater opportunities for his or her talents. Taking the next step requires us to be in touch with the often-hidden, other side of being a chef, a silent half that we don't think about when working, creating in our kitchen. It is the half we often ignore, the half we didn't know existed, and the half that trades in the kitchen for an office and the half that wields a calculator and ledger instead of a cutting board and knife. That other half is the business chef.
A business chef involves a completely different set of skills including a meticulous understanding and calculation of things like inventory programs, theoretical food costs vs. actual food costs, actual weights and measures and incremental food costs. The business chef combines his creative culinary skills with an entrepreneurial spirit and knowledge. Awakening the business chef within intuitively interferes with the artistic process but builds a very important bridge needed to evolve to the next level. One such level is franchising a successful restaurant concept. For me, that franchise is Taboonette.
Taboonette was created from the success of its parent restaurant, Taboon. Taboon was a dream come true for me, but it wasn't mine alone. It had belonged to its creator, Danny Hodak. Danny was the passion and brains behind the business side, the force that allowed me to focus completely on creating a new, conceptual food experience to the NYC dining cityscape. It was that partnership and complete creative freedom that led to our trademark, Middleterranean food. A concept forged from an original wood-fired oven (a Taboon) that uniquely blends the cultural flavors of the Middle East and the Mediterranean using classical French techniques.
So here we are at the next level. Taking the fine dining experience of Taboon, creating a fast casual experience without sacrificing quality or adventure. Like Taboon, Taboonette, as a single NYC location, has been widely acclaimed and successful thus taking us further down the road to franchising.
One thing that stands out to me when I started the adventure from successful restaurant owner to franchisor, was being told, "if you want to build a chain or franchise chain of restaurants, the last person you want in charge is a Chef." Chefs create flavors and dishes. Understanding things like audience, price point, location, cost equipment, value engineering, sales to investment ratio were initially, and still on some level, difficult to translate. As it turns out, it wasn't the intricacies of creating a chef-driven menu, nor was it the complex, infinitesimal technical items. What kept me up at nights were the philosophical enigmas. Will success in NYC translate to other states? Can we replicate our cornerstone "vibe" in multiple locations? Will people enjoy the trademark Middleterranean flavors we created? Will they embrace the culture of this food? Can it still be a place of culinary adventure? How will Taboonette meet the various standards and cultural practices (or acceptances) in places like Miami, Houston or Charlotte?
Making and keeping your franchise popular, relevant and unforgettable are certain keys to success that you must consider in great depth. As I continue to evolve into a business chef, I am met with considerations like these. Another consideration worth thinking about is the "occasion to use" for each city, for each prospective location. What are the lifestyle occasions where people will want to eat at your restaurant? Will this franchise serve the young, savvy business professional for lunch/dinner? Will it serve adults looking for a place to meet with friends because they have a couple hours to spend between daily events? Will it be a place of first dates?
Now that you've evolved into a suitable business chef, it is time to reflect (and never lose sight) on what brought you here to begin with — connecting with people in a unique and memorable way.
The secret is to be authentic and take the time to let the customer know what you are doing. Be transparent in the flavors you are introducing, the ingredients, and what those ingredients do to the integrity and flavor of a dish. Like pairing great food with great wine, a new dish aims to pair ingredients and flavor with the taste palette of each customer you meet. There is an adventure of learning through cuisine and people learn in a way that ignites their imagination and perception of a new food or flavor. Teach them as if they are discovering on their own. Let them tell the story as if they found the treasure box themselves.
Never forget to have fun and be open with your knowledge of food, language, culture and how they best mix together. Be creative with words, vocabulary, and concepts and create a unique environment for customers and staff. At Taboonette, we create a family environment. The family is a huge central focus in middle eastern and Mediterranean culture so re-create that for our customers and staff. Bring the best to the table and I don't mean just the food.
Top three focus points in the evolution of chef to business chef:
1. Learn to maintain creativity, but add a technical understanding of systems toward dish design and how each step can be economically defined for replication.
2. Think about your target audience's lifestyle and try to determine the many factors that point toward the "occasion to use."
3. Love what you do and be authentic and transparent. No matter what the restaurant environment, continue to communicate with your customers, be transparent and create an interesting experience that is memorable.
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