Louisiana: Coffee Gateway to America

By Liz Williams, Founder & President
Southern Food andBeverage Museum

Louisiana has a long history with coffee. Regardless of the recent claims of other cities, the port of New Orleans has been the historic entryway of coffee into America. In the early 18^th century, coffee was first shipped to New Orleans from the Caribbean island of Martinique. Once in Louisiana, it was roasted and distributed to the rest of the state and the country. Coffee spread from Martinique to other parts of the Caribbean, plantations in Brazil and Central America. Strong family and social relationships have developed between these countries and New Orleans based on the bonds of coffee.

Naturally, New Orleans became and remains a city with a strong coffee tradition. This tradition flows with the path of the Mississippi River to Acadiana and beyond, encompassing the entire state of Louisiana, which has led to many coffee companies developing in the state. The state’s first coffee houses, historically a mix between French cafés and taverns began to spring up. In those coffee houses, where the brew was often served with a shot of some kind of alcohol, people did business over a cup of coffee—a tradition that continues to this day.

3 Tips for Choosing Which SoMe Site is Best for Your Restaurant

By Ryan Sides is the Lead Strategist at Bacon Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, UrbanSpoon? HELP!

Restaurateurs are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the many options for social media marketing today. How do you decide which site is best for your restaurant?

Consider Your Time Constraints
If you have a limited amount of time to spend on actively marketing your restaurant online, you may want to develop a relatively passive approach.  This will mainly include monitoring sites such as FourSquare, Yelp, UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor, and other check-in/review sites for mentions and reviews of your restaurant.  You can even respond to negative reviews -- just don’t be this guy.

A more active approach to marketing your restaurant on social media will include posting and directly interacting with your followers on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  You should budget at least an hour per day to engage fans, post comments, add status updates, post photos, read other posts and groups, etc. 

Study Your Customers
Can you describe your ideal customer?  Have you written a detailed description of them?  Where do they live? Work? Play? What do they do? Read? Listen to?  Think about how they interact online and which sites they visit often.  Are they active on Facebook or Foursquare?

As you talk to your customers, ask them where they go to search for restaurants.  Which sites do they use and trust most?  Invest your energy in the sites where your customers and prospectives are already active.

Be Realistic About Your Budget

Setting up accounts on social media sites is free -- which is one thing that makes them so appealing to small restaurant managers and owners. But running them isn’t. Carefully review your marketing plan and budget and figure out how much money you can afford to invest in your social media efforts.

All channels aren’t created equal, in terms of the investment they require. Creating a steady stream of videos for YouTube will require more money than designing and managing a simple Facebook page.

It’s better to do a single site really well than try to manage multiple channels weakly.  We recommend that newbies select only one site and focus exclusively on that site for at least one month. 

Ryan Sides is the Lead Strategist at Bacon Social Media and is committed to helping restaurateurs increase repeat business and save money through Social Media marketing.  E-mail Questions or Comments to Ryan@BaconSocialMedia.com.

Love in in the air for Restaurants preparing for Valentine's Day

Happy Heart Day! Restaurants across Louisiana are reporting strong reservations for the big day, Tuesday, February 14. Reservations for the weekend prior to the big day are strong, although a parade in uptown New Orleans may send patrons to locations along the route for the added entertainment. Others may opt for a less traveled path to their romantic dinner.

Regardless, this day is a shot in the arm for many restaurants. According to a NationalRestaurant Association survey, more than 70 million American’s dined out on Valentine’s Day in 2011.

TallulahCrafted Food & Wine Bar in the new Renaissance Hotel in Baton Rouge is booked for the special day and by the time you read this article there will be no reservations available on Saturday, February 11.

An NRA survey revealed that younger adults are more likely to enjoy a special Valentine’s Day meal at a restaurant than older adults; 33 percent of 18-34-year olds, and 39 percent of 35-44-year olds say they plan to dine out for a Valentine’s Day meal, compared with 27 percent of those 55 and older.

“We look forward to Valentine’s Day,” said Lee McCollough, owner of One Restaurant and Lounge in New Orleans. “Business lately has been a little unpredictable, so to have a full house on Valentine’s is great for us.”

When it comes to factors involved in choosing where to dine out for Valentine’s Day, most consumers (42 percent) say they pick their favorite restaurant or their companion’s favorite restaurant for their special meal.

In Metairie at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, there are no more seats to be had on the holiday so beloved by women, said General Manager Mike Miller. He has actually removed most of his larger tables and rented smaller ones to accommodate more two tops.

“Every year we try to beat the prior year’s check average,” Miller added. “When we took the reservations we asked if they would like to add a bottle or half bottle of champagne to the meal or specialty chocolates. We aspire to exceed expectations on a regular day at Ruth’s, but Valentine’s Day is one where we get to be creative and really wow our guests.”

Twenty-one percent of those surveyed select a restaurant with a romantic atmosphere, followed by restaurants that offer special menus or promotions (13 percent), restaurants picked by their companion (12 percent), and a restaurant they haven’t been to before (11 percent).

To all of our LRA members, may cupid’s arrow of profits rain on your restaurant during this Hallmark holiday!

Former ProStart Student Establishs Career

There’s one in every restaurant kitchen—a cook who is friendly, good-humored, a bit of a class clown, but downright serious when it comes to their job. They may be short or tall, thin as a reed, or wide as a hug. In the large and airy kitchen of the RitzCarlton New Orleans’s M Bistro, his given name is Jason Flato, but everyone calls him Rosie.

Fair-skinned Flato was bestowed his nickname soon after his co-workers noticed how quickly his cheeks bloomed near the hot kitchen equipment. It’s a heat he has enjoyed since his days in Carolyn Senac’s ProStart^® class at Mandeville High School.

“In high school, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do [as a career],” Flato confessed. “But then I took ProStart and really enjoyed it. I realized I wanted to be a chef.”

ProStart is a nationwide, two-year program high school program that unites the classroom and industry to develop the best and bright talent into tomorrow’s restaurant and foodservice leaders. The LouisianaRestaurant Association Education Foundation (LRAEF) administers the program in Louisiana, where it is currently offered in 50 schools.

Flower Power!

Here’s a recipe from Rhiannon Enlil, a young woman who’s made her career in the hospitality industry creating and serving craft cocktails. She consulted on the cocktail menu for the newly-renovated Hyatt Regency NewOrleans’s bar Vitascope.

A “daisy” is a type of mixed drink dating back to the 1870's, and is typically made with spirit, sugar, lemon juice, seltzer water and a either orange cordial or raspberry cordial. Here, we've made our daisy with two types of rum and house-made cranberry syrup for a tart and spicy seasonal refreshment.  

Red Rum Daisy

1.5oz Cruzan Aged Light rum
1oz lemon juice
1oz house-made spiced cranberry syrup*
dash simple syrup (to taste)
.75oz soda water
.5oz Goslings dark rum (float)

Build in a tall glass with ice, the light rum, lemon juice, cranberry syrup and simple syrup, then stir briefly to integrate ingredients. Add more ice if necessary, top with soda water and float dark rum. Garnish with a skewer of fresh cranberries and serve with a straw.

*To make the spiced cranberry syrup, heat 100% cranberry juice over low heat with cinnamon, clove, anise, and all-spice until the mixture is reduced by half, then strain and add equal amounts of sugar.

Examining leadership in Louisiana's restaurant industry

The Louisiana Restaurant Association (LRA) is in a new phase in its development. With the retirement of its former president and chief executive officer in 2010, the volunteer leaders conducted a national search—the first time for many of them—for someone to lead them into a new era for your association. That individual is Stan Harris—a former successful restaurateur with a strong business acumen and an active leader.

The LRA Executive Committee charged Harris with bringing a solid business approach to the association and leading a strategic restructuring to align the LRA and its highly-valued Self Insurer’s Fund forWorkers’ Compensation. Another task is to raise awareness of the Louisiana ProStart^® program, the two-year, restaurant management and culinary curriculum offered in 50 high schools statewide.

While much of that work has began at the staff level in 2011, the real work begins this year as members of the state board and the nine LRA chapter presidents will evaluate themselves and begin to set the course for the future of our association and industry. Enhancing the industry’s identity and reputation is at the forefront of this initiative.

Developing the next generation of industry leaders

Given the level of involvement necessary to evolve the LRA, 2012 LRA Chair Melvin Rodrigue appointed LRA Past Chair Glen Armantrout as Chapter Leadership Chair this year. In preparation and in conjunction with LRA senior staff, the first Chapter Leadership Conference was instituted this past December. All nine chapter presidents attended as well as the nine chapter vice presidents.

The Business of Bourbon Street -- Melvin Rodrigue

From Napoleonville to New Orleans, a pre-med major turns hospitality into his lifelong career and runs one of the most notable, old-line restaurants in the heart of the French Quarter.

Many successful restaurateurs initially had other careers in mind upon entering college. 2012 LRA Chair Melvin Rodrigue was no different. At 19 years old, the Napoleonville native was enrolled at Tulane University, with plans to study medicine. A sister’s suggestion, however, put Rodrigue on the path to where he is today.  In 1991, he found himself working at the newly-opened Palace Café on Canal Street.

“I was driving home every weekend and my sister encouraged me to stay in the city, get a job with her at Palace and the rest is history, really,” Rodrigue says.

Best laid plans…

In a few short months, he was running the kitchen at Palace Café with 30 direct reports.

“I just loved it…the excitement, the responsibility and working with some of the industry greats, like Dickie Brennan and my mentor, Steve Pettus.”

Pettus laughed in an interview, “I’m too young to be a mentor. But, in all seriousness, Melvin is a sponge. He listens, he thinks and he considers all angles before he reacts. That’s the mark of a truly great leader.”