Saving Food

The Inlander doesn’t have an obituary page. We do, however, have a Food section.

In one issue The Inlander sings the praises of a delicious local restaurant. In the next, we’re singing its funeral dirge.

Rest in peace Café Neo, Windows of the Season, Bittersweet Bakery and Anthony’s Midtown Bistro. Farewell Aqua Asian Bistro, Le Piastre, Olive Oilz and Bambino’s. Godspeed La Katrina Tacos, Prago Argentine Café, Stilos, Carnegie Bistro and Brooklyn’s Woodfire Grill.

Lately, any restaurant with a number seems unlucky: 360, 1228 Tapas and 98 Twenty have all closed.

This winter, Spokane area restaurants were assaulted from three fronts — suffocated by winter snowstorms, crushed under a heavy recession and battered by Washington’s highest-in-the-country minimum wage. Open at the wrong time in the wrong place — like Café Neo — and you don’t stand a chance.

Washington state, says Anthony Anton, president of the Washington Restaurant Association, is an awful place for restaurants.

“Our labor requirements, our food-code requirements, our permitting — you name it,” Anton says, “Restaurant operators in Washington just don’t have room for errors or major glitches.”

Of course, words of lamentation do restaurants little good. Instead, how can they save their businesses? The Inlander asked a number of restaurant industry consultants, owners and operators about their strategies.

Renegotiate Every Contract
Your landlord, your food vendors, your supply companies, your credit card processor — consultant Rick Braa says you should negotiate with every single one. “Vendors are great at helping companies to become more efficient,” Braa says. Maybe your restaurant no longer needs deliveries three days a week; work with the delivery company to reduce them to two. Vendors, Braa says, have products they want to get rid of, products perfect for the night’s specials. Help them help you help them.

Dump the Duds
When business slows, restaurants usually have two choices: slash hours or fire workers. “I’ve seen some people sell everything they have so they don’t have to lay anybody off,” Braa says.

Some restaurants cut employee hours across the board, frustrating veterans as they scramble to find ways to pay their rent. That’s a mistake, he says.

Do everything possible to keep your best employees, Braa says. They want to work 40 hours a week? Let them, Braa says.

Dump your worst employees instead, he suggests. Lousy employees — the slow, the lazy, the mistake-prone — drain money, time and morale. Then, train the rest of your employees to competency.

“If there was ever time to train, train, train, now’s the time,” Braa says. “Having a premiere staff is the best way out of this whole mess.”

Give Less for Less
The days of promoting mondo burritos and quintuple-plate platters are over. Many restaurants are offering smaller, less pricey meals. For less voracious eaters, it’s a win-win. Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar used to charge guests for splitting a meal. No longer. “If they want to come in and split a salad, that’s OK,” director of operations Trevor Blackwell says.

Value the Value Menu
Spokane patrons have always cared a great deal about getting a great deal. That’s even truer today. “The sweet spot is $8 to $13 for food,” consultant Arnold Shain says. Market your happy hours, he says, your half-price wine nights, your sandwich specials.

Some restaurants have cut prices by slicing thin margins even thinner. Cutting prices further takes ingenuity.
Promote cheaper cuts of meat, Shain suggests, and less expensive wines. A talented chef can make pot roast and potatoes as delectable as a prime cut of steak.

Luna owner Marcia Bond says the restaurant has been able save a few bucks by using vegetables from their garden out back.

Yet, when slashing prices, Anton warns, be sure to preserve your restaurant’s core identity. If you’re a fine dining restaurant, don’t try to save money by switching to paper plates, he says. Be low-priced, in other words, but not “cheap.”

Skip Lunch
Last Friday was the last lunch at Wild Sage American Bistro. Lunch, explains managing partner Tom Sciortino, was too inconsistent. Sometimes it would be packed, other times it would be empty. So to save on labor, Wild Sage stopped serving lunch and added dinner on Sundays.

“We can no longer avoid the fact that lunch is costing us money to run,” Sciortino says. “Under the best of circumstances, the best you can hope for is for lunch to be a profitable hobby.”

But at Scratch, owner Connie Naccarato provides a counterpoint. She and her business partner, Jason Rex, had the should-we-get-rid-of-lunch conversation, and decided against getting rid of it.

“We make everything from scratch, so we have to prep anyway,” Naccarato says. “You might as well have your doors open.”

Change the Restaurant Entirely
In the land of empty wallets, the burger is king. So is Burger King. Fast food thrives in recession.

While some regulars of the Onion have left for fast-food joints, says managing partner Ken Belisle, their numbers have been largely replenished by refugees fleeing from higher-end establishments. And sales at Frank’s Diner are actually up.

The lower the food chain is down the food chain, the better it does when times are tough. So it makes sense that Trevor Blackwell turned high-end 98 Twenty into a casual pub-style bar and grill called Stix. (It’s a “branch” of Twigs. Get it?)

At the Hotel Lusso, as well, the upscale 360’s been shuttered; new owner Walt Worthy has plans to put a casual pub in the space.

“Spokane diners are looking for value,” Blackwell says. “They want to go and dine and be entertained in a place that’s fun.”

98 Twenty was never as successful as Twigs. Blackwell kept slashing prices at 98 Twenty, in an attempt to increase sales. At the end, the prices were even lower than Twigs. But the feel — the ultra-modern light fixtures, the intimate booths — still reeked of “expensive.”

Sitting at the Twigs, Blackwell gestures around at the open-air booths, where old friends often spot each other, by chance, from across the restaurant. That’s the casual, friendly atmosphere Spokane residents want, he says. That’s what Stix will have that 98 Twenty didn’t. And that’s why Stix will succeed, even in this economy.

Hopefully.