My wife and I have a thing where we go (or try at least) to eat out for at least one meal on the first day of the Jewish month. Tonight, we will be most likely dining at Al Di La in Monsey.
In honor of this, I decided to start things off with a post about restaurants. Until this past Summer, I lived in a Brooklyn, home to a plethora of kosher restaurants. I was surprised but not shocked to read this blog post about the fact that many eateries in the NYC area - even well established ones - have closed down of late.
Elan Kornblum of the Great Kosher Restaurants magazine and website (which he does a great job with. - I'd love to meet him.) is quoted in the story as saying that many of the recent closures were not surprises since "they were struggling for a long time.". I am sure that he has contacts inside the businesses which lead him to that conclusion.
Why is it so hard to keep a good restaurant going? Without having actually spoken to any owners, I figure it's based on some of the following:
High overhead in general for restaurants + the added expense of certification.
A lot of competition
Cost conscious patrons
I was thinking about this 3 new moons ago when I first saw the post. I was sitting in a nice restaurant and enjoying a real good Japanese steak. The service was OK but not great.
I asked my wife. What is compelling me to come here again? The fact that the food was good? I can have good food in other places too at about the same prices. The service? It wasn't bad, but it was nothing special either. About the same as anywhere.
I'll tell you one thing that did irk me though - the 16% gratuity charge tacked on without my permission. I want the discretion to choose the size of my tip, thank you.
Why aren't more restaurants trying to be more engaging? As engaement guru Seth Godin once said, if they took my number when I made the reservation, why aren't they calling me the next day to ask how it went? Most of the time when I go the places are not busy (!?!). Why isn't the staff spending a little more time talking to me and enticing me to come back? How many restaurants have blogs? How many interact with patrons on sites like Kornblum's? I have nothing to back me up yet but I would venture a guess that the most success full restaurants are good at the following:
Great service (like Bertolucci's)
Specially items or famous master chefs .(Abigael's)
A fan following (Dougie's, LaMarais)
Booze! (Amazon Cafe)
Enough for now, my stomach is growling. More on this later as I hope to get a chance to talk to Mr. Kornblum and other restaurateurs.
What do you say?
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