In my continuing plan to air out ideas that I have no time to execute, this is one that has nothing to do with technology. Its in the restaurant business. Now, to be clear, I have no experience with restaurants other than eating in them, but lack of experience never prevents me from engaging in thought experiments. And so this is the concept.
The idea is an upscale restaurant chain whose menu is made up purely of the best or most famous dishes from other restaurants. The name, "The Best."
I have no idea what a really good menu for such a place might be, but as an example, Houston's is very well known for their spinach dip. It is perhaps, the signature piece on their menu, and it is the kind of thing that would work well on such a menu.
Some items might be on The Best's menu because of the dish, others might be on the menu by virtue of the brand name of the chef. For example, a south western dish by Bobby Flay, or a Cajun dish by Emeril Lagasse. You could do this at anywhere from the lower mid to the high mid range price point, but the concept is probably a little too trendy for the very high end.
But wouldn't The Best be too competitive with the dish providing restaurants?
Well, first of all most restaurants are not that competitive with each other in specific. There are geography issues, and lots of other issues which mean that except in perhaps the smallest towns, head to head competition is almost non-existent. But what it would do for each "providing" restaurant is to provide a marketing and branding platform. They would also share in profits from the recipe which, if successful, on a national scale, could be sizable.
The basic principle here is having a restaurant where the menu is essentially curated, almost like a museum. Each dish is picked from the best of the best. And if the concept works, the value of being selected actually becomes prestigious. Perhaps some menu items are permanent, and others rotate.
The one risk for the providing restaurant is that dishes are prepared poorly, which could obviously damage their brand. The most important mission of The Best would perfecting the dish and proving that it could be executed flawlessly across the chain. Some chefs and restaurants will not be willing to take the risk in the early stages with their brand, but many others will.
In any case, I don't know if anyone else thinks this is cool, but I have been fascinated with the idea for several years now. It just seems like such a winner, but, heck, what do I know about restaurants other than how to pay the check.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
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11 comments:
I am reminded of the old "great Square inches of art" comedy routines.
Also...
http://www.therestisnoise.com/files/twelvetonemastscommercial.mp3
It's an interesting idea, but I actually think the menu might end up too eclectic to be viable. People tend to go to a certain type of restaurant for a certain type of food, in my experience.
"What do you feel like eating?"
"Okay, steak it is."
and then they worry about where to get a good steak. Same for veggie food, health food, Italian, etc.
That might be something you could factor in, however.
justin,
I would agree that you would not want to stray too far afield. but most restaurant food is fairly broad. It is not at all wierd to see, in a typical restaurant, a cajun dish, or a southwestern dish. But I do think mixing sushi with hamburgers would be wierd. I definitely think one could curate a menu with variety but consistency.
Great idea! Maybe too eclectic, however, it would be great for the large pool of folks who can't easily answer the question, "What do you feel like eating?" Just go to The Best, there's always something great there.
Sounds good! :) Collecting the best meals of small (but excellent) restaurants (of the world) into a chain (making the originals famous) sounds like a good idea.
The question really is the menu itself.
Without that, this idea is like: a website, with "The Best" content from some of the best websites. How you select chefs, restaurants and how you get them to give away their secret recipes, and how you build kitchens and staff who can produce food according to any other restaurants' quality guidelines, who you can get the same ingredients as the original restaurant is capable of doing...
These little details that make this a very good, or a terrible idea in my view.
But I would certainly invent a better name. To me, it sounds, er, bad. Or is it cool? Where should we eat? Why dont' we just go the the best? Maybe. Sorry, I don't speak English.
weird, not wierd
I love this idea though! I would definitely have dinner at "The Best". Just group the items in the menulist.
As a concept, I don't think that this would work. First you mention a chain, and that just means a reduction in quality from the very begining. Chef's are very proprietary about their secret ingredients and special techniques. It is what makes them the great chef that they are. You are basically asking for a contribution of a signature dish for which they would have to share the recipe and have no control over it's quality. I don't know who would sign on to actually participate, and odds are that if they would, you wouldn't really want their dish. I think that you would be more likely to get chef's to contribute if there were a single location in a market that they had not already penetrated,but I think that even that would be a stretch.
Is this *the* rachel ray... or *a* rachel ray?
First, this could totally work, in a way that is crazy but it would have to be in destination places, Disney World could have one, Time Square, Hollywood Blvd, and maybe in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta only big cities where the Chefs could come in on certain nights and make the dish themselves, but it could be no more than 4 or 5 of these places, the would have to be huge, with a place to cook all the different types, Italian, Sushi, Chinese, Soul, American, Diner, Breakfast it could work and someone will do it eventually. You should pattern the thought, can you pattern a thought.
I have the same concerns as Rachael. Implied in this plan is that the dishes would be identified with the name of the restaurant or chef who invented them. This means licensing, and getting permission from the chef. But a chef who is that famous is famous because he is very particular and maintains an absolute standard of quality in his restaurant. In this scheme, the chef is losing quality control, yet his name will be associated with the product.
There will be chefs who will go along with this. For example, I think I've seen Wolfgang Puck branded frozen food at the supermarket. But I don't think all of the best of the best will go along with it, so it will never really be able to be The Best.
Not to say that it wouldn't work with the right marketing. I just don't think it could ever really have the best of everything, instead would have to be things that it's calling the best.
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