The Microworld/Product Life Cycle

First, we shared our recent experiences with food service from the weekend. I mentioned how I stopped in on a Chinese take out joint to pick up a meal to go, and on the way out I saw three little Chinese kids eating in the small, empty dining room. I couldn't help but notice that they were eating lobster tails and gorgeous huge shrimp -- I'd rather order THAT than fried rice.

Long Island Jenny spoke of a restaurant named Guilt, she and her boyfriend spent $600. The food was great, but the waiter was a little snobby about swapping out one item for another on the prix fixe menu. On top of that, they had to flag down a waiter at the end of the night to get the check. Good food or not, for that kind of price, she should have been made to feel pampered and not uncomfortable in any way.

White Sushi Chef went to a bar called Agave Sunday night with friends. Everyone got served except him...and they were the only people in the bar. The dude is a little meek, but still, that's kinda weird.

Another student described a restaurant where when you come in, you order from a counter, then are brought down a level to a game room and bar. Pinball, foosball, video games and drinks are available until the party is called and sat in the upstairs dining room where the food arrives as you sit -- no waiting. Kids eat at a set $3 price. No waiting and boredom, good for kids.

Richard was in Fairfield, CT this past weekend and had a meal at Joe's American Bar & Grill, a corporate upscale mini-chain. The menu was large and didn't specialize in anything, with everything from grilled fish to Mexican-American dishes like nachos. The thing that struck him the most was the text on the back, which was clearly written by a corporate drone. The fish is USDC-approved and all local, except when flown in from their 'native habitats'. Really? USDC fish inspection is TOTALLY voluntary and means nothing, and when is a fish flown in from a non-native habitat? The copy goes on to try to frame the restaurant as local, even though it's a multi-state chain that came in from elsewhere.

The next part of the class was ServSafe, the 'microworld'. Pathogens are microorganisms that are either toxic or give off toxins or come in the form of bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi. Viruses beat bacteria simply due to the norovirus, most famous for making everyone sick on cruise ships. Common bacteria like e. coli comes strictly from an animal's intestines -- any contamination in ground beef is strictly from poor practices and sanitation, a human behavior, not natural circumstance. The fact that our regulatory agencies stress overcooking meat rather than cracking down on processing plants is a scam being perpetrated on the general public.

Another bacteria, salmonella, is so common in poultry simply because of the filthy way the birds are raised and slaughtered. A full 50% of poultry on the market is contaminated, but in studies of individual brands, the big brands go upwards of 90% and the smaller, more artisanal brands go towards 0%. Totally preventable if it's a priority. A new issue emerging is salmonella-tainted eggs: the birds are SO contaminated that their ovaries contain the bacteria, so they pass them on to a small percentage of their eggs.

Parasites are not so common. The big one in people's minds is trichinosis, but a case has not been discovered in commercially raised pork in over a decade. Always ordering your pork overcooked? Maybe you should reconsider the flavor and pleasure you're sacrificing for an unfounded fear, guy! The official government line is 'do not eat sushi for fear of parasites.' Ridiculous -- the official government line should be to regulate the hell out of cheap-ass fish! (The picture above is the 'causative agent' of trichinosis, the bit that actually burrows through your flesh to plant eggs. Pretty creepy!)

After a laughably lame video about everything we just reviewed, Richard briefly got into 'Product Life Cycle'. Restaurants, at the heart of it, sell services, which happen to involve food. People don't walk away with food, they walk away with memories of an experience, of which food is just a part.

Services are different than tangible products -- even after the customer pays for it, they do not own it. If something is wrong with it, it can not be returned or replaced -- it happens in real time. The fact is that most customers will not complain about poor service -- they will just choose not come back.

Unlike manufacturing a widget, there is a great deal of variability that needs to be accounted for in order to deliver satisfactory service. The main ingredient -- the employee -- is a wild card. The variety of customers, from regulars to insane people, are another. The food that comes into the establishment from a variety of vendors is yet another.

You can't keep an inventory of service -- you either have it or don't at the time you need it. Everything is time critical, and your distribution channel is limited. You can sell widgets all over the world, but the food and service you pump out in a restaurant is limited to in house customers and those in delivery range.