In the News / Costing Beverage / Architect

Class started with a short In the News. The NY Times had a stunningly boring article detailing the details of a superior hamburger, but didn't really add much to the canon.

There was a cool article, however, on the recent state of NYC food carts. Up until the downturn in the economy, there was peace upon the streets of NYC. Food cart permits were cheap and few and far between. They were handed down within families, as well as locations and street corners. The city was not much involved -- it only gave out 3000 licenses, and the licenses can be renewed by mail every two years, forever and ever. Because of lax enforcement, many carts are not inspected, or have expired licenses, or no licenses at all.

Now people who are being laid off from white-collar jobs and speak English as a first language are investing in food carts to deliver a different level of food to the streets. They get their permits, and then go wherever they are legally allowed to go...and into direct conflict with the underground economy of the long established immigrant class. When a new truck rolls up on a corner that has been claimed by a cart family without challenge for 20 years, there is going to be conflict. Used to be when two vendors got into a tiff, one would call the cops anonymously because everyone undoubtedly were doing something illegal. These food cart trucks tend to be on the up and up, and the old economic model is turning to intimidation and violence as leverage.

The sad thing is, because of the inadequate bureaucracy, the city is losing a ton of money and has little real power over the food carts. A vendor of a new fancy ice cream cart is quoted as scoffing that he pays a few hundred dollars for a permit, when his business model would allow him to pay $5000 a month during the warm season and still be profitable.

There were small pieces on the food shows -- the Fancy Food Show had a 25% rise in attendance, while the tone of the piece on the Unfancy Food Show as equal parts snobby and dorky -- why the NY Times sucks.

Next up was an exercise in costing out a mixed drink. Unlike a recipe card, each cost card is per drink, not a batch of drinks. Most booze is in liters and recipes in ounces, which is annoying, but even more annoying is perusing the price sheets for booze vendors. For a bottle of Bombay Gin, you have about 10 different prices. Half are for NYC and half for NYS (different tax and control procedures), and within each category different prices on different size bottles and discounts depending on how many cases you purchase.

The second half of the class was a field trip to an architect's office to talk about how we, as restaurateurs, would communicate and deal with an architectural firm, from initial concept up through plans detailed enough for a contractor to build from with precision. The architect went around the room and asked each of us our concept, and teased out some details that would help a design firm get on track.

Some of us had pretty clear ideas of what we were going for, and when one didn't, the architect was pretty concise in trying to get clarity. One student kind of scattershot mentioned a lot of different things she liked that she would like to see in her operation (mosiac! bar in middle of room! stage! fountain!) and the architect basically asked what is the focus? Do you want a candyshop vibe, a restaurant vibe or something else?

I had a pretty concise statement of what I wanted (Jewish Italian Grandma style filtered through an Eames lense) and didn't get any appreciable feedback. Guess I can skip hiring a design firm and just get some hacks to have the plans drawn up and approved by the city?

Richard, a few students and I went to a pizzeria nearby the archictect's office afterwards, not very good pizza but fun to be snarky about the menu, decor and oddly-pacing owner with some like-minded fellows and fellowettes.