Thanks, guys.
For you local folks, I'll be on WNDU 16's morning show tomorrow (Friday) during their foodie forum segment. It wasn't so much an interview like I thought it would be, but a camera crew came and filmed a bunch of the stuff at the place like platters of food, slicing brisket, pulling pork, etc. I guess they will use that as a backdrop while someone talks about the restaurant and what we do. Either way, free advertising, so I'll take it!
But as of today we've officially got two weeks under our belt. How the time flies. I've learned a lot, the staff has come together, mistakes are becoming almost non-existent, and the customer flow is still steady.
But there is one thing I'm struggling with, and I don't know if my standards are just too high, or if customer expectations are just lower than I thought. When I taste something and it isn't perfect, at least as far as I'm concerned, I don't sell it. Like today, pulled a fresh new brisket out of the holding cabinet and started slicing it for a customer and tasted a piece. Flat was too dry for my liking, so I told the guy I wasn't going to give it to him because I felt it wasn't good enough and subbed his brisket for some ribs and gave him a free dessert. But he insisted he still wanted a sample of the brisket just to get an idea of the flavor. After he tried it he said it wasn't too dry at all and he would have loved to buy a pound to go to take home.
So what the hell do you do? I know it's dry. I'm cooking many briskets a day and it isn't hard to see when one is overcooked a bit. I know it isn't good enough, but the customers like it. If they like it and are willing to pay, is it really that bad, or am I just being too critical and am I throwing money away by resorting to using the meat in chili, beans, etc?
The same thing happened earlier when two customers both wanted chicken. One as a half bird, the other pulled. I filled the order and after sending it tried some of the chicken I was pulling and it was dry (to me). We didn't have any chicken ready at the time to replace it, so I went out there and apologized for the dry chicken and gave them dessert and a few extras, and they both insisted that the chicken was amazing and giving them free stuff was totally unnecessary.
So I don't know. Maybe I'm just overly critical, which is leading to waste. But I just think about it if I sample something and it isn't one of the best things I've put into my mouth, then it isn't good enough to charge people money for. Then again, you look at all the crap people are paying for elsewhere and it's a reminder that this isn't a KCBS competition and it's just regular people looking for good barbecue.