toddrhodes
Knows what a fatty is.
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2015
- Location
- South Bend
I've been to your place a few times, great food at good prices and yes the pickles are amazing. I love the cornbread as well. Hopefully we can stop by again soon!
When is the expansion/move coming...hahaha
You can't have him, he's ours!If that time is ever upon us, I pray for an expansion into the Granger/Elkhart area, so it will be closer to work
Good to see another brethren stop in today.
Lots going on at The Pig. Did a complete kitchen redesign in the back. Moving everything around is helping to maximize what little space we do have. Talking with Coke and there is a new countertop sized Freestyle fountain machine coming out in June, so we'll be installing that as soon as we can. It will do something like 68 flavors. Figure that will help generate more beverage sales to help combat the no beer thing.
Of course, things never go without snags. Had sewage problems last week which meant having to lose half a day over the weekend, and then resort to carry-out only for a few days. That did hamper sales a bit. Not to mention another damn plumbing bill.
Had another health inspection and passed with flying colors, which is fantastic. Staff isn't cutting any corners and we're keeping one of the cleanest kitchens around.
Going to be on the radio next week talking BBQ. That should be fun and maybe hit a new audience.
Dark Horse Brewing, the people who had a show on History channel, are having a BBQ competition next month and we're going to be doing that. Be the first competition I've done since opening the restaurant. Should be a good time.
Food costs are killer though. Well, mostly beef prices, but most things have gone up quite a bit over the past year. I just did a menu refresh to make some pricing changes, but that was probably about three months late. Going to take a while to recover what was lost with the lower menu prices over the winter. On the bright side, pork keeps coming down. Last week my butts were 95 cents a pound. Haven't seen those prices in years. That helps, but most people want brisket now, which is basically hitting $4/lb.
Trying to offset that a bit by expanding our sides. I've introduced a fresh side salad and green bean salad, as well as red beans and rice. Cost on those is running half of what most other sides are, so the more we can sell of those instead of the more costly sides, the better. Plus as the weather warms up more people are looking for lighter sides.
Main problem now is meeting weekend demand. Friday and Saturday I'm cooking as many briskets and butts as physically possible and still selling out sometimes before 6. The only way to improve on that would be to fire up Shirley and hire someone to run that pit all night. That's a can of worms I'm not ready to open yet.
And just a fun fact to finish, but looking at the data, we fed nearly 900 people in the 4.5 days open last week. That's a lot of Q for a tiny 34 seat restaurant. :shocked:
those freestyle fountain machines are horrible. We have them in several local restaurants... they suck and don't work very well.
those freestyle fountain machines are horrible. We have them in several local restaurants... they suck and don't work very well.