Biskie Business.
Good luck, but you might also want to watch a few episodes of Restaurant Impossible, Kitchen Nightmares or any of the other similar shows. Because it seems like all of the restaurants featured make the same mistakes; menus that are too large, kitchens and dining rooms that are filthy, food that’s not stored properly, food that tastes terrible, too much frozen food, food that no one in the restaurant has tasted in years. I especially like it when the owners of the ethnic restaurants are shown how to properly prepare food of their own ethnicity by Robert Irvine or Gordon Ramsay, the English hosts of Restaurant Impossible and Kitchen Nightmares, respectively. Aren’t these people embarrassed that an English guy has to tell them how to make their own food?
Biscuit Express
The Express Biscuit
Stuffed Biscuits
The Loaded Biscuit
Call the place “Pucks”, perhaps; although that might prove to be an irresistible target for vandalism.
Good, then I take it back, you have done your homework.
I did a little lunch & breakfast place for a bit- real hard work.
Dewey, Ma and I sometimes watch those shows together, or while we’re IMing. We laugh and laugh and laugh at how very, very dumb the “restauranteurs” are - my usual comment is something along the lines of how everyone who’s ever ordered a cheeseburger at a drive-thru seems to believe he can (and should) run a restaurant. We know how to rotate ingredients, and use build-tos for our ordering, how to clean the facility (including ice machines, tea urns, and so forth - those will always, always get you in the health inspection if you aren’t diligent.) I’m usually appalled at the health inspection process that allows some of these televised joints to remain open!!! :eek:
Ma worked in restaurants and catering for over four decades - restaurants, institutional food, catering. I “only” have about fifteen total years experience - from waiting tables to owning and operating my own place (which ended due to divorce, not because it wasn’t working,) - plus another eight years in the hotel business, mostly on the management side. We’re both aware that knowing how to cook is the very least important bit of the business.
We’re also in the process of setting a menu - it might include rotating weekly or seasonal specialties, but there won’t be some miles-long list of items. We both know that a too-broad menu makes inventory and cost control nearly impossible, and we’re also planning to keep our staffing lean. There’s no way that a handful of people can possibly serve quality food if the menu is too extensive. (Projected staff, so far, is Ma, me, my dad - for washing dishes or running errands, my niece and her husband, and my 16-year-old son. By the time my son leaves for college, the next kid will be a teenager ready to run the cash register or whatever. We’ll hire “outsiders” when we need to, if revenue allows it, but limited hours and a limited menu mean that we can open with a skeleton crew. All of us have food service experience, except for my dad. But he’s not a customer service guy, and will only be tapped to help if it’s really an emergency. And never for front of the house.)
Also, there’s no way on God’s green earth that Robert Irvine can come in and teach my mother how to make a better biscuit! (Or grits, or sausage gravy, etc.) And we’re already planning to source our ingredients from the best local purveyors around. In my experience, that only makes sense - no point in putting our hearts, souls, and financial well-being into an endeavor, and then hoping to create great food out of sub-par ingredients.
IME, breakfast restaurants fail for the following reasons:
- They think that breakfast is an easy meal to cook, and it shows. Overcooked eggs just plain suck. Day old biscuits are called “doorstops”, and shouldn’t be served.
- They try to get too cute with the menu. People want breakfast, not nouvelle cuisine.
- They use too much grease and use food service ingredients, i.e., dried potatoes, inferior bacon and sausage, powdered Hollandaise mix, etc.
- They can’t make drinkable coffee.
It really sounds like the OP has a handle on things and can make it work. College kids will eat as many sausage and egg biscuit sandwiches as you can make, I’m sure. There are two biscuit joints here in Portland that I’m aware of, and both have lines out the door. One isn’t far from us, which is nice. They have a guy making the biscuits behind a window as you enter the place. Nice touch. Their hash browns are from fresh potatoes and everything is cooked to order. The gravy is a bit bland, but not bad.
Ma’s Place
Was **Biscuit Basket **suggested?
ETA: Yes, it was. I like it.
I agree with this list. My favorite breakfast place in L.A. is John O’Groats on Pico. They’ve survived 30 years in the cutthroat L.A. restaurant business, so they must know what they’re doing. They’re excellent at the basics – fluffy biscuits, perfect fried eggs, crispy bacon, good coffee. They have some fancier menu items, but where they really shine is turning out a high-quality version of your standard diner breakfast.
A slight variation on the theme: Ma’s Famous Biscuits. With a blurb on the menu about how, as the OP said
[QUOTE=Lacunae Matata]
Ma worked for the local university’s food service, she added biscuits to her cafe’s menu. Students lined up for them. There were near-riots if Ma was on vacation and HER biscuits weren’t on the menu.
[/QUOTE]
Ma’s Biscuit Basket
Biscuits N’ Things
House O’ Biscuits
Biscuits: They’re Like Savory Cupcakes!
1-3 are spot on, but for the love of all that’s holy listen to #4!
Good coffee is paramount to a decent breakfast place. WAY too many places make coffee that’s no more than brown water or it’s bitter as aspirin and on top of that they have the unmitigated gall to charge $3.50 for a small mug for the swill.
I’d like it if, when I order tea, I didn’t just get a cup of lukewarm water and a couple of tea bags. The discrimination in this country against tea drinkers is criminal. Or it ought to be.
Just out of curiosity, what would make you happy? I imagine that since tea is not nearly as popular as coffee that having a pot constantly going would only result in tea that’s been sitting around forever or lots of tea poured down the sink unused.
Allowing you to brew your own seems like the only real answer.
I too hate the lukewarm tea water. For black tea, that water should be BOILING, and it’s not that much harder to do loose leaf tea in an inufuser. Or, I wonder if using small French Press pots for both tea and coffee would be feasible?
My going out for breakfast musts are proper espresso and made-to-order egg dishes. Even better if it’s NOT in sandwich form. I am probably not in the OP’s demographic, but I wish you luck!
Years ago in a food court at Heathrow Airport, I ordered tea in the early afternoon and received a small pot with about two cups worth of pretty good tea. So if an airport food court can manage to make decent tea, surely a restaurant dedicated to good breakfasts can do so as well?
Has anyone suggested Over Easy?
Well I think you’ve just proven my point. I’m sure there’s quite a good demand for tea at Heathrow and they probably have some experience brewing it.
In the vast majority of the US neither of those it true.
The OP is in Georgia, so presumably he’ll be offering sweet tea. Making that requires one to properly brew tea. So if he doesn’t ice all of it, he can offer real hot tea to his customers.