Here Today, Here Tomorrow

ADDRESSING LABOR CHALLENGES

Dennis Chan, Chef-Owner, Blue Bamboo Restaurant

What are the main challenges you deal with on a regular basis?
Although I am grateful for the staff that we have, labor is our biggest challenge. Economists say that if we had looked at the birthrate 15-20 years ago, we would have been able to predict the shortage of labor. There are fewer people entering the workforce, and for hospitality, we are finding it harder to attract qualified applicants. Another challenge for us is that costs of ingredients have increased significantly. Our vendors and suppliers have the same labor challenges as we do. It simply costs more for us to offer a quality product which is reputably sourced. Our third challenge is that consumers have busy lifestyles, and convenience is, more than ever, a solution that wins. There has been a big shift recently in which customers will choose takeout or delivery over going into and experience dining in a restaurant. Our business is built on controlling the whole guest experience, from ordering to food consumption. This shift means we just have to work harder to draw customers through the doors.

What plans are you implementing to strengthen the viability of your business?
We were the first restaurant in our area to partner with Bear Robotics and bring on "Booey," our food running robot. He helps run food to server stations from the kitchen and allows our staff to pay more attention to our guests.

SHIFTING CUSTOMER NEEDS

Mike Braswell, Campus Planning, Mayo Clinic in Florida

What are some of the challenges Mayo Clinic deals with in regard to offering dining options?
Some challenges we recently faced include the ability to provide exceptional food service with thoughtful menu offerings and fresh locally-sourced ingredients that offer high-quality food options patients and visitors come to expect from us. To meet these challenges, Mayo partnered with successful food industry experts to create two superior fast-casual restaurants – the Bundy Kitchen + Market and the Woodruff Bistro – managed and operated by Morrison Healthcare. Mayo also collaborated with award-winning restaurateurs Chefs Matthew and David Medure to create the one-of-a-kind fine-dining restaurant M. Brothers, which serves some of the finest made-from-scratch culinary offerings in the region and a coffee/café grab-and-go boutique called Zest. Mayo also added a Starbucks in a strategic high-traffic location.

What plans are you implementing to strengthen the viability of your dining offerings?
As our campus expands due to higher patient demand, we continually assess existing dining options to ensure we meet the needs of our patients and guests. This includes expanding our diversified portfolio of food-centric experts as business partners. An example of how we approach this demand is to promote food as medicine or therapy. We have a certified nutrition ambassador in the new Bundy Kitchen + Market who can assist any patient with existing or new diet restrictions or food allergens. This ambassador helps guide the patient toward appropriate selections while dining in this space and provides home guides and shopping lists to help patients transition to healthier food options once they leave Mayo.

What food or drink trend do you predict for 2024 and how will you incorporate them into your menus?
We believe more focus will be on plant-forward dishes of locally-sourced vegetables and legumes. The challenge will be to manage more moderate portions of proteins added. We will also invest in more sustainable snack options, knowing younger generations prioritize snacks throughout the day with smaller, more frequent meals. As consumers seek out wellness and add those supporting items to their lifestyle, we will increase the focus to include more plant-based foods, high-fiber, lean lightly prepared proteins, ancient grains, inflammation-taming roots and spices to our menus.

PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION

David C. Cohen, President & Head Distiller, Manifest Distilling

What challenges does the distillery deal with on a regular basis?
We’re seeing increasingly congested market conditions coupled with heavy regulatory restrictions.

What plans are you implementing to strengthen the viability of your business?
Diversification. Since we have an established spirits portfolio and a well-known Cocktail Room, we are diversifying the services we offer with contract bottling and spirit development as well as increasing the programming and possibly the footprint of our Cocktail Room.

What drink trend do you predict for 2024?
Industry-wide, tequila seems to continue to be on the rise, despite having a smaller share of the overall spirits market. However, in Jacksonville, it appears that whiskey continues to be king, with the Old Fashioned being our number one selling drink in the Cocktail Room. Our gin and citrus vodka are hot on its heels. I highly suggest swinging by and tasting our curated menu. Maybe you, the reader, can share with us what you think will be the trend for 2024!

CHANGING CUSTOMER HABITS

Zack Burnett, Owner-President-Director of Coffee, Bold Bean Coffee Roasters

What are the main challenges your business deals with on a regular basis?
I think like any small business our main challenge is cashflow. We are in a competitive market so it's a challenge, but something that continues to excite, encourage and improve us, figuring out new ways to better serve and positively impact our customers when consumer habits change or new competitors or business models enter the market. Also, and this kind of ties back into cash flow and financing, managing the continual growth of our business with limited finances. We are full of ideas and typically want to do a million things at once but we have to temper this excitement and properly manage priorities and pursue new opportunities within the modest budget of a small business. 

What plans are you implementing to strengthen the sustainability of your business?
We are always implementing new and better ways to serve and connect with our customers both on the retail and wholesale side of our business. We are expanding our service model for our wholesale clients to be more of a one-stop shop solution which provides not only coffee but also business consultation, training and equipment sales and service. In our shops we are also finding ways to provide a more well-rounded and fulfilling customer experience, which is always centered on highest-quality customer service and products, through the expansion of our product line. We remain focused on finding ways to operate more efficiently. We take a comprehensive view of efficiency, ensuring that efficiencies benefit our employees, our customers and our bottom line. 

What food or drink trend do you predict for 2024?
I don’t think about trends too much but focus more on the longterm direction of our industry. We have seen a ton of growth in in-home coffee preparation, and this is a direction that I continue to see the industry moving in. It doesn’t look like this has led customers to decrease their visits to coffee shops, but it points to an overall increased interest in specialty coffee. In the retail space I see a split between full convenience (the explosion of the drive-thru coffee shop market) and service/experience-based cafes. I think for coffee shops without a drive-thru to survive they really need to focus on customer experience and how they benefit their customers through the service and products that they offer. This points to more differentiation in the coffee shop experience and hopefully better overall experiences for customers of traditional coffee shops.

SOURCING LOCAL PRODUCTS

Genie McNally, Chef-Owner and Jeff McNally, GM-Owner, The Floridian

What are the main challenges your business deals with on a regular basis with regards to being able to source locally?
The first challenge for us would be what I would call self-imposed/ structural/logistical, due to the nature of being a restaurant of our size (i.e., not big but not small either) in downtown St. Augustine. There are certain expectations our guests have regarding the availability and consistency of certain items, and there is a structure to the kitchen/prep/storage that would make it very difficult to follow 100% strictly local/seasonal lines. We need onions and carrots, a lot of them. The second challenge basically dovetails off the first. We would love to source all our ingredients locally, but we simply can't get the quantity of ingredients we need consistently enough, or at all, especially during certain times of the year when very little is growing in Florida produce-wise. So that would bear on the last issue, which is ostensibly a geographic problem, given Florida's relatively short growing season when compared with the rest of the country. Also, there is no real network of distribution for exclusively local products. We do the very best we can, sourcing from many, many different local producers, all with different order cutoffs and delivery dates, or even no delivery at all. It would be much easier to order everything from one of the big distributors on a clear and consistent basis, so without a good system in place for local foods, it makes the alternative much easier in most restaurants.

What plans are you implementing to strengthen the sustainability of your business?
Honestly, we have no concrete plans as such. We will continue to work with our farm partners and producers that we have worked with for close to 15 years, and let the quality of the ingredients, food and service speak for themselves. Ours has always been an organic approach to growth/sustainability. We trust the process that if we put out a quality product that stands above the rest, provide an atmosphere and experience to match, treat our staff with respect and allow for living wage compensation (thus building loyalty and a cyclical devotion to quality), folks will keep coming back.

What food trend do you predict for 2024?
Our hope is that a commitment to sourcing as locally as possible remains on the forefront. Hopefully this includes a continued shift to more sustainable methods of growing food, in terms of organic/sustainable growing practices. We all know of the looming environmental threats that the world faces at large, and there is much to be done on the local scale in regard to food production. This isn't a new concept of course, but perhaps when people begin to experience the consequences of climate change firsthand, they will continue to call for action and support growers and producers that are doing it right. This also needs to include eating less energy and carbon-intensive sources of protein.

TRAINING FUTURE CULINARY TALENT

Devon Norris, Chef, CFP, Lead Culinary Arts Instructor, Englewood High School

What skills do you offer in the program?
Students will get a full culinary school experience over the course of four years. They learn everything from knife skills to the various cooking prep types, safety and sanitation practices, team building, etc. During this time students also take the ServSafe Food Protection Manager course and exam, and upon successful completion of the exam they are awarded with an accelerated credit and a 6-year industry certification. The accelerated credit will follow them to college if they choose to attend.

Do the students come into the program with an idea of what they want to pursue as a career?
To a certain extent, yes, some students sign up for the class because cooking is their passion and what they want to do with their life. At the same time, this is an elective class and I have a couple classes that aren't as geared to the industry. That's where it falls to me to inspire the students and show them the potential for career opportunities. What has enrollment been like in recent years? There has definitely been an increase. We had a record number of early sign-ups for the program this year. I am currently at capacity. We look forward to our new training kitchen being something that continues to drive student enrollment.

Do students go on to college, other culinary training or jobs once they graduate from high school?
Many students already have jobs in the industry prior to graduating high school. In the last couple of years, I have noticed more students with jobs as sophomores than I had in previous years. I strive to get students into a culinary college. We have an established relationship with Rosen College of Hospitality at UCF. I am working to develop a pipeline to get our students who graduate from Englewood enrolled into Rosen. Finding scholarship opportunities is a big goal for me every year. Students will be competing in March for possible scholarships. In addition to cooking skills, what other training do the students receive? They get all sorts of training for the business side of restaurants. Culinary 3 and 4 both include lessons and projects regarding restaurant management and everything that that would entail: menu costing, payroll, HR, budgeting, scheduling, etc.

What kind of career mentoring does the program provide?
I personally have 20+ years of industry experience, everything from entry-level to executive chef and general manager. I use my industry connections and know-how to help students find good entry-level jobs in their communities. We practice filling in applications, writing resumes and conducting mock interviews. I have the highest number of students working this year than I have previously had, and stress to the students how passing their ServSafe exam can help them get ahead in the industry.