Harvest America CUES BLOG

Long before the restaurant chains of today, decades prior to the birth of fine dining, experience dining, and molecular gastronomy, there were neighborhood cafes that were part of small communities across the country. These traditional restaurants and diners were closely aligned with the community where they staked claim to a brick and mortar gathering place. Typically, they were not fancy at all – plain wooden tables and leather booths, sometimes covered in Formica and rarely covered with tablecloths – the glassware was straight-sided and plain, the flatware inexpensive, and the China was heavy and typically white. Salt and pepper shakers, sugar shakers, and paper placemats completed the tabletop with an occasional single stem flower for a touch of color and bargain basement elegance. Ah, but the food and conversation were consistently good, plentiful, and in-expensive. The conversation evolved around local news and gossip, and alcoholic beverages were reserved for bars scattered throughout the community. The restaurant was for eating and catching up with the flavor of the town.

Meta Bofinger was a (loosely defined) chef/owner of the Blue Gentian Restaurant in the Adirondacks of New York State. The town where she conducted business; a booming metropolis of less than 6,000 residents and a healthy tourist trade during the summer and winter months. When I say healthy it is important to qualify that in the early 1900’s the country was plagued by tuberculosis and this community was a haven for the “fresh air cure” crowd. In any case, The Blue Gentian was a busy place. Like other neighborhood restaurants of the era, Meta’s restaurant was a bit of a no-frills operation, but one that the people in town called their own. Designed more for the breakfast and lunch crowd – locals would line up around the block for Meta’s “Blue-Plate Specials” (a term coined by an early entrant in the American restaurant scene – Fred Harvey whose California “Harvey’s” operations dotted the landscape of the west that paralleled train lines and eventually roadways (Route 66) as autos became the preferred mode of transportation.

A Blue-Plate Special was a hearty meal that always included meat, potatoes, a vegetable, bread and butter, and ample amounts of coffee.  Full-service restaurants would later refer to this as a Table d’hote selection. No one ever left the restaurant still hungry. Menu items were simple and very much in line with homestyle cooking: roast beef, meatloaf, fried chicken, roast turkey, macaroni and cheese, pasta, and meatballs, etc. The bread was white, the cream was fresh, the gravy thick, and the coffee would not hold up to today’s standards. But restaurants like The Blue Gentian, were full of happy, very content customers.

When I was first introduced to Meta, I was barely 20 years old, and she must have been in her late 70’s. She still worked every day in the restaurant and aside from her duties in the kitchen, managed to visit nearly every guest table throughout service. She was a rockstar in the community – everyone knew Meta and she, in turn, knew everyone who lived there. While attending college I took a very part time job at the Blue Gentian and got to work with Meta, the restaurant icon.

One day, after a very busy meal period, I sat down with Meta and asked her a simple question: “Ms. Bofinger – what’s your secret ingredient? Why do people line up for your food every day?” She smiled and asked me to follow her into the kitchen. I was eager to discover her secret restaurant potion – an obscure seasoning, or unique way of cooking. When we entered the kitchen, she pointed to a jar on the shelf. “That is my secret ingredient.” When I took the jar off the shelf, I noticed it was empty. “Looks like you need to order some more”, I said as a way to state the obvious. “No, it’s always full”, she replied.

I must have seemed puzzled as I looked back at my boss. “My secret ingredient is the love I have for what I do and for the people who visit my restaurant every day. I care about both, and that care adds a unique flavor to the food I cook.” I nodded and believed, at the time, I probably rolled my eyes a bit. Surely, I thought, a successful restaurant is built on food quality, efficient service, and fair pricing. What Meta is pointing to is something different.

Sure, the food at the Blue Gentian was good, and the servers who had been there for years were efficient, and you couldn’t beat the price for the quantity and quality offered, but what Meta was referring to was hospitality.

Now over the years I moved on from a pessimistic view of what Meta offered and began to push aside my misconceived idea of what hospitality might be. I began to understand that hospitality was not a process, not a ten-step program on how to become hospitable, and certainly not two pages in a company’s orientation manual for new employees – I discovered that hospitality was all about caring. When a restaurateur or chef cares about the food prepared and the source of the ingredients used, when they care about their employees, when they care about the cleanliness and ambience of the restaurant, and when they truly care about the experience that every guest has and their lives outside the restaurant; then hospitality exists, and people will notice just as they did at the Blue Gentian.

As restaurant operators we need to feel and project this caring attitude and hire those who are inclined to feel and act the same way. Only a culture of hospitality will define how a restaurant is received.

We need more restaurateurs like Meta Bofinger and more appreciation for the neighborhood restaurant where hospitality was born.

PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER

Harvest America Ventures, LLC

Restaurant Consulting

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