I am a big believer in telling people the “why”. Since I am in the restaurant business naturally I wondered why they chose that name, restaurant? Was it a place to rest? The vowels let us know its Latin and probably French, so I looked and this is what I found.
WHY DO WE CALL THEM THIS?
Like many inventions that become the norm, restaurants came from necessity. The word itself came from the French verb “restaurer”. in 1765, as the story goes, a Parisian soup vendor named Boulanger set up shop with a sign inviting all who labor from stomach pains, and he would restore them. There had been eating houses across the world since the 15th century and a complex history of the origin of restaurants or meeting places for people to share food, but Mr. Boulanger gave us the beginning of the word that became an integral part of our modern lives.
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN RESTAURANT DRAMA
An interesting fact about Mr. Boulanger and his “stirring of the pot” in this industry is that at the time he was sued by established “traiteurs”. These traiteurs would provide hot cooked food to people who did not have a kitchen of their own, and they did not like the fact that this soup salesman was having people come to him rather than the traiteurs going to the guests that needed the hot food but lacked a place to cook it.
WHAT HAS BEEN WILL BE AGAIN
That last bit of the story was definitely attention grabbing. Every generation has the blessing to see the changes in the music, dancing, clothing, cars, technology… These all are to adjust to the evolution of our times and our “intelligence”. The constant however is us. No matter what the question, the answer leads back to us, humans, we are fickle, ever changing. Thank God for that. This allows opportunities, new adventures, better mouse traps, and creates new spaces. You have seen people’s garages right? If there is any space available, we will fill it with stuff, with ideas, with creative solutions of things that were somehow already done before. Our egocentric predisposition allows us to take full credit and not only carry the torch forward, but say we created it, the fire that lit it, and you’re welcome!
Well maybe that’s just me but this blog is cheaper than my therapist was so hear me out. I began my, self described, epic restaurant journey with a full service, sit down, mom and pop, big hole in a big wall, restaurant that had 60 tables, a full bar, and an improvised area that always turned into a dance floor for the neighborhood children requesting the chicken dance on Friday nights. I was young, knew what had to be done, how to do it, and boy did I get my ass handed to me. I got rattled, bruised and bloodied, but most of all tired. I learned the most important lessons during the first year. I learned how to manage people older than myself. I learned how to prioritize, make payroll, scrape by on hopes and hard work, support from my family, and a great deal of good luck. Finally I had a place for people with hunger pains to come and get restored. I also found out this wasn’t very epic at all. It was great, pleasant, and rewarding though tiring.
MARTY McFly STYLE
In keeping with the “what has been will be again” theme, but backwards, kind of, I became a has been pretty quickly. The second year in my big store I began catering, that is bringing hot food to people who wanted hot food, but had no place to cook it themselves. That added a revenue stream that became vital to my sustainability and helped me to establish myself as someone that was there to stay. Or so I thought. The next four years were a mixture of driving dine in sales and expanding my catering reach by building customer base one guest at a time and then feeding sister offices of repeat catering companies. Then came the rent renewal… This is always the time to reflect, well not at that exact time, you begin reflecting a year before your lease is due. I began to look at the change in the market, the restaurants in the area looked different, they were getting smaller, my catering business was growing at a much higher rate than my dine in business, yet my rent was growing too. I needed less space, less tables, I just needed a place to cook. I had learned also that I cannot stay behind the trends, I have to get ahead of them and either fall on my face, or take the next leap forward. After much thinking I closed my big, happy, memorable and maddening place and shrunk to a 5th the size over night. I went from 60 tables and a full bar to 4 tables and barely a counter for my Point of Sale system. I was now a caterer. The tide had turned and the future looked like pre 1765, the traiteurs had regrouped and just figuring it out, the Boulangers were still there, but a new space had been recreated and now I was going to compete with Pizza and Chinese Delivery. Gone were the days of competing with sit downs and venues. I was either on the front end of train heading somewhere, or I had gotten run over by one and hadn’t figured it out yet.