This Is One Way To Get Rid of Price Complaints
Pay-what-you-want eating … is it the next hot fad?
This article in the NY Times says it’s gaining traction.
Click here for full article.
Some will call it a hot trend, others a pipe dream, but the notion of letting diners choose what they pay for their meals has been gaining traction over the last decade as an outgrowth of the organic food movement and the advent of social entrepreneurs — those who believe that making a profit and doing good are not mutually exclusive.
Craigslist Market: Who’s your dealer?
I’m all about cheap stuff. Thrift store on a half-price Monday? Check out my new earrings on Tuesday. No club cover before 11? I’m there at 7:30.
A few weeks ago my friend gave me some of her family’s 50-year-old yogurt culture. The fact that I’m enjoying my yogurt every morning for the cost of just a few cups of milk brings me satisfaction sweeter than my one- dollar-per-pound homemade granola. Now, I can survive almost exclusively on milk, granola and Groupon.
I recently read a New York Times article on Kombucha, a fermented tea that is the latest of the do-it-yourself craze. Similar to making your own yogurt, you need a starter culture, often called a “mushroom,” to brew your own batch. One of the most popular places to get a starter, surprisingly enough, is Craigslist. Read more
Jeff Varasano of Varasano’s Pizzeria
Varasano’s Pizzeria
2171 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
404-352-8216
http://www.varasanos.com
Now that the flour dust has finally settled after his highly-charged opening of Varasano’s Pizzeria, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with Jeff Varasano to get his perspective into what it’s like to suddenly find himself in the restaurant business, and instantly under a microscope by the most scrutinizing critics.
I finally caught up with Jeff, and here’s what he had to say.
Q: Never being in the restaurant business how difficult has it been to get your restaurant up and running? …and what has been your biggest challenge?
A: The biggest challenge? Can I just list the top 100, LOL…
At first a lot of landlords didn’t even want to deal with me because I had no industry experience. So it took a long time to find a spot. But overall, as with baking at home, the biggest challenge is the dough. A customer asked my pizza chef Willie if he was the boss. Willie pointed past me towards a rack of dough and said, “No, that’s the boss.”
Without ever switching ingredients or proportions you can make a zillion variations on dough. We use a natural sourdough culture instead of factory produced yeast. A hundred years ago everyone did it that way but now only a handful of pizzerias, even in Italy, still do. Now I know why. It’s a living thing and it can be quite temperamental in a commercial setting. The flavor is much deeper so we keep at it, but it has made consistency our biggest challenge. Read more
Poll
Have chefs quite being chefs during this bad economy?
- Some, but not the majority (79%, 22 Votes)
- No, none of them (11%, 3 Votes)
- Most, but not all (11%, 3 Votes)
- Yes, all of them (-1%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 28
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