Can’t Have A Trip To Chicago Without Ribs & Pizza

Over the weekend I spent some time in Chicago for a mixture of business and pleasure. Part of the pleasure was being able to hit two of my favorite restaurants Carson’s and Lou Malnati’s in the greater Chicago area. 

Anyone remember the MASH episode where Hawkeye was trying to move heaven and earth to secure an order of Caron’s ribs, I think I must have been five or six at the time but I still remember that episode to this day. Granted part of the reason that is so ingrained into my head is due to my father dragging me to Carson’s every time we were in the area. Sure you can get good ribs at numerous franchise joints across the country, but nothing holds a candle to Carson’s. Service is always top notch with good portions and competitive pricing. 

I had convinced my party that we needed to dine at Carson’s Friday night and raved about their ribs. One of my dinner companions was from New York City and a bit of a foodie herself, so she decided that she would have a full slab after the waiter indicated that a full slab was “about this big”, holding his hands apart roughly ten inches. Snickering to myself I wanted for the fun to start as the waiter brought back the slab of ribs roughly twice the size of his “about this big” and slathered in perhaps the best BBQ sauce I have ever had the pleasure of having. To my diner companion’s credit, she ate a decent amount of the ribs and took the rest back to her hotel for a midnight snack. 

After the success of dinner at Carson’s my party looked to me for suggestions on the next night’s dinner selection; I happily obliged with some good old fashion Chicago style pizza from Lou Malnati’s. A quick trip down the L’s brown line and we arrived at our destination, which ironically is just down the street from our previous night’s outing. There are several Lou Malnati’s locations, but the one downtown is my favorite due to the way the dining area is broken up. There are several different sections that are all pretty isolated from each other giving the illusion of an intimate location, good for sharing a meal with good friends. 

Our group settled on three large pies for our party of nine, which at the time I thought would be too much. However, after a few drinks and some good conversation our party was able to finish off two of the pies completely with only a couple slices left on the third.

Easy ways to refresh the look of your restaurant – part three: dinnerware

In our previous two sections we discussed specialty and quality glassware and their benefits to our restaurant refresh project. Now, lets move on to dinnerware. What does your dinnerware say about your restaurant? If you answered; “Nothing, it’s just how I get to the food to the customer” you may be missing huge opportunity. Dinning is as much about atmosphere as it is about service & quality food, your dinnerware can be a huge part in that.

So let’s look at some options on how to take those standard white round plates and update those with a fresh new look. You’ve heard the expression that green is the new black? Well in the restaurant world square is the new round. In recent years the trend of square dinnerware has exploded onto the restaurant scene. Personally, I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that Asian and sushi style foods have been absorbed into the popular American culture. Take a look at some of the large restaurants chains, there has been a clear move toward the square plate in recent years. I know what you’re saying, “I don’t want to be like a chain restaurant”. Which is a very valid thing to say, but chains do have large market research budgets so it won’t hurt to let them do a little bit of the research legwork for you.

However, if you want to go completely different perhaps something a little wild is in order. Triangle dinnerware can really spice up the feel of your décor, but there is a down side as it can possibly become and over-powering design element. The goal you want to hit is a dinnerware that gets noticed but also doesn’t become the center of attention. Now the triangle style may fit right into that goal, but you’ll need to give it some careful thought as the line between over-powering and just right can be a bit of a grey area.

So what happens if you don’t want a square or triangle style dinnerware, you just want to update the look of your standard white round dinnerware that you currently use? The answer here is to add a splash of color. By selecting a dinnerware with a colored trim, you can easily achieve the balance between refreshing but not over-powering.

Now after all this you still have your heart set on a set of white dinnerware, then I would suggest that you look at different rim styles. The rim choice along on a piece of dinnerware can drastically alter the perception of the customer. A rim can make portions look bigger, allow your chef more options for presentation, or a host of other things.

Serv-U has a large selection of dinnerware to help you refresh the décor of your restaurant. If you have addition questions, feel free to contact us via phone at 800-797-3788 or stop buy the servu-online.com website and launch a live chat.

Be sure to check back for part four of eight in our easy ways to refresh the look of your restaurant series where we’ll cover flatware.

Dangerous peppers still on the shelves

Despite being cited as a source of the salmonella outbreak earlier this summer, jalapeno and Serrano peppers from Mexico are still turning up on store shelves. The peppers, which the FDA cited as the cause of the outbreak last month are frequently turning up on the shelves of many smaller grocery stores. The reason for this: the peppers, which are from Mexico, are the cheapest options and making them an enticing option for many small grocery owners.

A distributor quoted in this article says that he has been selling the peppers to grocery stores and restaurants all over. This is technically still allowed because the FDA has not actually banned the peppers, they have simply issued warnings about them. However, they have said that all peppers entering the country now are being tested more thoroughly for salmonella.

So in the mean time, make sure you are washing your jalapeno and Serrano peppers and cooking them before serving and eating them. Now that the source is know, it is important to take all necessary steps to avoid salmonella illness.