A Real Taste of the Town

One of the premiere food expos: over 50 different vendors in Food and Beverage service showcase themselves at the local convention center. It’s exhilarating, enervating and exhausting. It takes months to prepare for and is over in a matter of hours. It’s somewhere between a farmer’s market and a comic book convention. My restaurant had a booth at last years’ and we gave samples of our faire to over 3,000 guests.

This year we were looking at feeding over 6,000

In my case, this years’ Taste came on the cusp of a grand time. One week before crawfish season, one week before Fat Tuesday, and only two weeks after my friend, mentor and former Executive Chef left for a new career.

Crawfish season was when we tripled our business over night: it’s like a shotgun start. For a restaurant that specializes in and is known for Louisiana faire, it’s the most prosperous time of year. Fat Tuesday was the same week. My place was also a seafood restaurant, and from now until Easter we would be catering to more fish-eaters that any other time of year. And the week before all this was about to begin, our restaurant was engaged in not one, but two food expos back-to-back. The Taste of the Town was the first of these two.

I had been the Sous Chef at this place for all of 8 months. My boss had landed a rare career opportunity, and was already gone: on his way out he said not to worry. “I’ve been grooming you to take my position,” he said, “and for this day. You’re more than capable. You can fill my shoes and run this kitchen with your eyes closed. I am confident you can do this. The important thing is that you’re confident you can do this.” With that, he handed the baton and his toque over to me.

Was I scared and anxious and nervous and excited all at the same time? You bet. Was I feeling overwhelmed, abandoned and ill prepared? No doubt. Was the prospect of filling my friend and mentor’s shoes with his blessing making my heart swell and my head swim? Yes, sir.

Was I going to saddle up and ride this bull the full 8 seconds? Absolutely

Now to be accurate, most of the footwork (that is, paperwork) for such an event is done well ahead of time. Months before the event, we had filled out forms and submitted the size and location of the booth we requested, what power needs we required (electrical: how much juice and how many outlets), how many tables for the booth, temporary health permits for the event, etc. By this time we has already decided what our menu was as well, that is what items from our restaurant menu we would giving out samples of. In this case a genuine New Orleans style gumbo and ahi tuna steak seared rare.

The week of the expo all the ordering and preparation begins in earnest, such as bringing in and preparing enough food to give sample to over six thousand patrons. Everything up until this point has just been checklists, recipes and information from last years’, the latter we were relying on heavily to help this event go smoothly. Thanks to the fact that my predecessor had saved all that information from last year, I was off to an excellent start.

But he wasn’t here to walk me through, as I had expected. This show and its performance, or lack thereof, was going to fall squarely on my shoulders. I was getting some help and support from a small few who had been involved with the event last year (although this years’ was going to be twice the size, and all that experience might turn out to be bunk), but none of the kitchen staff was among them. They were all looking to me for leadership and guidance.

I couldn’t let them down. And I wasn’t going to

I could not abdicate to anyone else the responsibility of making sure everything had been taken care of, nor could I shirk the burden that the restaurant’s owner had laid upon me to make sure I made our restaurant look good. For him, Taste of the Town was one of the most elaborate, expensive and lucrative investments into the restaurant’s future he could make. It was 100%, unadulterated sales and marketing. If the restaurant made a good impression, the reward would be immeasurable in terms of increased business and positive word of mouth. If we made a poor impression—well, the restaurant could be sunk. Aside from the 6,000 plus that would be sampling our cuisine and getting referrals to our establishment, the Taste would also be getting local media coverage, we would be networking with other businesses at the event and there would even be a contest to see which vendor the guests liked the best.

This event was going to be bigger than big. It was going to be huge

The day of the event I arrive at the restaurant early (dark-thirty to be exact. The sun was still sleeping in). I have to make sure the gumbo is heated to temp in the tilt-skillet and the tuna is iced-down, ice-cold and kept that way. Before the event starts a health inspector is going to visit our booth to make sure we have everything in order to secure our temporary health permit for the day. If the gumbo isn’t hot enough, if the raw tuna isn’t cold enough, if we don’t have enough power for the warmers, if we forget the chafing dishes, if we don’t have proper sanitation procedures in place, food-handling gloves, utensils serving the food — well, lets just say I need to make sure I have everything on my checklist double and triple checked. The good news is that I have several hours and numerous helpers to make sure everything is in place and makes it over to the convention center in one piece. The bad news is that if anything gets missed things could get real ugly, real fast.

I’m not ashamed to say that I was in prayer that morning. Coaches lead their teams in prayer before a game, and I led my team in prayer this morning.

Later on that morning countless vehicles are pulled up to the loading dock of the convention center to unload for the Taste. Apparently we’re not the only one that had an early dock time. My crew and I manage to find a crew-cut like ourselves to help us get everything into the convention hall. This guy has a Taste of the Town crew shirt on, and after a firm handshake and smile he’s already going beyond his call to help us get settled in. I see that our power cord for the booth is inadequate, but crew-cut already has the electricians on the radio and within the hour, we’re ready to plug our skillets and warmers in. Good, one less thing.

Two hours later my dining room manager is hanging banners and decorating our booth: balloons, business cards, menu cards, guest coupons for Fat Tuesday, the works. An hour later I’m calibrating my thermometer for the health inspector, and she’s making sure the gumbo is hot enough (147 degrees, thank you) and everything on her checklist has been met; which it had, down to the sanitation bucket and sanitizer test strips.

One hour until the doors open. One hour until game time

I have just enough time to go over the checklist one last time. I’m pensive at this point, because everything is quiet and everyone is waiting. I know that the calm always precedes the storm, and this was going to be a five-hour, 6,000-guest storm that was going to be bigger, busier and have more bluster than the best night my restaurant had ever had. If I wasn’t ready by now, I wasn’t going to be when the doors opened.

I was ready. We were all ready. Bring it on

Before I know it, the doors open and the real fun begins. Within the first hour a few hundred people are milling about the different booths and tables. By the beginning of the second hours of this five-hour event all you can see is an ocean of bodies. The aisle on which our booth is located is wrapped with lines of people waiting to get samples. Samples of our gumbo, samples of the frozen yogurt from the booth next to us, samples of the amber beer located at the booth across from us.

Two hours into the event we’re serving samples of gumbo and searing the tuna so fast we can barely keep up with the people lined up to get them. My head’s spinning. Where are the spoons? Is more tuna ready? Which warmer is the gumbo in? Are you the head chef? Do you have a card? Can I give you my card? Where is the restaurant located? How do you make this fantastic tuna? Is it on the regular menu? Have you visited our espresso booth in the next aisle?

Whew. The expo isn’t even over yet

The expo wound down nearly an hour before it was officially over. A few door prizes, a few drawings, a whole lot of people that had their fill of food and liquor long before the evening was over. I ran into a great many colleagues, saw a few friends, made some new friends and some new business acquaintances. My wife had also made a surprise visit: for some strange reason she loves to watch me work. Now it was time to break everything down, clean everything up and transport everything back to the restaurant. It would be another two hours before the evening was finished for my crew and me. It had already been a 12-hour day and was going to be 14 before it was all said and done. In less than 48 hours we were going to do it all again for the second expo we would be showcasing again later in the week.

Taste of the Town — one of the premiere food expos: over 50 different vendors in Food and Beverage service showcased themselves at the local convention center. It was exhilarating, enervating and exhausting. It took months to prepare for and was over in a matter of hours. It was somewhere between a farmer’s market and a comic book convention. My restaurant had a booth at this years’ and we gave samples of our faire to over 6,000 guests.

It was an amazing night. I can’t wait for next years’.