The reality of restaurant management today

The turmoil in the restaurant industry shows no signs of stopping.

Four years after COVID-19 forced temporary and permanent closures, owners and customers are still grappling with the disruption. In the past few months, Chicago’s Foxtrot and Dom’s suddenly closed, along with Red Lobster’s bankruptcy. Plus, smaller establishments like Windowsille Pies in New Orleans and the Flower Child health food chain in Washington, D.C., have also shuttered.

These days, veteran restaurateurs must navigate rough waters like kayakers navigating rapids. While many struggle, others thrive. Food & Wine asked three industry leaders what’s working for them.

Hotels as bases

In April, New Orleans-based chef Alon Shaya, known for his work on Saba and Miss River, opened Safta 1964 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. The restaurant serves many of the modern Middle Eastern dishes he specializes in back home, but with the added luxury of a city like Las Vegas.

Safta 1964 is a tribute to his glamorous grandmother (“safta” in Hebrew), who he says had an extraordinary zest for life. “We came up with a story about her hopping in her convertible T-Bird, heading west with recipes and throwing a party at the Wynn,” Shaya said.

Chef Alon Shaya opened Safta 1964 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas in April, marking his third consecutive restaurant opening at the hotel.

Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images, Atlantis Paradise Island

The menu includes dishes like hummus and whole roasted cauliflower that are available at many of Pomegranate Hospitality’s restaurants, but the Las Vegas location will also feature Dover sole, whole truffles, caviar, and tableside carved Jell-O molds for dessert.

Safta 1964 is Shaya’s third hotel restaurant. Six months ago, he opened Silan at the Atlantis Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, serving up local seafood combined with his own Mediterranean flavors. Before that, he opened Miss River at the luxury Four Seasons Hotel in New Orleans, featuring local Creole and Cajun cuisine. (He also runs two stand-alone establishments: Saba in New Orleans and its sister restaurant, Safta in Denver.)

Hotels offer some advantages for a chef-owner like him. “It’s a whole different game in that you add a lot of decision-makers to your team,” Shaya says. It’s been a learning experience for the staff he runs with his wife, Emily Roussos Shaya. “It takes a whole village to make something like this happen. You have to get into a situation where everything feels right and feels like the right thing to do.”

Safta 1964 serves up many of the contemporary Middle Eastern dishes that have become synonymous with Shaya’s authentic cuisine, but with an added touch of luxury in a city like Las Vegas.

Courtesy of Wynn Las Vegas

These collaborations have allowed him to pursue an idea he’s had for years, one that didn’t fit his own locations: “We would definitely consider opening our own restaurants under the Pom umbrella, but if the right partnership opportunity presented itself, we’re a team that’s ready to grow and look forward to hitting the gas when we can.”

Like many owners, he’s faced with rising food costs. “Costs are out of control on all fronts,” he says. “So I’ve had to raise prices where it makes sense and lower prices where it makes sense.” For example, his restaurants have reduced the price of their matzo ball soup and now serve it in smaller portions. Shaya has considered whether to charge for the homemade pita that has been a highlight of his restaurant’s menus for years, but has decided to hold off for now.

“Everyone’s trying to figure out how to make their business successful,” said the 45-year-old chef. “At the end of the day, capitalism rewards those who get it and punishes those who don’t. It’s an ever-changing discipline.”

Adding a modern touch to 50 years of tradition

Giordano’s Pizza is a Chicago staple, having expanded from one location there to 63 locations, many of them in the Midwest. Giordano’s celebrated its 50th anniversary this year with discounts on pizzas it sells both at its sit-down restaurants and for carryout, and it’s doing well selling its frozen pies online.

The company’s CEO, Yorgos Koutsogiorgas, knows that its survival is the exception, not the norm. “The food industry is very tough,” he told Food & Wine magazine. “Very few companies survive beyond the second year, especially in an industry as competitive and cutthroat as the pizza industry.”

Giordano’s, which has 63 stores in total, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. CEO Yorgos Koutsogiorgas knows he’s running a successful company, but he’s nervous about the future. “We don’t know how this movie ends,” he says.

Courtesy of Giordano’s

Giordano’s decided long ago to focus on its mainstay: hearty deep-dish pies, with crusts stuffed with plenty of sauce, cheese and other ingredients. One pizza can feed four people and still have leftovers, making it a bargain in a tough economy, Coutossiorgas said. The average price is about $15 to $17 per person, or about $47 per table at the restaurant.

“If we had tried to be all things to all people, things might be different by now. We’re starting with what we know and differentiating ourselves from other types of pizza places,” he said. “We’re all competitors, and we’re humbled that they are our competitors.”

Giordano’s restaurants offer salads, sandwiches and pastas, but they take a back seat to the company’s superstars. “The road we’ve chosen is kind of a one-lane road, and that’s worked to our advantage. We’ve strategically decided to stay in that narrow lane,” the CEO says.

Giordano’s also has a thriving business selling frozen pies online.

The restaurant’s main product is its hearty deep-dish pies, which average about $15 to $17 per person, or about $47 per table. Giordano’s also sells a line of frozen pies online. Photo:

Courtesy of Giordano’s

The restaurant’s main product is its hearty deep-dish pies, which average about $15 to $17 per person, or about $47 per table. Photo:

Courtesy of Giordano’s

That said, Koutsogiorgas said Giordano’s knows that deep-dish pizza isn’t to everyone’s taste. The restaurant also sells a thin-crust style of pizza called tavern pizza, which is just as popular around town (and with locals). In addition, Giordano’s also offers a pan pizza, a single layer of pizza dough sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and with a caramelized crust that gives it a texture similar to Detroit-style pizza (though it’s round instead of square).

More than anything, the past few years of COVID have taught Giordano’s flexibility: “Looking at the way things are going — high costs, high rents, a crazy labor market where wages are impossible to calculate — we’re living in very chaotic times. We don’t know how the film is going to end,” Koutsogiorgas said.

Two Perspectives on Fast Casual and Sit-Down Dining

In 2000, Joan Chang opened the first Flour Café and Bakery in Boston’s South End neighborhood with one goal: to provide a friendly place for warm, chewy breads, fine pastries, and quick meals. Nearly 25 years later, Flour has grown to 10 cafes across Boston, and Chang also owns a sit-down restaurant, Myers & Chang, with her husband, Christopher. She has a thriving online business, teaches classes, and is a familiar face on the Food Network.

Like many restaurateurs, her world has been upended by the pandemic, but the breadth of her business gives her a unique perspective on the challenges facing both sides of the restaurant business.

In 2019, about 10 to 15 percent of her sales came from online orders or through the Flour app. “During the pandemic, people were only ordering takeout, and that went to 100 percent,” she told Food & Wine in an email. Now, Flour has settled on about 45 to 50 percent electronic orders, many of which come in at the same time. “We’ve had to get used to being super busy at lunchtime, even when the bakery seems quiet.”

Joan Chang opened Flour Café and Bakery in Boston’s South End neighborhood in 2000. There are now 10 Flour locations in the city, including one sit-down restaurant, Myers & Chang.

Plum+Port Photography / Courtesy of Flour Bakery

Starting around 11:30 a.m., “the screens start to fill up with orders, and by noon we might have hundreds of orders for lunch in 10 minutes.” In the past, Flour was able to manage the flow by slowing down the order processing speed. But that’s no longer the case. “The computers don’t wait for anybody. The orders just fly in.”

Chang has set up secondary counters at some of his bakeries to handle online orders only, and he’s done something similar at Myers & Chang, which now has a counter dedicated to takeout and staff handling those orders.

Chan has noticed shifts in demand patterns, in part because office workers are adopting hybrid work schedules, with catering dropping significantly and cafe sales dropping on Mondays and Fridays, when more people are likely to work from home.

The majority of Flour’s business, 45 to 50 percent, comes from electronic orders, many of which come in simultaneously during the lunch rush.

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Meanwhile, her restaurant now opens at 4 p.m., an hour earlier than before the pandemic, reflecting the trend toward later dining. It closes at 9 p.m. three nights a week and 10 p.m. four nights, both an hour earlier than before.

Luckily for Chan, staffing levels have returned to normal. “I never thought we’d get out of this. It’s been terrible for quite some time. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Chan says. “Now turnover is back to normal and pretty stable. Hopefully it’ll work out!”

Like Shaya and Kutsogiorgas, Chang remains optimistic despite the industry’s obstacles. “I’m always optimistic about this business,” says the 53-year-old chef. “I think all restaurateurs have good hearts, as they should! I throw parties every day and hope people will come and be happy.”

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