Hansen’s Hideaway Restaurant
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Executive Summary
3
Issue Identification
Environmental and Root Causes
Alternatives and Options
Recommendations
Implementation
Monitor and Control
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Hansen’s Hideaway was a family-owned business located on the Athabasca River in Jasper, Alberta and takes back to the time when its original owners Helen and Marvin Hansen started this business in 1952. The town benefitted from all year round vacationers for downhill skiing, snowboarding, ice fishing and ice skating. It also boasts of featured river rafting, freshwater fishing in the summer months as well as biking, hiking andtrail running activities. Fall brought in multitudes of hikers, mountain bikers and leaf-peeper. So, practically wildfire and nature were the value added attractions of the area.
Dean Hansen and his wife, Kathryn McGarry are the third generation of the Hansen family to take over the management of the operation of Hansen’s Hideaway in 2015. The Hideaway consisted of a dozen one-and two bedroom cabins and lodge with Hansen’s Restaurant and a general store that sold a limited selection of groceries, sundries and souvenirs. For many years, Hansen reataurant served only breakfast and homemade baked goods. Dean and Kathryn recommended adding the lunch service which brought in new customers despite initial glitches. It has since established itself in the local community and cornered a loyal crowd of diners. Kathryn being a trained chef and co-owner of Hansen’s Hideway planned to expand the restaurant’s service to include dinner. Although they already have an existing and established crowd of diners patronizing their breakfast and lunch menus, Kathryn believes that adding dinner to the restaurant will rake in more profits if done correctly and careful planning undertaken with utmost due diligence. Dinner has the biggest potential area of increased profitability for the restaurant. She was eager to add better margins on dinner selections and higher-end wine and liquor. She was also especially interested in the farm-to-table movement and planned to feature locally grown and raised food in line with her central tenet of marketing and advertising strategy “local beef butchered on the premises”.
The question for Kathryn is it would make more brave financial sense to buy portion meat cuts, ready-to-cook beef or prepare fabrication in-house. There would be definite advantages and disadvantages for each options determined in terms of types of processing, purchased costs, freshness, storage, customer preferences, etc. Kathyrn is prone to make and buy analysis on the most economical and greatest financial gain of having a dinner service while keeping a high quality end product that provide high turnaround.
Initially, Kathyn suggested flexible menu that incorporates the essential decision criteria like Beef quality, Food safety, Meat Suppliers, Ordering and Receiving Process and the Meat fabrication process. There are several options available for her to source her meat products. On the flip side, she had options including fabricating from : (1) whole carcess (2) Sides of Beef (3) Fore and HindQuarter (4) Primal cuts (5) Subprimal cuts &/or (6) primal steak ready cuts. There would individual advantages and disadvantages for each of these options associated with costs, time frame and delivery with each type and stage of the processing until the end products reaches the restaurant. Variables are aplenty and essentially hard for Kathryn to confidently arrive on a make or buy decision. It is notably taken into consideration Kathryn does not want to tie up heavy capital outlay. However, she would not want to compromise on meat quality, let alone, other pertinent issues like sanitation and strict hygienic conditions of her facility as meat if not done properly could result in diners falling ill/sick and invite possible lawsuits.
Given the options noted above, knowing how Kathryn as Head Chef is going to be busy preparing and developing the dinner menu, recipes and nightly or weekly specials, this would be pressing for her do a fabrication in-house judging from the fact that her butchering skills are not par as yet and will need time to hone her skills to ensure proper meat cuts are done correctly and efficiently. Due to her limited butchering skill, the calculated risks outweigh taking the option fabrication in-house out of the equation for the time being.
The merits of buying portion cuts at the present time far outweigh fabricating in-house in terms of the cost benefits and convenience without compromising on quality and food safety. If anytime in the course of the first and second year of operation, Kathryn finds out the business is engaging well and profits starting to come in, she may revisit the option of fabrication-in house option to take advantage of the established foothold and patrons that might have enjoyed the dinner experience with Hansen Restaurant.
ISSUE(S) IDENTIFICATION
For Kathryn McGarry, she plans to expand the restaurant business line from having breakfast and lunch services to also include dinner. She was eager to add dinner service with better margins on dinner selections and higher-end wine and liquor serving. The challenge she faced was to decide whether she should buy ready-to-cook, pre-portioned cuts of beef or fabricate portions in-house from larger cuts. There were several underlying factors to consider in terms of long term and short term goals that needs to be taken into account. Although Kathyrn had previously developed the lunch menu, there had been some early glitches, the lunchtime service was well received and brought in new customers. It has since now well established and generated additional profit for the family run business.
Kathryn as an enterprising trained Chef first task is to develop and come up with a dinner menu plan. Meat was typically the highest cost item in a kitchen for any restaurant business. As such, beef was one of the greatest primeover and potential areas for profit as well as loss. Although she proposed a flexible dinner menu planning which highlighted steaks, ribs and burger as “center of plate” offerings with chicken, fish and pasta alternatives, these needs to be coordinated with menu items across all three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) to minimize food wastage,