Chef Michael Solovey, Cooking School and Event Center Coordinator for the Boelter SuperStore, concludes our series of podcast discussions centered around food. In this final episode, Chef Michael predicts what the future of food may have in store–from restaurant sustainability and the role of technology to the evolution of the dining experience and working with a reliable distributor.

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Excerpts

I don't think anyone's able to predict the future. The best we can do is offer our perspective based on our experience and knowledge. What are some of your thoughts on this? Going into this new decade, what should restaurant owners be thinking about?

Michael Solovey: I think it's important to know where we've come from to understand where we're going, but it's also really important to have a realistic view of where we currently are to be real with oneself. And a lot of that does not necessarily depend on just the numbers, but where we want to be, where we see ourselves moving.

Scalability is something that is oftentimes overlooked. A lot of times in F&B, we look towards, you know, what is our next big step? What is our grand plan? But are we actually able to scale and not affect the quality of the services that we're providing, or the products that we're providing in this way?

Nothing drives consumers more mad than when they fall in love with something, and then all of a sudden it gets picked up by anybody and everybody, and it becomes this next big thing and all of a sudden it doesn't feel as exclusive anymore. Most importantly when it comes to restaurants, the quality sometimes wanes. You know, this restaurant opens up a second, third and fourth location; where did all of the talented people that worked at this first location go? They went to the other ones, and well, who's left? Is this original restaurant now a ghost of its former self, a shell of its past?

Are we headed towards some sort of new fusion of food and culture? What so many people are currently pushing towards is a day when we are more dependent on food that we grow ourselves or at least food that's grown locally. If you asked a million different chefs, you'd probably get a million different answers and prognostications on the topic. But a few things are certain.

The diaspora of cultural cuisine is opening minds and expanding palates today more than ever before. And I don't personally see that slowing down. I think that this cycle that we're involved in right now of, you know, this year, Pakistani food is absolutely amazing,and next year it's going to be Korean food. These are things that have been happening. But I don't see that necessarily slowing down because people are curious. And again, this information is so easy to obtain, with social media and all of the influencers that are out there affecting the way that we dine and look at entertainment, that we're going to be stumbling on some old stuff and it's going to feel really new for a while. But I'm excited to see where it leads.

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How do you think social media is an influencer with where food may be going in the future?

Michael: It's a strong one for sure. One of the things that is important to look at is how quickly information travels nowadays.

It could be something as simple as a mistake that somebody has made. Maybe there is some sort of a problem with the way that we have perceived a certain sensitivity amongst the people who dine in our restaurants and other establishments. All of a sudden, a bad experience can turn into a boycott. And it's absolutely catastrophic.

On the positive side, somebody who's humble in what they're doing is really focused on serving a particular concept really, really well to the consuming audience. All of a sudden, all it takes is a single tweet or a single Instagram post to go viral, and then you're standing on top of the world. It's in those situations that it is easiest to lose track of where we have come from and where we actually currently are in a projection to move forward in what we're going to represent in the future.

I think the overall statement is that everything matters that much more now. That every little nuance of what we're putting down, of what we're saying and what we're doing in our establishments matters that much more. Because you never know who's out there. You could have somebody who's a major influencer dining in your restaurant and you may not even know it.

Not all of them ask for a free dessert and free drinks and everything else like that. Some of them are out there actually doing it for the will of the people and trying to actually expose people to something creative, or something that's new and something that they have a passion for. That's a great thing, but it also makes things a little bit more dicey and a little bit more scary in some situations.

It is all the more important these days to align oneself, not just with systems that work well and where you're setting yourself up for success, but also other organizations, whether that be a network of people that stand together for the same thing, or doing business with the right people is really important these days, too.

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Do you think there's a lot of chefs or restaurant owners out there that are monitoring these social channels closely specific to their offering? And if they do, do you think that they're also taking that social media word of mouth to heart and making appropriate changes?

Michael: I think, and also hope, that the better ones are. I don't think that there's really a way to get around it. Personally in our lifetimes, I don't see a movement going away from that, and I don't see a movement going away from the big one: sustainability.

It's of absolute paramount importance. Again, I don't think that this is going to change anytime soon. Some restaurants already recognize this as a must-have and are already operating in such a fashion. Others, a little bit slower to act.

But start by looking at your trash. The average quick service restaurant produces over a ton of trash every single week. When multiplied by several locations and 52 weeks a year, it really adds up. How do you mitigate this? How do you combat that? Restaurants should be doubling down on what they have likely already been doing and recycle, recycle, recycle.

There's this huge movement right now, especially regarding the oceans. For my honeymoon in October, my wife and I went to the Galapagos and we got to swim with some sea turtles. And it was interesting to see how things are being affected down there. Ever since the advent of tourism in the Galapagos, you saw a major concentration on conservation. But now it's turned into something else. Even the things that they have done has done a fantastic job down there of keeping plastic out. It's affecting things in ways that we didn't even anticipate. It's sort of like the metaphor of the ocean.

It adapts to the concept of the restaurant and food and beverage industry in general. It may not be something huge. You may not be producing tons of trash each week. There may be a restaurant owner listening to this podcast right now that says, "Well, I don't do that," but still… Others are, and sometimes we need to make up for those, unfortunately. Like the class that gets punished for the actions of one student.

But then also, let's really take a realistic look of where we are. Are we producing the minimal amount? Are we doing as well as we could be doing? Oftentimes, the answer is no.

Working where I work at the Boelter SuperStore in Glendale, we see a lot of the current trends affecting the way that people make purchases for their business. It's fascinating to me to see how many people are making that big shift to compostable, to recyclables.

For instance, here in Wisconsin, we don't have a law against plastic straws. California does. We just got in some paper straws a couple of weeks ago, and I was amazed to see how many people were gravitating towards them. We put them right there on the counter. Everybody that comes and buys anything is going to see them. And it's amazing to me. It's not just an impulse item. You see it sort of dawn on people while they're there: I'm going to have to do this eventually. I might as well make the jump now. And they do, and they realize, that's one less thing that I have to worry about, because we're always adapting to our customers' wants and desires.

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Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about the idea of the dining room experience, what restaurants are currently offering. How do you see these experiences changing or evolving in the future? Do you think these restaurant owners need to, again, continue to adapt and think outside the box?

Michael: It's important and getting more important as time goes on. This is a very competitive field that we're in. This industry is somewhat unforgiving. A lot of people find humor in that statement, but also find it very true that we need to be constantly–restaurants, food and beverage establishments in general–need to be finding ways to set themselves apart from the herd.

But it's sort of like life in that way, that in that process, you're searching for what it is that you stand for. It's not trying to just go out and mimic what's working for other people. You may not do it as well as somebody else does. You need to come to terms with that in situations where you're trying to be creative. That's oftentimes very difficult for people who consider themselves artists.

It's important to constantly be refining, constantly be evolving and shifting. But in order to do that, you do need to keep your ear to the ground. You need to align yourself with people who have their finger on the pulse of the industry.

It's too easy to get sucked into your own world and stay there, concentrating on the things that are important to you while the rest of the world is going on around you in this industry. It eats up the detritus of all of these fallen restaurants and catering operations that didn't make it because they didn't align themselves with the right people. I'm the type of guy, I want everybody to succeed, but of course if everybody succeeded, then we'd see no new places opening up and you wouldn't have all the new, exciting, fun stuff that comes our way every once in a while.

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What about technology As we go into this next decade, technology is not going anywhere. It's getting more interesting. It's getting quicker. It's getting more integrated into practically everything that we do on a daily basis. How is technology going to play a role with restaurants?

Michael: I have to say something that is very difficult for a chef to admit, which is that people will return to a restaurant for good service over good food pretty much any day of the week. I think you can see why that's hard to say.

Service starts the moment you even hear of the place. It continues when you walk through the door, and then it doesn't end when it comes to the product. The product is an example of the service that you are getting as a conduit to telling a story in expressing an idea. So it's going to be more and more important.

You've got companies like Panera and Starbucks. They've got these apps that you can use to order ahead of time, or you'd walk in and you've got a kiosk. There are technologies out there that are replacing some functions of a cook or a chef, but I don't see that taking over anytime. I don't think we're going to have cyborgs cooking our burgers for us anytime soon. Chances are, they're not less expensive than hiring somebody.

But I do think it plays a very important role. Everything that you do, everything your customer sees, all of the customer-facing aspects of your business are making a statement. And if that statement is, I want to make your life easier by giving you this application to use, that all of a sudden you can think less about that and worry more about the things that you know are of concern to you or concentrate on the things that give you joy in this process. Because that is very contagious.

If you're having fun and you're doing things the way that you feel they should be done, while at the same time best serving the needs of your customers, you're going to knock it out of the park. But if you don't have that, and you're worrying about the details, getting bogged down, it becomes tough to do even the simplest things on a day by day basis.

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How about at the back of the house? I'm referring to technology being integrated into some of the tools that our chefs are using. I think of IoT, the Internet of Things, that type of integration. I know on the last episode we were talking about maintenance. IoT is a great form of that, where it can provide that advanced warning of, "Hey, this mixer that you're using needs maintenance. Have it addressed now; don't wait until it falls apart on you. Things like that.

Michael: We also spoke about workflow in the kitchen and how important that is, and ensuring that you're maximizing efficiency. It is a chef mantra to say work smarter, not harder. When it comes to trends, a lot of it is based on "form follows function," right? If it is a better way of doing things, then they tend to win in time. When technology can step in and help us out, take one or two or three tasks off of every station in the kitchen's daily responsibility list, that's great.

You're talking about some of the most stressed people in the world, and the reason that they're so stressed out is they've got so much on their shoulders. They've got so many different responsibilities, and at the same time, you're trying to maintain consistency. If you can do that by the use of technology, then that is highly recommended, because consistency is absolutely capital. I've told many people in consulting over many years that consistency is the king of all things that happen in the kitchen, and that it is actually better to be consistently bad at doing something than inconsistently good at it.

For instance, say I go to a place, and I have an amazing experience, and everything is just so good, and I really appreciate it, enough to go to my friends. And I say, "Bill, you got to go to this place. They really knocked it out of the park, and I loved my experience." And then you go, and you have a completely different experience. Not only does the place look bad, but I look bad in that situation. The whole word of mouth thing, because again, there's more value to it these days. Get your ducks in a row and really drive the point home. Sometimes technology is a great thing to lean upon to do this.

This becomes a tricky proposition because chefs tend to be a, dare I say, stubborn people. You found a method that works. "If it's not broke, don't fix it." But we need to keep up with the times, whether it is an issue of consuming less energy or just maximizing efficiency in the kitchen. It all ties in to the same place, which is us trying to do our jobs best without compromising the quality. Most chefs will take a look at an opportunity to do something easier and say, "Okay, does it compromise the quality?" And that's number one. If it doesn't, or if by chance it actually increases quality of something, it's not even a decision at that point. It's an absolute hard yes.

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What do you think about the value of, now going into the next 10 years, a restaurant owner aligning themselves with a distributor who can provide the experience, the expertise? They've been in the industry, they're on call, they can help you with those decisions. How important is it to align yourself with that distributor?

Michael: Very, very important. It's just another component of the greater machinery. You've got to be able to rely on the people that work for you to show up to work, to do the job to your expectations when they're there. It's the same. It goes the other direction, too. Whether it's someone supplying ingredients that we're going to cook with, or the equipment that we're going to use to cook it, I'd say it's even more important.

There's a lot of competition out there these days. The Internet can have just about anything drop shipped to our door in just about no time whatsoever. What you lose in that is the person who is really invested in the process and making sure that we've got the right equipment, that we've got the knowhow to maintain this equipment, to get something that really works best for our personal needs. The Internet, as great of a concierge as it oftentimes is, doesn't know us so much.

Oftentimes we have to sort of be it all. You're running the show. You might have to plunge a toilet or two every once in a while. But the bottom line is that it's like that old concept of technology, that anything that does everything does none of those things very well.

But it's not always the most efficient use of our time to be paying attention to details, upon which we are not experts. When you go to an equipment specialist who is trained on this stuff day in and day out, it rolls off their tongue. They see a situation, just like a restaurateur or a chef will see a situation, where they're an expert and say, "Oh, it's an easy fix. These guys have it. They know."

I run into people a lot of times working for Boelter that are just a wealth of knowledge, and I'll just say hi to them. I'm thinking it's going to be a two second interaction. Ten minutes later, an hour later we've just had a conversation, and I went to school. These people are passionate around this place. One of the reasons why I like working here is that I get to do the same thing. It's this symbiotic relationship where ... we're all kind of working for the greater good.

Restaurants or catering establishments, it's going to be the same thing. If you've got people that are your go-to experts on this particular task, when you're confronted with an issue that addresses that task alone, you don't want that to have to be scrambling. You don't want to have to do the research last minute. It's fun to have somebody that really knows what they're talking about. And even furthermore, you achieved the objective. You get what you need.

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The Boelter Wire is an episodic podcast that focuses on thought-leadership conversations with industry experts and established partners, and is designed to help listeners evolve their business, stay competitive and pursue their passions.

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