The Food Within

We were talking with a friend tonight in the food business. She's a true and a fine country food artist. Comfort stuff like barbecue meat, chicken salad, solid potato dishes, stuff like that.  Although she says that she's not a cook, let alone a chef and that she hates to cook, her food is pure art. She's a genuine Texas treasure, her recipes committed to mind and scraps of paper.

We've had many slightly drunk evenings discussing food. We all have a passion for food. For flavors, textures and colors. The subtleties of food. There is no pretense. It is a lifelong search for memories, for things almost to ephemeral to describe. Food has punctuated our lives. 

She currently is trying to help nurture a fledgling brick and mortar food business. She didn't want to but she has to because it's her food that's being showcased, it's her work, her art that's being represented. 

The owners have a different approach. It's about the money. The food is subordinate. 

Now don't get me wrong, I want, I need to make money at this stage of the game. But I've always been a firm believer that money will follow what you love to do if you let yourself do it. If you throw yourself and your passion into it. But, it's about the art, the ineffable, that which can't be easily described. Like the essence of beauty. If you do that the best you can, let the fire burn so to speak, the almighty dollar will follow.

This is the first time the owners have even worked in a brick and mortar type food business, let alone owning one. I've worked in a few over the past several years in my quest to learn. Over those years I've learned that the restaurant business is one of the hardest that I've ever seen. Long hours, small profit margins, and a very fickle audience. So to survive and prosper in it one must probably either a) have the tenacity to endure and the temerity to  push the envelope in the pursuit of the very essence of the art. Or, assuming that one's passion for food extends only to the extent that it is a vehicle to make money with, one that suits the individual (rather than one that torments the individual) than, b) It is better for that sort to own / manage a franchise or the sort of place that sanitizes the food for the masses. People like that make great owner / managers of chain restaurants like McDonald', Burger King and Bill Miller Barbecue. There is room, as well as call for businesses like those. 

So now the mistakes are beginning. 

The burnout, the lack of attention to kitchen needs., the hangers on and the poorly chosen staff are beginning to show in customer frustration. The early signs of fatal mistakes are in place. And the owner only sees the bump of newness, not planing, not caring about what happens when the newness of the place wears off. Because his soul, his heart are not in it. It's just the profits he sees.

Would be better if he owned a Whataburger.

I worry for our friend, and hope by some miracle the place succeeds.