Jeremy's Blog

What is up with the delivery charge?

nestbethesda — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:55:18 +0000

To all food vendors, alcohol vendors, supply vendors, linen companies and all the other companies that deliver the goods we need to make a restaurant run……..What the f#@k is up with the fuel surcharge? I haven’t read any of the companies out there business plans but I bet the goal went something like this “We aim to DELIVER the highest quality goods at an affordable price”. I am sorry the gas prices went up, maybe that should have been something you thought about when you based your entire business on large trucks delivering goods to restaurants. I pay $5 here $10 there for fuel to deliver my goods and it chaps my ass! I would rather you raise every price by .5$ istead of blatently telling my I am paying for you to run a business. My restaurnt is in Bethesda, you must hit 20 stops in Bethesda the same day you hit mine, 20 x $5 is $100, not bad for gas money for that day. Could you imagine if my guest’s checks looked like this at the end of their meal……

Subtotal $75.00

6% sales tax $3.60 based on $60 of food

9% Md liquor tax $1.35

Gas and Electricity to cook your meal $10.00

I don’t think that would go over well, even though those are legitamate costs for me to DELIVER the food to the table, but, when I was doing my cost analysis I factored that in, and when it went up I had to raise my prices, I didn’t sugar coat it with false charges. It is a cost for me to do what I set out to do, cook great food for customers and have great servers DELIVER it to the table. Lets not mention the waterfall effect that happens as soon as the one company starts to charge for this “Fuel Surcharge”. Now every other company says to themselves, so and so is doing so can we, and now everytime I get an order I have to pay for the fuel for the delivery. Fucking rediculous, I am getting fired up just thinking about it! Then you got the linen company that gives you a price per towel or napkin, great, then you get an inventory maintance fee, a cleaning fee, a storage fee. Maybe I am wrong but isn’t that what your company does, doesn’t your company provide linen to the restaurants of the world? Why would there be a fee for cleaning or inventory maintance, that is what you do, what company is calling and saying don’t worry about the cleaning fee, I ’ll take mine dirty? And the inventory maintance, isn’t that keeping you from having a dirty warehouse, why do I have to pay for it. I get 100 calls a day, and any restauranteur will tell you the same thing , all these calls trying to sell me something that “I need”, when will the restaurnteur get to make a little bit of money? I can’t take the nickel and diming all thes companies are doing, I want to form a group of restauranters to bind together and make companies work on our terms based on the sheer numbers of multiple people getting together, all or nothing, if they want our business they have to earn it. If they earn it they get all of us, if they don’t they get none of us. Contact me if you are interested, lets take a stand and make a change. jhvino@yahoo.com any time!

Social Networking

nestbethesda — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:50:36 +0000

Ladies and gentleman, I beg of you, If you are reading this follow me @NestCafe on twitter. I am doing my best to enter the new world of social networking and it makes me feel old. I am beginning to get it and I send out some interesting stuff, but man has the world of marketing changed. No longer do we need to spend the ridiculous amount of money to hope that the readers notice the tiny business card size ad that I can afford in the local large publication. What a wonderful thing the social network is, it allows small business to get their ever-changing info out to the public. The only problem is; you just have to know what you are doing. I am playing with it now and have grown a little obsessed, I have new ideas all the time and until now could not get it out to the public. The social network is kind of for people like me, people with a extremely short attention span. I change my specials daily and I also change things on a whim based on my own personal craving. Now with the use of this marketing tool, I can let people know about it asap. I worry every time I post whether or not I am doing it right, using the right symbols (@ or # or etc) or whether or not my content has any real meaning to anyone, but, I will continue on with my viral babel. I must have followers for any of my rambling to matter so please follow me on twitter. That is enough of my begging, thank you for reading.

Some one help!

nestbethesda — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:00:14 +0000

Lately I have been struggling with the question, how do all these pretty chefs stay so pretty? I see these guys/girls in their fancy chef whites, name embroidered on the lapel, creases crisp, pants ironed and a beautifully placed hat with no wear shown at all on their head and I wonder how? I work my ass off, what the hell am I doing wrong? I can’t seem to let any one finish my creation, I know I am not as big, famous or even as remotely talented as many chefs out their, but, my art work in my head can only be finished by me. I spend countless hours in the kitchen, when I am done a shift, I am dirty. Flour from head to toe, grease on my pants and usually an assortment of burns. Maybe this is because I am not as talented as the clean guys, not as skilled at the basics, but I don’t think so. I see these guys with 5 or 6 restaurants, showing their nicely shaved face and well manicured hands in each location for a hour here and an hour there and wonder how. Is their day longer than mine? I can’t piece together a day to spend with my family and these guys dance from location to location with a weightlessness that is amazing to me. This my friends is by no mean a blog to bash these guys and girls, it is merely a blog to praise them and beg them to let me in on their secret. As I constantly search for future locations the question keeps reoccurring…….Can I do it? In my head, I know I can, but at what cost, is it as easy as these chefs make it look or are they just straight up good. By the way, I know it is not easy, please don’t write comments about how hard you work if you are one of these people, I know how hard you work, trust me, this is not to ridicule you but to praise you. In a business with such low profit margins and a constant eye on labor costs how do you spread yourself so thin. If you are one of those people with the ability to make this happen please, I beg of you, call me-email me-stop by, I would love to pick your brain. I have a book of concepts saved to my computer, all of which seem to be good concepts, is there a few duds in there, maybe, but for the most part I can’t find to many flaws in them at all. How can I put them all in motion, I have heard the adage don’t spread yourself too thin but how else can I make enough money to live. I know the easy answer is to get a reality series but I am just not that interesting, I don’t fight with my employees, I have a loving wife and great kid and I work a lot so where is the drama in that? I am not a typical egotistical chef (actually quite the opposite), I treat people well and I go out of my way to be fair, hardly ready for primetime tv. Next, get public, great idea, I don’t love the spotlight and don’t have the cliche celebrity chef attitude (no I don’t think I am in any way celebrity, just a point) of look at me I can turn a Mcdonald’s McNugget into a ball of fat free froth that steams, nope, I like the McNugget and respect what it is and what is supposed to be. Oh well back to the point, someone out there give me a pointer or two, I am ready to move on but a little afraid, for the first time in my life. I have always jumped and then figured out how to land, luckily I have always figured it out, but now, I am jumping with pockets full of other people’s money. Funny thing about other people’s money, eventually they want it back! Bottom line look for another Jeremy Hummer (plus others) location in the future!

Nature is a B@#ch!

nestbethesda — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:14:59 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen who own any type of business that is effected by the weather my heart goes out to you. Some are effected for the good, snow removal, flood restoration companies, home maintenance and various other companies who make an honest living preparing and repairing after mother nature strikes. Other business are like mine, when it rains it pours and when it snows it blizzards. Many people remember the harsh reality that was the blizzard of ’09 which shut down many businesses including mine right before the holiday rush. This blizzard, although beautiful and fun for children, was the grim reaper for many businesses already teetering on the edge of the harsh economic times. I was fortunate to be a business that was able to withstand the troublesome time to get to the wonderful summer. I bring this up as snow begins to pick up momentum outside of my Bethesda window and Bethesda Ave. remains closed for a water main break. Last night, we were one of the business that would gain from the weather as most of the more prominent restaurants sat and waited for their power to resume after the horrible water main break. But, this would be short-lived, we had a packed dining room with a small wait and the kitchen was coasting through dinner tickets like they were moguls on a ski slope for a pro skier. Then it happened, the entire kitchen went dark, I knew that meant the dining room had done the same. As I hesitantly peeked around the corner to see the inevitable, it was confirmed. No lights in dining room and no light in the kitchen which meant no gas on the stove. Now when you build a new restaurant it is code to put a shut off on the gas line, so when you lose power, you lose gas. I would have looked at this as a opurtunity to cook by candle light and give the dining room an experience like nothing they had ever had at Nest, dining by candle light on my delicious creations. unfortunately that was not the case thanks to the Montgomery County Code. I am not, by any means, bashing Montgomery County, I know that this code is for our safety and that of our guests, but damn it it sucks! Let me explain to all those that haven’t owned a restaurant what happens when we lose power. First and most important thing to understand is that we lose our computer system and like I always say we live by the computer and we die by the computer, in this case we died. The computer controls the entire infrastructure of the restaurant, sends orders to the bar, the kitchen and to the main data base. It keeps track of all the money and it is the only line of defense between the owners and theft. We must immediately begin hand calculating checks with sales tax by memory, an easy way for the server or bartender to take care of those they feel need a little stroking. The servers must hand write all orders and give them to the kitchen, again a very easy way to steal food for tables. But the most important is now they must collect the cash or credit card info. In an age of identity theft, understandably, guest are reluctant to leave credit card info behind so they pay in cash. It is very easy for a server to leave things off the check after the guest has paid in order to keep the cash for their own beer fund. We the owners or management have to go in to high alert and watch everything like a hawk. Thankfully my power was only out for about 35 minutes and we were able to get the computers back up with out losing too much. The bottom line and my point of this blog is that in these hard times my heart goes out to all the other businessmen that have to stress every time a drop of rain falls or snow hits the ground. I especially cry for those in my shoes that are effected by every little thing, holidays, weather, sports, time of year, which way the wind blows and everything else out there. So to all those who watch the weather like a meteorologist in training I wish you luck and a fruitful winter. Let’s all join together and cross our fingers for a mild winter!

Marketing

nestbethesda — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:39:25 +0000

Today just like every other day I woke up and jumped in the shower, where I get a lot of my thinking done. I think about how to drive business, what is it that I can do to fill the holes of time where my chairs in the dining room seem to be empty and how can I grow my out of house income with things such as catering and my notorious BBQ truck. How can I get more people here for lunch, how can I get more people here between 5 and 6pm and all the other times that we are not packed to capacity. Then the ideas begin to roll, some of which are good and some of which, admit-tingly, are horrible. I try to differentiate the two and bring the good ones to my partners and they do the same to me and eventually we come up with an idea that the three of us agree will work. Now comes the hard part, how are we going to let the world know about this incredible offer, event or idea ? That is where the world of marketing comes in. This is a world I am not familiar with, I have a great idea, why is it not working? The easy answer to that is, nobody knows about it, I have not successfully spread the word. In a world of social networking all over the internet, I am lost. I go to my younger staff to find out how to use all that the web has to offer, but, I feel a little overwhelmed. I am 32 years old and feel like a technical dinosaur, when did this happen? When did I become obsolete in the ability to get my word out. Then there is the other options, all of which are dying breeds from what I hear, magazines, newspapers, mailers and countless other marketing tools that I get bombarded with attempts to sell me everyday. I hear on daily basis, “wouldn’t you like to fill all your seats all the time?” Which is a hillarious question, like my answer is going to be “no I think I would rather sweat every time a bill comes and let my family starve.” Then they go on with showing me a restaurant magazine that I could have a business card size add for the small price of $2000.00. My god, I got in the wrong business, $2000.00 for what? Typically it is a tiny blurb about the restaurant or a picture of food placed in the corner of the back of a page in the “How To Dress Your Dog For The Winter” Section because the bigger, wealthier restaurants have already taken up all the ad space(of which I couldn’t afford any way) for the “Restaurant Guide” section. So everyday, a long with coming up with ideas we have to come up with ideas on how to get the word out. I am working on this everyday and seem to be learning. I just need to learn a little faster because everyday it’s a war out there in this business and one step backwards while all the others step forward could mean a long decent off the top of the successful restaurant mountain and into to the pool of the huge percentage of start up restaurants that never make it. This brings the importance of marketing the good old fashion-affordable way, just to go out and tell someone. Run your mouth the way you did in high school when you were hosting Friday night’s big party. Just walk up and tell someone. I come from an era before email, cell phones and social networking websites. Grant it, we did have pagers, but, if you had one you were always under suspicion of being a drug dealer, that is a hole other blog. When we wanted to let people know about whatever we had going on, we simply started telling people, everybody. Passing out fliers is a thing of the past, I don’t think so. So if you see any of my staff running around Bethesda passing out fliers and talking to people take a minute to listen, we got great things going on and we want everyone to know about it! My partner is a pretty successful business man and a man that has been “getting the word out” for a while and the guy can barley turn on a computer, as I try to learn more about the virtual world on the web we will not lose the roots of marketing and the core of this people business, talking to people and spreading our ideas through basic conversation because not only do we want your business we want to know you. Come in to Nest and find out what we have going on, visit the website or just look for us around town because as my business partner always says “Don’t take your foot of the pedal” and we won’t. Look for info on our Xmas Party, if you were here for the Halloween, then you know not to miss this one.

Back to the kitchen for me

nestbethesda — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:35:43 +0000

Every so often in life it is time to make a change. In the restaurant business we find this a lot. People in this business grow stagnant and bored of monotonous day to day jobs and lose interest. I don’t mean the actual cooking but the prep of the same things over and over again to full fill the necessary ingredients needed to make our regular menu items. Once this happens to a cook they begin to get lazy, cutting corners and not following the steps needed to make the food the way I want it made. They begin giving you lackadaisical answers to question like “what do you think we should do with the fish tonight?” or “got any idea for a soup?”. The answers begin to be whatever takes the least work and is the least creative. Then after all this, if you don’t notice it and catch it in time, the quest complaints begin to come. It was a sure sign when I got a complaint that our marinara was tasteless. This is a sauce I could make with my eyes closed and so can all my kitchen staff, so why is it off. I began tasting everything and all signs led to laziness from an individual. I don’t think it was even intended to be lazy but just lack of interest. This was one of the hardest working guys I have ever met, and a master in front of the burners. Why was his section the one lacking and all the sudden receiving terrible remarks from multiple guests? His mind was no longer in it. He wasn’t excited about creating any more and began to skip steps that I had laid out for him. He wasn’t taking the time to teach other people how to do things right so when questioned he blamed everyone else but himself. It was at that moment I knew it was time. So, with no time to spare, my partners and I had to make a tough decision and let him go. Like I said before the guy was a incredible person to have in the kitchen but he was putting our investment at risk by not taking the time to things right and command the kitchen. Now, making that decision was a bit easier for my partners because all they had to do was weigh a friendship against an investment and unfortunately the investment won. For me on the other hand it was back to the drawing board, it was up to me to jump back in the kitchen and get it running perfect again as quick as possible. So I have taken my chef coat out of the closet and gotten back in the kitchen and I got to tell you, it feels great. We are running as smooth as ever and I have heard only good remarks from the customers. I don’t want to say it is all me because that would be a down right lie but I am allowing the staff to show me what they’ve got. Sometimes if you allow someone to take pride in their work they show you things they have never shown you before. All you have to do is take the time to explain to them why we do certain things so that they understand the importance. For instance, cooking the onions slow for the onion soup caramelizes them instead of just burning them and reducing the soup makes a much more intense flavor. Yes, this is common sense for most people that are doing this for a living but like my partner always says “you have to spell everything out”. So taking a little time to explain things has sparked interest in the kitchen staff and it is now like I am teaching culinary school, every thing I do, I have eyes peering over my shoulders and my staff wants to learn. They want to understand, not how to do it, but, why I do it. This is very exciting to me, I have an interested staff! This means I can teach them new things, maybe even difficult things, because they want to learn. It must be great when a teacher gets a class like this, everyone wants to learn so they pay attention with out forcing them. This is actually therapeutic to me, I can take time to get a little creative and make labor intensive items from scratch. Now, if I can only get my wife used to my hands smelling like onion and garlic, I would be in good shape.

Feeling like I should be an Octopus!

nestbethesda — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:02:03 +0000

With all the excitement brewing around here about the taste of Bethesda, the overwhelming buzz about the Drive-By BBQ truck and the great reviews we have been receiving I am begining to feel I should have been born an octopus. Besides their overall good looking exterior they have a huge advantage with their eight arms. It would be spectacular for me to have eight arms, maybe then I could juggle all that I have to do to get ready for these events, keep the BBQ buzz and run a very busy (thankfully) restaurant. Besides all that, I would have more people coming to the restaurant just to check out the freakshow of me with eight arms. Not that I wish for any deformation but in my mind it sounds great. I am getting ready for taste of Bethesda, whichwe have rented double the amount of tent size this year and are doing double the amount of food and the majority of this food has to be prepared by me. I can’t pull my already busy kitchen guys out of the kitchen to make 400 caramel apples and 400 chocolate covered figs. I was invited to bring the BBQ truck to Sugarloaf Mountain Winery’s annual “Stomp” Festival, which is great, but I have no one to drive it, so that one falls on me as well. Plus I usually open the restaurant on Saturday and help to get all the specials done and get everything ready for a busy Saturday night. Typically I get Sunday off but I have to drive the truck again for the second day of the festival. All through next week I have to begin the prep for Taste of Bethesda, and god forbid I forget something. Of course one of my head Chefs went ahead and had a baby (congrats Keswick) on Wednesday so he is out for a week. Did he really have to pick this week? Obviously I am kidding about that, but now his duties fall on the kitchen and on me. On top of this my partners would like me to never leave the restaurant, which is a great compliment, but come on, I need to see my family at some point. Now that I think about it, my eight octopus arms are filling up quick. I remember when I imported wine, I had a great customer base and spent a lot of time doing nothing (don’t tell my ex employers). Now I think to myself “what was I thinking, am I f–king stupid, leaving that gig”. I do realize that all these complaints are based solely on being busy, and I should not complain. I am very thankful for this business, I do pay my bills on time, no company ever comes looking for us on the due date and we stay completley current with all our vendors. I have been a part of restaurants that didn’t work like that in the past and I never want to go there again. So lets not look at this as a complaint but more like a exhale on my part, a cleasing of the mind, one of my typical rants. How does Gordan Ramsey, Mario Batalli and all these other restaurant gods do this with 20 different restaurants? I can’t think about that, it gives me a headache and at the same time it fills my heart with jealousy. I guess that is why they have big time tv shows and I drive a BBQ truck, somewhere I made a wrong turn. Oh well, wrong turn or not it is the path I am driving now so I guess I will just make the best of it. But seriously if any body has any pull at The Food Network hook a brotha up! I did do a commercial for the Taste of Bethesda yesterday and I do have to say it was day time emmy quality. Thanks for reading my rant, love you guys.

The wonderfull world of Natural Light & PBR

nestbethesda — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:32:48 +0000

Ladies and gentleman please forgive me for going off my normal restaurant rants and discuss something that is very interesting to me. I come from Montgomery County, one of the more wealthy counties in the country. Although I am not rich or anywhere near it, I know there are many people out there much less fortunate than myself. Living here and doing the majority of my drinking at local bars I have noticed a huge influx in craft beers. I think that is great, if you love beer the way I love wine and enjoy all the different subtleties that make each beer different. I am not much of a beer man, although I can appreciate and love a good beer every so often, I usually drink it when I am trying to stay soberish. See, beer fills me up fast, and I can only drink a few, so I use this to my advantage on a night of craziness. Again any body that knows me, knows that is the best I can do, I can’t stay completely out of alcohol when everybody else is indulging, that would be just not right. All that being said, let me get back to my original thought, with all these nice craft brews out there a man or woman is looked down upon for drinking the good old cheap shit. I went to a bar recently ordered two beers and my tab was $25, now admittedly the beer was good, but $25 for two beers is way out of my ball field and my beer intelligence level. Now to something great, I was in Ocean City, Md over the weekend, say what you want about that place, it can produce good fun. Any body that has visited this fine city knows that drinking is one of the cities greatest past times whether it is beer, wine, or good old booze that is you weapon of choice, OC has it in abundance. I lived there for a couple of years and loved it! I watched a city become loyal to a beer for the low income to the rich and famous alike. I lived there when Ocean City began it’s love affair with Natural Light Beer. Go there today and witness a cheap beer that has found love from 21 year old college kids, to captains of million dollar fishing boats, to bankers, lawyers and to the average vacationer. It amazes me that a city of such vast personalities all drink Natural Light. Test me, go to any restaurant in OC and order a Natty Right and they will have it. Pizza shop, beach bar and fine dining establishments all carry it. They have to, if some one orders it and you don’t have it you risk being a outcast of OC. I love it! I was there this weekend and there is a new (old) beer making a comeback and joining the love affair for good old fashioned cheap beer. PBR, yes thats the one, good ole Pabst Blue Ribbon is making a strong comeback. I was sitting on the deck of Fagers Island for lunch enjoying a Natural light when a group of 2 men and their wives sat behind me. Well groomed, all wearing Tommy Bahama type clothing, when asked what they would like to drink the first one replied a glass of cab the second asked for a beer list. Fager’s Island has what must be close to 200 beers on their list. This gentleman looked up and said I would love a PBR. The server walked away and the guy turned to his buddy and said how awesome is that, they have PBR in this fancy place. He then immediately started telling stories about when he was young all the things he had done while drinking PBR. It was great. Any body that has been to Nest Cafe may have notice Natural light on my beer list and thought to yourself “why the hell do they have Natural light on their menu”. Well, the answer is, my buddies and I can sit back and tell the same kind of stories about things we did while drinking a Natty Right! So next time you come and notice PBR on the list as well, you will know why. Cheers! drink a Natty Right with me anytime at Nest Cafe! Nest will feature an assortment of cheap beer in it’s story telling beer category. Thanks for reading and I will return with more industry rants soon.

A slight annoyance

nestbethesda — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:58:57 +0000

I would like to comment on something that has annoyed me since day one of my life with wine. Last night I had a customer order a $25 dollar bottle of Sangiovese. Sangiovese is typically a grape that is light, fruit forward and ready to be drunk young. Don’t get me wrong there are some out there that are big and full of different layers of flavor but typically you have to pay a hefty price for these wines that are made by some of Italy’s most sought after producers. I would also like to point out that there is nothing wrong with a $25 bottle of wine, in fact I get more satisfaction finding a great wine in that price range than finding a great wine for $100, a wine for $100 should be great! But for god’s sake don’t order the server around like she or he is your newly found wine slave to impress the woman, man or company of people you have sitting at your table. It is ok for you to not be perfect with wine knowledge or wine presentation, just don’t make up for it by proving the server is inferior to you. I have said it a thousand times “wine is just grape juice that makes you feel funny”. Last night I had an individual order this $25 sangiovese and order my server (this server happens to be one of my best) to get him a decanteur, according to him ” you should never serve red wine without a decanteur”. Then he yelled at her for pouring the glasses to full, I saw the glasses and didn’t think they were filled over normal standard, but, what do I know. He did all this to impress his date, I am sure. After my server going out of her way to help him in every way possible, even going as far as finding out what song was playing on the radio because he mentioned he like it, he stiffed her. ZERO TIP! Servers are hear to serve your dinner and show you a nice dining expierence, they are not slaves and they are not here because it is their hobby. They have bills and lives that need to be funded by work. I understand if they have ruined your meal, then stiff them, but make sure it is justified. To give nothing to a server that has done all they can to make your time spent with them nice but you believe you are above all and need special service that no restaurant would do is ridiculous.

“The Pirate’s Life For Me”

nestbethesda — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:39:37 +0000

I now understand why great musicians such as Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Andrea Bocceli became great musicians. Because why the hell would they trust any body else to do their work. Why would they trust anybody else to make the wonderful songs they hear in there head and then sing or play in perfect tune, what…just because there blind, not a chance. They want it to sound exactly the way they hear it and you can’t explain to someone else how that sounds. I recently got back from San Diego, probably (sorry to say to my beloved D.C.) the greatest city I have ever visited, just a matter of opinion but I put my vote there, and I still couldn’t relax. I know I have worthy people in place, but, I still can’t get it off my mind. Is the dish I designed before I left being plated the way I pictured it, are lights dim enough, is the music loud enough and are the guests happy? The funny thing is, I have two business partners that think exactly the way I think, so we are all crazy. Oh by the way when any of us go on a trip or spend some time away from the restaurant I bet there is tons of mocking going on before service……little bastards love to make fun of us! I feel the need to lay back a little and let the reins go a bit, but my mind and personality wont let it happen. The funny thing is, I keep to myself and talk to the staff more than anything so I think my partners think I am away relaxing, but it never happens. I am afraid to check my email, cringe when my partners call (even if it just to check on me), shy away from text messages and never, never, never like to answer the call from 301-718-NEST. But this is the life I have chosen and for some sick reason, I love it! I don’t know why but for some reason it is a “pirate’s life for me”! By the way, anybody that wants to invest in a restaurant in San Diego come see me! Just kidding Josh and Shahab…….. (SHHHHHH)Call my cell if you want to invest. Really just kidding guys!