When I left off last week we had been in our new building about 5 years. It was about this time we were getting pretty settled in. I would always be looking for ways to increase the the quality of our products and to lower costs. Most of these things would include some form of us doing it ourselves. While buying things like carpet machines, steam cleaners, and drain jetters these tools would pay for themselves very quickly. Besides you know how much us guys love our tools.

Deb, the "laundry lady"

We also installed a complete laundry. On the food end we bought an industrial cryovac machine which would allow us to cut and portion our steaks and seafood. A vacuum tumbler allows us to "power marinate" our meats. All of these things gave us more control over our product. We also purchased a large walkin freezer for our basement which allowed us to even out our prep load from the busy months to the slow months. For example, we could keep our staff busy in November making crab rangoon and shrooms for December. This also allowed us to buy large orders directly from a manufacturer, thus skipping the middleman.

One thing that happened that drastically effected our business a few years back was a shift of sales regions by one of our nationwide food distributors. We had gotten to the point where we were buying 95% of our food products from one distributor. Things were working well for both of us for many years. Since they serviced all the downtown Chicago restaurants, the selection of products for us was the same as it was for the high end establishments in the city. Then with their infinite corporate wisdom, they decided to move all accounts west of I-39 (a mere .85 miles from us) to one of their downstate divisions. With that change we lost our access to many of the products that we would pull from the Chicago division.  Even after we stopped doing business with the company they would not alter their boundaries. This move was terrible for our selection, quality and prices.

Assortment of products from our Import House.

As in life, there is always a silver lining.  We found that there was good side to this move. We located a wonderful distributor that concentrated only on produce. We also started to order directly from an import house in Chicago. As it turns out, our pricing and selection has never been better. Also, around the middle of the decade we started to see small wine distributors forming and delivering to us down here in the boondocks. Where we once had only the biggest 2 or 3 liquor distributors to order wine from, we could now order wines from much smaller independent boutique wineries.

Ray Bonneville with Bernie and Ray

In March of 2006 we had our first show at the "Playlist Theater". My friends Bernie Victor and Tom Ptak had been urging me for sometime to give this a try. We would go and see live music once or twice a month. This usually involved the "3AM death ride" coming home from the shows. Some of the acts that we would go to see were larger and way out of our league but there were many that would have as few as 20 or 30 people. Pieta Brown was one of these. We followed many of her performances in a 200 mile radius. Bernie and Tom would say to me "we can do this" and "there has to be at least that many music lovers in our area". I crunched some numbers and took the approach if we can just break even on the entertainment that would be great. Ray Bonneville just happened to be who I was listening to at the time. I looked on his website and kind of got an idea of the type of venues he played and when it looked like his tour would draw him near. It ended up being pretty simple. I think the next 5 people on my list I was able to get every single one of them. They were Pieta Brown, Tim Easton, Kelly Pardekooper, Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez, and Griffin House.

Chuck Prophet with Ray, Tom, Bernie

With about 5 years of shows under our belt now we have had a Slaid, a Ramsey and a Gurf. It all culminated in our dream show this past February with Chuck Prophet. I love doing the shows and hope it is perceived as something we give back to the Illinois Valley. I hope someone will pick it up when I have to stop.











Over the years it has been interesting how some of the numbers have changed for our segment of the business. In the old days your labor costs would be 25% of total sales now it is getting close to 50%. Food used to be 50% and now it is 30%. Liquor is still about the same. We have gone from the "3 martini" lunch in the 80s, to the "let's do lunch" lunch in the 90s to the "no-lunch" lunch of the 00s. It seems like email and busy lifestyles have really put a dent in full service lunch traffic nationwide. Lunch used to account for well over one third of our sales and now it is less than a quarter. In the old days people would dress up to go out to eat, now they dress down.

The Uptown Buzzards, 315 years of experience.

Getting through this recession, which I do not think is over, has been very challenging. We were not hit nearly as hard as most restaurants across the country. Even with the temptation (and a good excuse to) we have not laid one person off or cut any benefits. Loyalty to my staff is very important to me. This was done mainly through attrition and more "do-it ourselves" changes as I mentioned previously.

Bus trip to Florid Inn for our Christmas Party.

Over the years our infamous Christmas parties have been everywhere from the Curl Inn to the Florid Inn (we even rented a bus that year), from Bogarts to Bartleys. We always kind of joke that no place wants to have us back two years in a row. As you can see many of these pictures are from our Christmas parties. 

Banquet staff for a formal dinner.

I tried to estimate (that is the only thing I can do) how many people we served in 25 years. If we count people that actually ate an entree, sandwich or entree salad we guestimate some where around 2.3 million. That does not count the people that have just had appetizers, dessert or drinks. So in actuality I have to guess somewhere over 3 million.

Ray in chef's pants at our last Christmas Party

Some personal things......
If I could change one thing about myself it would be, to be better with matching people faces to their names. It is just something I have a very hard time with.

When you live this lifestyle you just have to learn TGIM, "thank god it's Monday". What's in the name of the day of the week anyway? One good point is that you don't have to fight weekend crowds. Any restaurateur that tells you he doesn't do the zigzag on the way home is a liar. I alter my route home every night just to see what the competition is doing. Speaking of competition I would have to say almost all of my competitors during the last 25 years have been true professionals. I consider many of them friends. Besides that, just ask my family how difficult it is to get me to eat here. It is the most un-relaxing thing I can think of. I need places to go and be myself.

Ray, Ryan and Jimmy New Years Eve

People always ask me why our area has so many good restaurants. People that travel say if you go anywhere in the Midwest to a community our size there are no where near the good dining choices. I shudder to think what life in the Illinois Valley would be like without a Monari's, Garzanelli's, Verucchi's, Big House or Bartley's. (Sorry I can't name all of you.)  How much longer will I be doing this? I don't know. I would like to start taking things easier. I have been working these 70-80 hours week since I was 18. That is a career in most circles. I hope Ryan and Jimmy continue to develop and are ready to embark on their own 25 year adventure.

"Thank You"

I was at a seminar this past week at the National Restaurant Show. The speaker was Bill Marvin, The Restaurant Doctor. I can get pulled in by the motivational speaker just like most people do. Something he said really struck me. He was talking about hospitality. He said some thing to the effect that it is invisible, it shows up as a feeling. Just like the first time you feel love, you know it when you feel it. He went on to define the difference between service and hospitality. Service is technical, hospitality is personal. Service is a monologue, hospitality is a dialogue. Service is executing, hospitality is embracing. Service is systematic, hospitality is organic. Service is doing, hospitality is being. Unfortunately you can't teach hospitality like you do other job skills. Fortunately, you don't have to. It is an innate quality. I really hope this is what you feel when you are a guest here. Thank you for your patronage and the privileged to serve you over these 25 years.
25th Anniversary, Chapter One

25th Anniversary, Chapter Two

25th Anniversary, Chapter Three