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June 16
Economy Raises the Heat in the Kitchen

June 16, 2008
Michael S. Rosenwald
Washington Post

Restaurant owners around the region and country are trying to contend with a double economic whammy that has hit the industry, shaking up menus and causing chefs to consider, among other things, the merits of foie gras.

Food costs are high. Try making a profit on a gourmet pizza when flour prices are up 87 percent. Diners are ordering less or staying home altogether, as their wallets feel lighter from trips to the gas station and from not seeing the for-sale signs on their block turn to sold.

Last week Carmine Marzano, the owner of District restaurant Luigino, changed out of a white chef’s coat and into a suit and went to court for his first bankruptcy hearing. Not only are food costs squeezing his business, but he is also still recovering from when the 2001 terrorist attacks obliterated tourist traffic — an important aspect of his business because he’s just down the street from the convention center. He was forced into debt that has now caught up with him.

“If these conditions don’t change, I don’t see any light,” said Marzano, whose restaurant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “We’ve got to find a way to get through this.”

In this region, restaurant owners are taking creative, sometimes painful, steps to keep customers. In some restaurants, filet mignon is off the menu. It’s just simply too expensive an option for owners and diners. Hostesses get sent home early. Managers seat guests and answer the phones. Marzano let his manager go and is doing some of those tasks himself.

At Equinox, a D.C. fine-dining restaurant where business is down around 5 percent, one strategy is to get as much out of a chicken as possible. That means that in addition to using the breast meat for a light chicken salad, the legs feed staff and the bones help create chicken stock.

“You just have to know how to use the whole bird,” said Equinox co-owner Ellen Kassoff-Gray, who said she has accepted that she will be battling crummy economics for months to come. “We told our staff, ‘Save money. We’re going to have some lean times ahead.’ “

And that means no foie gras on the menu, either.

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