The debate of quality vs. quantity often is debated in the business world. In the restaurant and catering businesses, quality almost always rules over quantity.
In the past few years, food has evolved from faster service and larger portions to tasteful home-style cooking.
Gary Moss, district manager for Einstein Bros. Bagels, said two types of food trends have evolved recently. The first is “comfort food” dishes that “bring in the nostalgia of what mom used to make.” The other is fusion food, which blends the tastes of two different cultures.
The Denver-based company originally offered bagels in its local restaurants, but has now significantly expanded its menu to include new twists to the old-style bagels, sandwiches and salads.
Currently, the company has 17 stores in Southern California and 800 stores nationwide.
According to Moss, the restaurants usually did 90 percent of its business in the morning, but now 75 percent of its menu has been dedicated to lunch items. Today, 35 percent of the business comes from lunch customers.
“(Restaurants and caterers) need to take trends in the food dishes and turn it to be more exciting and retro,” said Moss.
In comfort foods, Moss said Einstein Bros. adapted its bagels and other dishes to be more modern and creative, but kept in mind home-style cooking.
Some of the comfort foods that Einstein Bros. offers are the ultimate toasted cheese sandwich, bagel dogs, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
As for fusion foods, Einstein offers the wasabi salmon salad sandwich, the Thai chicken veggie wrap, and the cobbie, a traditional Cobb salad sandwich served on Jewish braided egg bread.
– Expansion Is Encouraged
Catering to parties and businesses also expanded as part of Einstein Bros.’ business, particularly in the past three years, said Moss. He estimated about 8-9 percent of weekly sales in an average restaurant comes from catering.
“We highly encourage our managers to go outside the four walls of the restaurant to expand the business,” said Moss.
He said the regular menu items are offered for catering in addition to customized food dishes at the request of the party. Some items included for events are muffins, homemade cookies and massive amounts of soup.
“The basic idea for recipes is to take a quantum leap in creativity in your food, but still keep the same feel,” said Andrew Spurgin, executive director of Waters Fine Catering, which offers both comfort and fusion foods on its menu. This month, Waters Fine Foods to Go opened next door to its catering business to serve as a restaurant near Old Town.
“It’s for families who don’t have the time to make food,” said Spurgin.
– Fusion Adds To A Meal’s Diversity
He said comfort foods give a person peace of mind by reminding them of what mother used to make. However, comfort foods can come from different nations, as long as it retains its simplicity.
Waters can create a macaroni and cheese dish such as pasta with panko, or Japanese bread crumbs, spread on the dish.
Spurgin believes fusion foods are extracting flavors from nations along the Pacific Rim and combining them into dishes.
“California is a diverse mecca,” said Spurgin. “There’s a lot of fusion of foods to make excellent dishes.”
One example, he said, is to create tomato water, the seed stock of the tomato to create a very fine flavor.
“Taking the essence of food and combining the flavors is what food is actually all about,” said Spurgin. “The flavor of the food is what’s important.”
