The Quest continues....

Not every first love becomes your mate. Not every first house you look at becomes your home. This was Riviera Bistro's story on its first stop in the real estate market. We have had our eye on a space for over a year. We watched as it food and clientele dwindled. The day came when it closed, we rejoiced, called our broker to pursue the unit within days of a paper being posted on the door stating " Sorry , we are closed." We were informed that a present tenant in the property all ready had a lease signed. We then pursued the property that the tenant was leaving.
On the first visit to the restaurant to dine and dream, it gave the impression that the floor space was only 40 seats, we were looking for 120 seats. The kitchen was open something we were looking to be a focal part of Riviera Bistro. The bath rooms were single but nice fixtures. The business plan was retooled to look at lower gross sales and lower overhead cost. We started the letter of intent phase of the lease process with our lawyer. We started with consultants and asked if we could walk the space the evaluate the back of the house.
We brainstormed on adding a exterior door and creating a patio, walling in parts of the kitchen and dining room for a bar. We finally walked the back and were surprised but not shocked on it small size. We had looked at plans and knew the space was small, but seeing the dimensions in person was a frightening realization. The office was a computer on top of a wine fridge and a 1/2 metro rack as a shelf, in the middle of the store room. The exhaust hood had no vents or makeup air due to the rating on the pizza oven, the only heat producing equipment in the kitchen. These conditions posed more construction cost and stationary equipment upgrades. There was no walkin cooler of any size due to no room for one. The city's requirement for electrical connections had recently changed leaving the site very expensive to increase its power load. The owner was taking the vent a hood and casing with the business. The mechanical electric and plumbing plans do not exist with the landlord or city of Austin. Finally the in-ground grease trap was the smallest you can install since the present operation has no real grease producing equipment. The dream had become a nightmare.
Not a living nightmare but one we could wake up from. It is still hard to let go of the romantic restaurant dream that we had fallen in love with so quickly. But!! If it is not right then you walk away. This is our way of avoiding getting burned, and insuring proper start for Riviera Bistro. We are so thankful for the professional consultant team that we have assembled. They woke us up in a time that most professional are looking to find anyway to get into bed with you. We have decided to close out the files on this unit.
We are very thankful for this opportunity. It served as a fire under us to finish out a lot of documents and to compete the business plan. Riviera Bistro is in a stronger position to evaluate the future real estate prospects. The team of a wonderful architect and MEP engineer is something we now have to help realize the vision. The legal consultant has walked us through a 52 page lease and now the legalese shell shock is over. The broker knows more of the actual facility requirements for our concept. We have started many rounds of talks with a large commercial property owner that has worked with us, we feel we could enter contractual relations on a future occasion. Overall this experience has left Riviera Bistro in a much stronger and polished concept.
Moving forward the landlord has already mentioned other opportunities. We are starting to broaden our target area to include other centers. We are NOT DONE just a little down. Riviera Bistro will be up dreaming again soon, with another real estate love. The Quest continues for the Right ONE at the Right TIME....

Spinach Salad

Spinach, that wonderful nightshade, is one our favorites. For the opening Menu we are pairing Spinach with Goats. Goat's milk dressing and pan-fried goat cheese medallions. Tender and young organic baby spinach was the perfect base to start our salad. The dressing is made of Goat's milk, oil, vinegar, eggs, worchershire sauce, parsley, and spices. The tone is kind of reminiscent of Ranch dressing, probably because buttermilk and goat's milk have notably similarities. The goat cheese medallions are coated in a breading of polenta with potato and garbanzo bean flours, then pan fried to golden brown. The baby spinach is tossed with julianne of carrot and celery. The dressing is added and tossed, and then the salad is placed to the center of the plate. Portabella mushrooms marinated in olive oil, balsamic and spices, roasted in the oven, then sliced thinly and lay around the salad. Over the top of the salad is red pepper, red onion, sun dried tomatoes and smoked prosciutto. Finally the salad is topped with a delicious, warm and creamy chevre` medallion. The smoked prosciutto brought a smoke flavor that hinted toward bacon, which we all know is a perfect pairing to spinach. The chevre` medallion once cut and tasted with all flavors brought the plate truly together. The challenge will be finding the Smoked Prosciutto, a kind Family member brought two packages back from Italy and I have yet to locate it here. This was one of the features of our next dinner that is now rescheduled for May. The testing version was tasted by a panel of six and all were very satisfied with almost no recommendations for changes of any type. We believe this is a keeper.

New Friends

Last Weds. night we attended the annual potluck meeting for the Alamo Celiac group. This group represents Austin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi. There were about 30 in attendance and we met and talked with Jeanne. Our new friend Jeanne is the person in the group who is responsible for working and listing restaurants that are Celiac friendly. She told us about a national certification by Gluten Intolerance Group of North America or GFRAP. She seemed most excited when we told her of the concept for Riviera Bistro. There is a monthly dining group that we hope to join. The people were all very nice; the food brought by members was well seasoned. The dish we took was Meatballs in Marinara the meatballs were enjoyed by all. We took 33 and brought home 2. This group represents a specific demographic group that Riviera Bistro believes represents a significant percentage of our projected guest base. We are even more convinced of that after meeting with them. It was a good time for all, and we are looking forward to dining with them again soon.
It was nice to revisit the meatball recipe. The recipe was in a development stage of still having the cups and tablespoon as its measuring standards. The recipe was converted to weights in ounces using the trusty kitchen scale. Some ingredient tweaking was done. The same with the Marinara as a larger yield is desired. A shopping trip to find Gluten Free Oats and fresh Basil led to two different stores. It was a nice break in the day. The cooking went down to the wire; it went out good and hot. A yield on meatballs was recorded but then ran out of time to measure the Marinara. The next development dinner will feature one of the entrees that utilize Marinara so there will be plenty of opportunity to get a batch yield on the recipe. We did take a camera and then did not take pictures. The meatball is not the most photogenic food item out there and we did not make plates this time, so the meatball's photo op. moment will have to wait. Maybe next week.

2010 and it begins...

2010 is finally here and the restaurant plan is unfolding into the accounting team and legal teams with organizational agreements being formed. We have recently joined the Alamo Celic group. We are attending our first meeting that is a pot luck at the Faith Lutheran Church,in Austin. We have decided to take one of the child friendly items, Spaghetti with Meatballs tossed in Marinara. Hopefully we will connect with one of the demographic groups that Riviera Bistro is designed to excite. February the 6th is the projected date for our next Development dinner. The New Year often screams DIET so we are going to focus on the Salad section of our menu. January blogs are going to focus on the food side with salads and our pot luck experience, and reflection on a dining experience this past holiday. Enjoy.

Squid and Kids

Recently in the Holiday shop fest, we stopped at our favorite forty seat Italian trattoria. Rachel, myself and our daughter Avery, who is four and a half. The tables were quaint only seating a max of three. Which left no seat for the fluffy Bunny that Avery had brought along as a fashion consultant. No extra chairs. The normal banter of some children is to talk louder if you are not giving them direct attention. In the dimly lit and quiet atmosphere little loud voices stand out to the whole room. We succeeded in amusing her without an art project..or a commonly known coloring book. We did not bring it and if we had there was zero room for for it on the table. The evening was a test. We have taken Avery out to very nice restaurants, she is our child. But this quaint quiet romantic place was a new step. Rachel was craving the Ravioli, and the pizza is very good. Avery's attentions were so demanding at the beginning of the meal that we could not even discuss our picks of the menu. I ordered Calamari to start. Avery does not like seafood of any kind. So we told her that we were ordering Fried O's she asked for ranch, the only close relative was Aioli. She ate 3 plates full. I was speechless, it is truely the little things that mean the most in life.
In choosing a gluten Free kitchen concept this will means having to provide for smaller palettes as well as sophisticated pallets. Satisfing both sometimes come down to just a matter of the PHRASING.

Next dinner, next year:

Due to holiday scheduling; we are not continuing the development dinner series until after the first of the year. The next three dinner outlines are done. We hope to have a couple of smaller pre – development meals in Dec. The feature menu items will be a second run with Calamari, a Scallops entrée, the first of four soups and the first of five desserts. We will post development information as we get closer to the dates in Jan. The resulting time this next month will rest in costing of the first round of recipes and in developing the front of House management tools and spreadsheets. We expect to do at least one post a week. It will fall usually on Weds. or Thurs. in order to keep all interested parties up on the progression of our culinary venture. Type to you soon….

Salad thoughts

GREEK SALAD
Last night we plated a dinner for four. It was soup and salad with salad being the Greek Salad. We reduced the portion amounts from our last dinner and the result was perfect. The lettuce while only being reduced by half an ounce was still twenty five percent smaller on the plate. The total weight of the plate went from 8.5 to 7.5 oz. visually the smaller portion was on target. All four diners commented that the plate was very satisfying.
We only had 2 servings worth of Manouri cheese, so Rachel and I had an organic Feta cheese. We found the salad to be really salty do to the Feta and higher concentration of brined ingredients. The reduction of lettuce increased percentage of the brined products in the salad. With Feta it was a different experience. One on the salty side of town, so to speak. It really proved, what was resounded in the diner's reviews, of a wonderful balance. We are happy with this plate.