Tag Archives: ideas

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100 IDEAS A WEEK, IS ONE OF THEM BRILLIANT?

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

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So here is the dilemma – I can’t turn it off! I can’t stop designing the next great restaurant concept in my head. Is this a problem? A good friend of mine, in a totally different field, suffers from the same disease: always thinking about the next great concept. His spouse told me once: “he has 100 ideas a week, and one of them is brilliant”. Are we all living under the delusion that the next great idea is just hiding under the surface and with a little nudge we can build the next Microsoft?

Here is an example of how relentless the process can be:
* I am oftentimes unable to sleep because I am planning a concept that came to me while I was having that last cup of tea before bed.
* I finally bought a pocket digital recorder so that when ideas came to me while driving, I could store them for later planning.
* I plan my part of family vacations around the restaurants I want to visit, not just to enjoy the food but rather to stimulate more ideas.
* I have more cookbooks than I will ever read, but they are there primarily to stoke the fires of creative thought: “how could I tweak this idea and make it unique to me”.
* I read quite a bit, but the majority of my books are written by chefs and restaurateurs about their daily routine. I am constantly using a highlighter throughout these books to point to ideas I might use later on.
* I walk through stores, not to purchase, but to look for ideas on restaurant decor, systems for delivery, service tips, etc.
* I have framed pictures in my office, not of scenery, but of restaurants, kitchens and chefs.
* When dining out, I always frustrate my wife when I am taking pictures with my cell phone.
* I walk 2-3 miles every morning and oftentimes find myself lost in thought about an idea. If only I could remember to bring that digital recorder with me.
* Even in the shower, I find myself drifting off with an idea about a restaurant concept.
* Empty buildings and stores are always fuel for the concept planning fire. “Just think what could be done with this space”!
* When in a restaurant with friends I need to work hard at keeping my focus on them and not spinning around looking at how they execute their system and how I might make it better.
* Although I am coming to the later part of my career and rarely cook in restaurants anymore, I still make my daily prep lists and market orders for meals at home.
* I even take pictures of my own food at home and post them on Facebook!

The whole process is like that annoying ringing I used to get in my ears after attending a rock concert in the 60’s. No matter how hard you try, it just won’t go away. How many ideas have come and gone? How many of them were brilliant or will the next one be the real winner? Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have never invested my bank account in one of these ideas. Then again, what if I had and it really was brilliant? I guess I will never know, but it is still fun thinking about and developing a cool idea.

Does anyone else suffer from perpetual idea overload? By the way, the photo is from “The Big Night”, a movie that I consider as great as Casablanca.

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The Spark of an Idea – A Restaurant is Born

28 Sunday Jul 2013

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Are you an idea person? Maybe you are more of an implementor. Or are you a bit of both? Does this picture represent you:
* I can’t stop my brain from working overtime
* I have lists of ideas everywhere
* I have many sleepless nights while new business ideas keep me awake
* I think about the next great restaurant while in the shower, driving to work, having dinner at another restaurant, preparing my mise en place at the restaurant where I am currently employed, or just walking through a number of unrelated businesses and seeing something that sparks that creative thought process.
* How many times have you designed that next killer restaurant on the back of a bar cocktail napkin?
* Do you scribble business ideas on a legal pad while suffering through another pointless business meeting?
* How often have you said, “you know what would work great in that building”?
* Maybe a friend, lecturer, announcer, business colleague says something that sends you into “another creative thought utopia” never to return to the original conversation.

The question is, what do you do with these ideas? How do you focus your creative thought process and move beyond idea to concept and bring that concept to fruition? What keeps you from being the next wildly successful entrepreneur?

When I was in the classroom I would ask young culinary and hospitality students how many wanted to own their own restaurant. The vast majority would raise their hands. I would always follow up with “I hope to convince you not to take that route”. Why would I ever say that? I felt justified because of the statistical data that demonstrated incredibly high failure rates among entrepreneurs. My job, I thought, was to help them put these thoughts of owning their own on the shelf and concentrate on becoming successful employees. Well, I was wrong!

Every decent chef that I know has or had a dream to be a restaurateur. It is, after all, the great American dream. Entrepreneurship is a right of every citizen and no country in the world is more open to welcoming private business than the U.S. What was terribly wrong with my classroom approach was attempting to stifle that creative gene that so many chefs have. That desire is an itch that needs to be scratched.

No one ever really gets ahead by playing it safe. A few will succeed and some will fail, but everyone should have an outlet for those ideas that keep them up at night.

So what keeps you from taking those ideas and running with them (hopefully it is not just teachers who are trying to help you to play it safe)?

Here are a few classic responses and solutions:
* I don’t have the money (find a partner who does and who believes in you)
* It is too risky and I am afraid (no pain, no gain). The beauty of being in the restaurant business is that if you fail at entrepreneurship, you can always go back to working for someone else.
* I don’t have the time right now (sooner or later you really won’t have the time – act on the idea now)
* I have too many current commitments (that will never change unless you begin to adjust some of your priorities)
* I have a well-grounded life-partner who tells me to chill and be happy with what I have (if they are truly your partner it is time to have that “I need to do this” conversation)
* I don’t have the business knowledge (go back to school and build that knowledge base)
* I lack the confidence to follow through (take the leap, learn as much as you can, practice and you will be impressed with how your confidence with change).
* I am too old (Please!!! There are many examples of entrepreneurs who started in their seventies.)

As I sit in front of the TV and watch another episode of “Shark Tank” I am really disappointed as the “Sharks” step on another dream and watch the rejection on their faces. To many, that great idea is what helps them to be complete. It needs to find a home or those sleepless nights will continue until they find an idea that sticks and builds enough traction to fulfill their creative dreams.

Do you have that next great restaurant concept tucked away in your subconscious? Light a fire under it, do your homework, find answers to those roadblocks and take that entrepreneurial plunge. Capture the excitement, it is what makes this country great.

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