Restaurant Owners Uncorked

Discusses successful restaurant management through interviews with successful restaurant owners.

Discusses successful restaurant management through interviews with successful restaurant owners.

When’s the last time you picked up a business book that was so engaging you couldn’t put it down? Steve Difillippo was only 24 when he opened his first Davio’s restaurant. Since then, he’s wowed Julia Child with his pomodoro, overlooked some triple-X rated shenanigans at Table 7, taken on American Express, gotten himself into Time and Newsweek (for taking on American Express), cooked a rabbit for Stevie Ray Vaughn, inadvertently gotten a guest divorced, whipped up some tasty eats at the Super Bowl--and that’s just the beginning. The money hasn’t been bad, either: that first restaurant is now the hub of a rapidly growing $50 million restaurant brand group and a $10 million Davio’s brand food line. With guests constantly asking how he did it, Steve has written the ultimate guide to starting a restaurant, running a successful business, enjoying food, and living life. The 5.9 million restaurant workers who say they want to open their own restaurant will go nuts over this book, but so will anybody who loves food and the restaurant world--heck, anybody who wants to make money and have a blast doing it. As a special bonus, Steve includes twelve classic Davio’s recipes.

Marco Pasanella's behind-the-scenes memoir through the world of wine will captivate wine lovers with its story of one man who decided, at age 43, to change his life by opening a wine shop. As Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant explored the front and back of the house at restaurants, Uncorked offers a peek behind the curtain of the wine world. Pasanella takes the reader into the underbelly of his store and the industry, which is steeped in history yet fanatical about technology and brimming with larger-than-life personalities. Infused with rich details of his historic waterfront building in New York City and his sojourns to Tuscany, Pasanella's memoir is one of transformation through a project many fantasize about but few commit to. A colorful cast of characters rounds out this fascinating journey through the world of wine.

Nikki Sands was like every other aspiring actress—waiting tables between jobs. But Nikki had taken serving wines to heart. She knew enough to impress Napa Valley’s golden boy, Derek Malveaux, who offered her a job at his vineyard. And though Nikki may have left her dreams of stardom behind, the world of wine is ripe with intrigue—and the seeds of sleuthing are planted… Nikki has just set foot on Napa Valley’s rich soil when she realizes her new job may not be as safe as she thought. First off, Derek Malveaux is disconcertingly sexy. Second, his top winemaker is dead in the bushes outside Nikki’s cottage. It doesn’t take a connoisseur of foul play to know something’s taken a terrible turn…

In the bestselling tradition of Restaurant Man and Setting the Table, Front of the House is a revealing and wryly humorous behind-the-scenes look at the gracious art of great restaurant service. Great restaurant service is a gracious art that's been studied, practiced and polished by Jeff Benjamin, two-time James Beard Award nominee and managing partner of Philadelphia's acclaimed Vetri family of restaurants. Sagacious and observant, he beckons us behind the scenes for an insider's look at reserving a table, what your server thinks of you, what it takes to get ejected from a fine restaurant and a host of other revelations.

In 2016, Globe and Mail reporter Ann Hui drove across Canada, from Victoria to Fogo Island, to write about small-town Chinese restaurants and the families who run them. It was only after the story was published that she discovered her own family could have been included—her parents had run their own Chinese restaurant, The Legion Cafe, before she was born. This discovery, and the realization that there was so much of her own history she didn’t yet know, set her on a time-sensitive mission: to understand how, after generations living in a poverty-stricken area of Guangdong, China, her family had somehow wound up in Canada. Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurantsweaves together Hui’s own family history—from her grandfather’s decision to leave behind a wife and newborn son for a new life, to her father’s path from cooking in rural China to running some of the largest “Western” kitchens in Vancouver, to the unravelling of a closely guarded family secret—with the stories of dozens of Chinese restaurant owners from coast to coast. Along her trip, she meets a Chinese-restaurant owner/small-town mayor, the owner of a Chinese restaurant in a Thunder Bay curling rink, and the woman who runs a restaurant alone, 365 days a year, on the very remote Fogo Island. Hui also explores the fascinating history behind “chop suey” cuisine, detailing the invention of classics like “ginger beef” and “Newfoundland chow mein,” and other uniquely Canadian fare like the “Chinese pierogies” of Alberta. Hui, who grew up in authenticity-obsessed Vancouver, begins her journey with a somewhat disparaging view of small-town “fake Chinese” food. But by the end, she comes to appreciate the essentially Chinese values that drive these restaurants—perseverance, entrepreneurialism and deep love for family. Using her own family’s story as a touchstone, she explores the importance of these restaurants in the country’s history and makes the case for why chop suey cuisine should be recognized as quintessentially Canadian.

This one-stop guide to opening a restaurant from an accountant-turned-restaurateur shows aspiring proprietors how to succeed in the crucial first year and beyond. The majority of restaurants fail, and those that succeed happened upon that mysterious X factor, right? Wrong! Roger Fields--money-guy, restaurant owner, and restaurant consultant--shows how eateries can get past that challenging first year and keep diners coming back for more. The only restaurant start-up guide written by a certified accountant, this book gives readers an edge when making key decisions about funding, location, hiring, menu-making, number-crunching, and turning a profit--complete with sample sales forecasts and operating budgets. This updated edition also includes strategies for capitalizing on the latest food, drink, and technology trends. Opening a restaurant isn't easy, but this realistic dreamer's guide helps set the table for lasting success.