The Hi Neighbor restaurant group opened Trestle in uber-trendy San Francisco promising “the return to a proper meal.” While three well-prepared courses, sold separately, usually come in at a reasonable $35, partner Ryan Cole and executive chef Jason Halverson pared it down further to create a three-course dinner for $25.
The $25 meal: Appetizer: corn soup with fresno chile, avocado and roasted corn; Entrée: stuffed chicken breast, dirty rice, summer squash and truffle jus; Dessert: peanut butter and jelly doughnuts with Concord grape jelly and chocolate.
The inspiration: “The cuisine at Trestle is really based on taking food that everyone knows and loves, but focusing on executing consistently at a high level,” Halverson says. “We also have amazing produce here in Northern California, so we definitely get a chance to focus on cooking seasonally. You combine both of these focuses and the menu essentially wrote itself,” he adds.
Food cost: $8.75. “Which would seem high for a $25 menu,” says Halverson. “What’s great about this, though, is that you generate product to utilize on other menus. The product is already paid for, so your future menu is potentially much more cost effective. The practice is complete utilization, which helps keep costs down and keeps the kitchen organized.”
Value engineering: An edited focus makes this menu work. “Within the scope of the restaurant, we have limited options for people to choose from. By narrowing our focus, we are able to eliminate waste and maximize our purchasing power,” says Halverson. “By scheduling dishes carefully, we are able to obtain the best possible food cost for each item. We know that the law of averages applies…We will sell about 50 percent of each dish daily, so it makes ordering easier as well. We also work within the guise of balancing high-ticket-item costs. Corn is inexpensive and in season, and we don’t use a lot of dairy in our soups, making them an affordable starter cost. Chicken is also an affordable protein, but we tend to make it appear nicer.”
Profitable add-ons: “We always recommend getting wine to enhance the meal, and coffee and after-dinner drinks with dessert. When featuring a more affordable option, you need to be very conscious of how to upsell. In the past we have offered supplemental courses, items such as caviar or truffles, etc., to increase check averages.”
Here’s a tip: “Profitability at such a low price point comes with volume and scale,” says Halverson. “It would be extremely difficult to make a menu like this profitable at this price point if you weren’t selling every menu. But making it an exclusive offering and driving a significant amount of traffic, it is completely manageable.”