One of the premiere food expos: over 50 different vendors in Food and Beverage service showcase themselves at the local convention center. It's exhilarating, enervating and exhausting. It takes months to prepare for and is over in a matter of hours. It's somewhere between a farmer's market and a comic book convention. My restaurant had a booth at last years' and we gave samples of our faire to over 3,000 guests.
This year we were looking at feeding over 6,000
In my case, this years' Taste came on the cusp of a grand time. One week before crawfish season, one week before Fat Tuesday, and only two weeks after my friend, mentor and former Executive Chef left for a new career.
Crawfish season was when we tripled our business over night: it's like a shotgun start. For a restaurant that specializes in and is known for Louisiana faire, it's the most prosperous time of year. Fat Tuesday was the same week. My place was also a seafood restaurant, and from now until Easter we would be catering to more fish-eaters that any other time of year. And the week before all this was about to begin, our restaurant was engaged in not one, but two food expos back-to-back. The Taste of the Town was the first of these two.
I had been the Sous Chef at this place for all of 8 months. My boss had landed a rare career opportunity, and was already gone: on his way out he said not to worry. “I've been grooming you to take my position,” he said, “and for this day. You're more than capable. You can fill my shoes and run this kitchen with your eyes closed. I am confident you can do this. The important thing is that you're confident you can do this.” With that, he handed the baton and his toque over to me.
Was I scared and anxious and nervous and excited all at the same time? You bet. Was I feeling overwhelmed, abandoned and ill prepared? No doubt. Was the prospect of filling my friend and mentor's shoes with his blessing making my heart swell and my head swim? Yes, sir.
Was I going to saddle up and ride this bull the full 8 seconds? Absolutely
Now to be accurate, most of the footwork (that is, paperwork) for such an event is done well ahead of time. Months before the event, we had filled out forms and submitted the size and location of the booth we requested, what power needs we required (electrical: how much juice and how many outlets), how many tables for the booth, temporary health permits for the event, etc. By this time we has already decided what our menu was as well, that is what items from our restaurant menu we would giving out samples of. In this case a genuine New Orleans style gumbo and ahi tuna steak seared rare.
The week of the expo all the ordering and preparation begins in earnest, such as bringing in and preparing enough food to give sample to over six thousand patrons. Everything up until this point has just been checklists, recipes and information from last years', the latter we were relying on heavily to help this event go smoothly. Thanks to the fact that my predecessor had saved all that information from last year, I was off to an excellent start.
But he wasn't here to walk me through, as I had expected. This show and its performance, or lack thereof, was going to fall squarely on my shoulders. I was getting some help and support from a small few who had been involved with the event last year (although this years' was going to be twice the size, and all that experience might turn out to be bunk), but none of the kitchen staff was among them. They were all looking to me for leadership and guidance.
I couldn't let them down. And I wasn't going to
I could not abdicate to anyone else the responsibility of making sure everything had been taken care of, nor could I shirk the burden that the restaurant's owner had laid upon me to make sure I made our restaurant look good. For him, Taste of the Town was one of the most elaborate, expensive and lucrative investments into the restaurant's future he could make. It was 100%, unadulterated sales and marketing. If the restaurant made a good impression, the reward would be immeasurable in terms of increased business and positive word of mouth. If we made a poor impression---well, the restaurant could be sunk. Aside from the 6,000 plus that would be sampling our cuisine and getting referrals to our establishment, the Taste would also be getting local media coverage, we would be networking with other businesses at the event and there would even be a contest to see which vendor the guests liked the best.
