He’s cooked for presidents, rock stars, and actors — and with the leather jacket and motorcycle, Chef Richard Fisher is a bit of a rock star himself.
The certified master chef, executive chef through the American Culinary Federation, and longtime restaurant operator is the Business Development Manager at Performance Foodservice – Twin Cities. “I have a lot of experience, and I’ll tell you this,” Chef Richard said with a sly grin. “Experience is a past series of mistakes.”
With the lunch segment in a state of flux, I sat down with the chef to get his thoughts on time, work schedules, and who’s eating lunch where.
Lunch All Around the World
“We’re really fortunate up here,” Chef Richard explained, talking about lunch consumers in the North Star State.
“We have a very diverse community. The state is Scandinavian; St. Paul is Italian and Irish; you get Thai, Chinese, Somalian; France Ave. [in Minneapolis] is all French based; and then you get into Eat Street, and it’s Hispanic, Vietnamese, and Hmong.
“International comfort seems to really be the hot ticket at lunchtime right now,” he continued. “Whether it’s Mexican, or Mediterranean, or Korean.”
Chef Richard talked about recently working with an operator who’s planning to open a Mediterranean-inspired concept. “They’re going to launch the Zebec® Mediterranean brand into that place, because it’s such good quality — really healthy, flavorful, vibrant, beautiful color, and that’s all the rage.
“They’re going to do a Mediterranean pizza. I mean, everybody’s crossing over into pizza, because you can put a lot of your inventory on it, whether it’s coastal, Hispanic, or Roman-style with a Piancone® Pinsa crust. We made a Mediterranean Gyro Flatbread the other day with tzatziki and arugula. We made a butter with cilantro and yogurt — put that out with mozzarella and tandoori chicken and did an Indian butter chicken pizza.”
Craft Value — Your Way
We chatted about the changing nature of value perception, and how quality, price, and efficiency all play a role.
“You’ve got to create speed,” chef said. “Speed is non-negotiable, because people don’t always have the time. I have an 18-year-old son who’s just getting into the workforce, and I have a 29-year-old who works from home half the time then drives to the office 30 miles from home.
“They’re a lot more focused on eating healthy, being cost-conscious, and meal prep — because, quite honestly, they’re smarter than we were,” he said, with a laugh.
He talked about how operators could create a weekly lunch program — handhelds, bowls, and sides — that guests order in advance with the tap of a phone, as part of a loyalty program: x amount of orders results in a discount. Boom, a guest has lunch for the week, and the restaurant locks in repeat visitors.
Your Best Shot
There’s no question wellness is now a critical driver of consumer demand. You see it in the emphasis on protein and fiber intake.
“Protein is huge, no doubt,” Chef Richard said. “In fact, I’m on a high-protein diet myself. So, you think about how you can utilize protein-drivers like chicken in different applications. Create an easy and on-trend Nashville hot chicken sandwich using Delancey Street Deli® Nashville Hot Sauce, then turn around and make a lighter Mediterranean chicken-based sandwich, or a chicken salad power bowl with avocado and grains.
“Salads are an essential part of any lunch menu. I know a famous BBQ king, serving pizza and smoked BBQ at night. And then their whole lunch menu is like salads and flatbreads!
“Because you go, I’ve got 2,500 items in my mise en place, and I’m offering two salads. What’s an easier way to expand my menu than by looking around at what I have and adding protein or fiber to salads?”
Chef Richard knows that it can be hard to add new items to the menu, especially lunch, out of concern that they won’t sell. But counterintuitively, “You don’t always have to sell a lot of it for it to make sense!” he said. “If the mise en place is already there, it shouldn’t hurt you too much to diversify and cross-utilize ingredients, because you’re already using those items for sandwiches and entrées anyway.”
Lunch is a moving target. But if you have a sense of what types of food your community craves, and you’re using simple international flavors to craft health-forward specials they can eat on-the-go, in the office, at home, or in your dining room — you can rock out your lunch service!