Restaurants Increase management discussion with Elizabeth Blau concentrates on a return to development

Before Elizabeth Blau showed up in Las Vegas in the 1990s, the city’s cooking specialty might have been $3 shrimp cocktails. It’s been a while since those limp shrimp days, however Vegas certainly wouldn’t be where it is without Blau, founder and CEO of Blau + Associates.

At the start of Restaurant Increase’s second round of sessions this summer, NRN Senior Food & & Beverage Editor Bret Thorn made mention of Blau’s impressive work for the industry, and then got right into the conversation: the current “fight for survival for restaurants,” as Blau called it, drawing from her experience with her own farm-to-table restaurant, Honey Salt.

“The landscape that we remain in now is just actually devastating, so what you can do is focus on your community and focus on your company,” Blau stated. “We have actually needed to be adaptable. Luckily, we have not needed to close Honey Salt. We’ve transformed to more takeout, delivery and house meal kits; we set up a marketplace selling toilet tissue and flour when those things were scarce. This [pandemic] is something I have actually never ever come across in my profession, and I intend to never ever confront it again.”

Making guests feel safe and safe has handled a role in hospitality also never seen before, Blau pointed out: “I never thought I ‘d need to market my tidiness, but that is essential for individuals to see.”

Thorn asked Blau about security steps executed at Honey Salt, and Blau mentioned temperature level testing every day at developing entrances, and extensive handbooks from Vegas hotels describing a lot more safety steps.

Likewise, Blau has a creative seating solution including stuffed teddy bears.

“However we attempt to make Honey Salt warm and relaxing,” she discussed. “Our kid is 16 and long past the teddy bear stage, but I connected to my girlfriends and now we have a gold mine of bears seated at the bar and in between seats for social distancing.”

On seeing the absurdity of all of it: “You have to make it light,” Blau said. “The circumstance is alarming. Natural crises … what occurred in Beirut … we just try to offer a little excellent news within our walls.”

Speaking of within the walls, Blau said her heart heads out to her dining establishment industry peers in cities where dining-room are currently closed for COVID concerns. Patios can only go so far in keeping a restaurant healthy, she said.

“Patios are nice, and it’s good weather condition now in New York, however winter season will be here soon,” Blau said. “And in Vegas, it’s 104 degrees so you can’t consume outside then.”

Innovative at-home dining experiences are a method for dining establishments to serve households with hospitality, just in a various method, Blau emphasized, explaining her Secret Hamburger program, in which a combined box of ready components and easy DIY menu products shows up as a whole dinner from the comfort of the consumer’s house. This program is taking place at about 20 restaurants Blau consults for.

Revamping menus so they can make the journey from cooking area to shipment at house is another location of focus in the dining establishment survival game. Blau stated she hopes sustainability isn’t lost in the product packaging.

“We’re eliminating meals from takeout menus that do not travel well; as operators, we need to get innovative,” Blau said. “We discovered that if you put a steak at a specific temperature level into a sealed container, it’ll continue to prepare. Simple things like that. And we need to work with packaging [companies] This pandemic does not fill our land fills with the trash of to-go product packaging.”

On Honey Salt’s provided meals “early on in the pandemic, we consisted of a personal note on each delivery bag, letting clients know we appreciate them,” Blau stated. “Around Easter we included a box of Peeps … something as simple and silly as that.”

“It’s basically extending the hospitality you ‘d offer them in the dining establishment through shipment, extending your warmth that way,” Thorn said.

Blau likewise discussed serving the neighborhood by partnering with companies like food banks to feed those in the community who need it. Shipment with Dignity is Blau’s partnership with openly and independently moneyed, volunteer powered “army of food heroes” that has provided 125,000 meals to those in requirement to date.

“Being able to do excellent in the community also keeps our dining establishments alive [by producing the community meals],” Blau said. “I’m incredibly pleased with the team for that. These are meals cooked by our restaurant chefs. They’re not ’em ergency meals.’ When we deliver, you have masks and gloves, and you leave the food and after that knock and stand back to make certain somebody’s there. When you see the smiles on elderly faces and kids’ faces … it’s incredibly powerful.”

This becomes part of special protection of the Dining establishments Rise digital top taking place online Aug. 11-13 and Aug. 18-20, powered by Nation’s Dining establishment News and Dining Establishment Hospitality. Register for live sessions or on-demand replays at .

Title sponsors for Dining establishments Rise consist of Campbell’s Foodservice, GrubHub, Idaho Potato, ShiftPixy, Carefully and Impossible.