Have I ever mentioned that I go to a lot of public events?
My wife is shaking her head as she reads this, “yes, Kevin, you have said it a thousand times.”
She thinks I’m so interesting that she can’t wait to read what I will say in my column each week.
But back to my tour of the city and pretty much any public events that go on. I get my share of free food and drinks since I cover business breakfast and luncheon meetings, fundraisers for our many non-profits and civic groups, and Business After Hours gatherings.
I like to say that my job is “a pretty cool gig” since I am being paid, essentially, for going to parties, talking to people, eating and drinking for free, and taking pictures. Yes, I do actually like it.
But there has always been something about all this free food that kind of bothers me.
What happens to so much of it that isn’t eaten? And we’ve all been to events where you could see a lot of leftover food.
Louis Ochoa is one of my good buddies who knows all about this. He is owner of The Sadie Jane, Pinewood Country Club and NOLA Grill, not to mention other venue businesses in other cities. He is completely aware of the leftover food situation.
I went to an East St. Tammany Business Alliance After Hours recently at The Sadie Jane. I always look forward to the events that Louis caters since he has great food—seriously, he has some of the best catered food I have enjoyed, and as I said, I’ve been to plenty.
So, I was especially looking forward to the last After Hours since I knew it was at Louis’ place. But then late in the afternoon we had one of our recent crazy thunderstorms erupt and it poured for over an hour. Sure enough, the turnout was not as many people as they expected, and there sat a long row of food that was obviously going to be way too much.
I asked him about what happens when this goes on and he shrugged his shoulders and said, “there is nothing you can do but throw it away.” What? I hated hearing that. Surely there is a way somebody could use it. I was asking him if he could sort of recycle some things in the next day’s gumbo or something.
He just laughed. Nope, can’t do that.
“What if someone was sick and touched some food, and then we had a bunch of people get sick? You can’t reuse it at all.”
That was it—you couldn’t do anything with the food other than offer his employees a chance to make a plate before they left. That was it! Otherwise, it was wasted!
Then the very next morning I saw Louis at the Mayor’s “State of the Cities” breakfast meeting where the exact opposite thing happened. This time he was told to plan for 70 and they had over 80 people show up. He ran out of coffee for a brief time and had one of his employees hustling back to the restaurant to get more. Thankfully there was enough food.
It all reminds me about something I have learned since becoming friends with so many restaurant owners. It’s got to be the toughest business ever.
Louis agreed, noting the two events proved it is a challenging thing to prepare the exact right amount of food. Sometimes it’s too much, then sometimes it’s not enough. And you wonder why you see a lot of restaurants open, and then not make it. I believe it’s the toughest business there is to turn a decent profit.
Louis has been at it a long time. He began his restaurant career as a chef with Copeland’s, then took his first big shot by opening NOLA Grill on his own. It has led to good success for the very popular local businessman, much because he donates so often to local organizations. He told me he believes in giving to the community, and then it seems to come back with support at his restaurants.
So far, it’s worked well for him, but even he admitted that dumping a lot of really good food is still not easy.
“Truthfully?” he said. “Sometimes it is pretty painful to do.”
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.