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The first step to building a kitchen is determining the equipment needed. To do this, take an honest look at your menu items and decide which pieces of equipment are imperative and which tools will hardly ever be used.

If all it takes to avoid purchasing an expensive piece of equipment is losing one or two menu items, it may be a great idea to cut those menu items. Especially if you want to expand in the future. It isn’t just saving thousands of dollars one time, it’s saving it that money every time you open another restaurant, it’s saving money and hassle every time the equipment breaks, it’s saving time training every new employee.

Here is a list of the equipment in our kitchens:

• 6 Burner Range with Oven
• Single Door Convection Oven
• Small Fryer
• Hot Box
• Sandwich Cooler
• Low Boy Cooler
• Dish Room
• Undercounter Dishmachine
• Triple Sink
• Prep Sink

The next step in building your kitchen is to plan the flow of the kitchen. You want to minimize unnecessary movement. Every extra step employees have to take leads to longer ticket times, and more chances of bumping, spilling, and injury.

This step is demonstrated brilliantly by the movie The Founder.

When selecting new locations there are a few key aspects to looks for.

• Size – Maybe the most crucial step, learn more here.
• Rent – We like to look at the cost per square foot.
• Equipment – What is included in the building? What equipment do you need to purchase? MAIN EQUIPMENT TO LOOK FOR – Hood System and Refrigeration.
• Foot Traffic – How many people are walking by the restaurant (A good practice is to sit outside the property in question and count how many people walk by at lunch and dinner. Try this on weekdays and weekends).
• Car Traffic – How many people are driving by the restaurant. Use the same tip mentioned above for foot traffic.
• Demographics – Be sure to check out the most recent census. Does this town look like it’s growing or shrinking? Do your menu items fit in the average person’s price point?
• Cannibalizing – How far away are you from your other restaurants? You want to make sure that you’re not pulling sales away from other locations.

After you pick a location, it’s time to plan your kitchen. We discuss that extensively!

When you walk into a large restaurant that’s well decorated and filled with people, it can be a thing of beauty. But this is the exception, not the rule. When you start planning the opening of a new restaurant it’s incredibly exciting. Mistakes made in the early period of planning can quickly lead to a failed restaurant.

Saddleback takes an atypical approach to opening new restaurants. We try to keep our emotions out of decision making. This isn’t a house. This is a business. We try to bootstrap EVERYTHING. We try to NEVER take on debt. We pick small spaces over large spaces. We would rather have a line at the door, than have the restaurant feel empty.

Anytime you are making a decision about the future of the restaurant keep in mind 60% of restaurants fail in their first year, 80% fail in their first five years. This is largely because restaurants take on too much debt, have too large of floor plan, don’t accurately calculate food costs, and aren’t paying attention to labor.

For more on picking the right restaurant location, we go into much more detail here!

A full brisket can be classified as a “Packer Brisket”. This means it contains both main muscles the point and the flat. Rarely do I hear of people smoking just the “point” but you can find the “flat” at grocery stores. That can be good for pickling and making corn beef.

The brisket point and flat confused me when I started barbecue. I always got them mixed up. Flat means just what it sounds like, it’s flat. The brisket kind of forms a point and that is what always confused me but the flat part or the part that is slim is considered the Flat. The hump or part that seems a little meatier is the Point. Both are great when it comes to brisket. Typically the flat is known for being a little leaner. The Point is known for being a little fattier. Neither are wrong choices and both have their benefits. For pictures, I like showing off the flat, but to eat I am more of a point kind of guy.

One of the things that you should pay close attention to is the USDA grading system. It’s broken down into three main classifications:

Prime – Best

Choice – Second Best

Select – Worst

The main aspect that separates each score is marbling. The best way to describe marbling is the white streaks that flow in your steak. The more streaks of fat the better the grade.

When shopping you may notice meats that don’t fall in this category. One example is Certified Angus Beef or CAB.

Certified Angus beef is a brand that has its own grading scale. CAB comes mostly from black Angus cattle. When graded on the traditional USDA system, CAB typically falls somewhere between Prime and Choice.

Another example of something outside of the USDA classification system is Kobe/Wagyu. When it comes to these two categories it is good to have an educated butcher in your back pocket.

Alight, so here it goes…. Kobe beef is actually a place in Japan that is known for its Waygu or translated to “Japanese Cattle.” True Kobe beef is very very hard to come by in the US. Maybe, just maybe the high-end, big-city steakhouse might carry it. If they do, ask for documentation before buying it.

American Waygu is probably what most people are commonly seeing at their local Costco or maybe on TV. American Waygu is typically a breed of Japanese Waygu crossbreed with an American Black Angus.

Mondays are TRIPLE REWARDS Points Mondays!

When you place an order on Mondays you will receive TRIPLE the normal rewards amount. That means that for every dollar you spend, you’ll receive 3 points instead of 1! What does that mean? Basically that means that you will be getting 15% back for all of your orders placed on Mondays! That’s a pretty sweet deal if we do say so ourself. Available at both locations on Mondays.

When ordering food for an event the last thing you want is for the food to be cold when your guests eat it. Saddleback takes measures to ensure this never happens. Namely:

• As soon as your food is ready to go out the door it enters a hot-box. These are incredibly insulated portable containers. They will keep the food at nearly the same temperature that they were cooked at for up to 4 hours.
• Once the food is ready to be served, we highly recommend having chafing dishes and sternos. Chafing dishes and sternos can be purchased directly through Saddleback or from many retailers (GFS, Amazon, Walmart, etc). The sternos typically keep the food warm for 4 hours.
• This means between the hotbox we bring the food in and the chafing dishes we can keep the food hot up to 8 hours after it has been cooked!

*If your vendor does not allow the use of open flame on premise. Sterno offers a no flame product. Essentially, it’s a water activated packet that we put in the water pan under the food.*

We have a crisis: Food Cost Inflation. Our Wings & Brisket prices are reaching critical levels. Because of this, we will be taking Wings OFF THE MENU soon. Once we run out of the wings we have, we won’t be ordering more.

This video will explain how food cost inflation is harming the restaurant industry. Topics discussed:

– How do restaurants price their food?

– What are “Core Costs”?

– What happens when Food Costs Increase?

Here is a short list of some of the restaurant supplies that have increased in cost but it has impacted almost everything.

1. Brisket up 30-40%

2. Wings up 20-40%

3. To-Go containers up 50% to 200%

4. Rubber gloves up 300 to 600%

In this video, we walk through the example of Chicken Wing costs.

– Wing Prices –

180 Wings Per Case

$134.36 cost per case

$8.36 Cost of Sauce for the wings

$4.84 Cost of Spice Rub on the Wings

— $147.56 Total Cost of Ingredients–

$.82 Cost Per Wing

8 Wings Per Order

Equals: $6.56 Food Cost of for an order of 8 Wings.

$14.00 is the Current Price we charge customers for 8 Wings.

That means that at the current prices of wings, our food cost is 47%. Our target Food Cost is 30% in order to be profitable.

So, what can we do?

We basically have 3 options:

1. Raise the price of the wings.

2. Buy a lesser quality wing. (Smaller wings)

3. Take the wings off the menu.

If we were to raise the price and keep them on the menu, instead of charging $14 for 8 wings. We would have to charge $22!!!!!!

We don’t think that our customers will want to pay $22 for wings. So for that reason, we are very sadly removing them from the menu.

If you want to get wings, order them now! Because once we sell out, they will be gone from the menu for the foreseeable future.

We hope this information helps shed some light on what all restaurants are going through right now.

Travis Stoliker – Co-Owner

Who can clean a hood system in Lansing? Who do you call to clean the grease trap in a restaurant? These are common questions all restaurant owners have! We put together this list to help other restaurant owners find restaurant service and maintenance companies in the Greater Lansing Michigan Area. 

If you have a restaurant service company to add to the list, please let us know here! 

Electrical    
Bach Electric 517-202-9365
Sparky's Electrical 517-627-5423
   
Plumbing    
Hedlund Plumbing 517-627-5503
    
HVAC    
A1 Mechanical 517-272-8354
    
Refrigeration    
Perry Brothers 517-694-4600
Clay Brewer Refrigeration 517-749-8316
    
Hood Repair/Installation
Michigan Food Service 517-626-2599  (Alan or Bill) 
Swanson 269-280-6012 - (Formerly: Michigan Restaurant Service)
CLS Mechanical 517-323-8412 (Chris Starr) 
JD Wisener Electric 517-393-3202

Hot Side Equipment Maintenance: 
Michigan Food Service 517-626-2599
    
Hood Cleaning    
Maxim Hood Cleaning 517-455-1460
    
Flooring   
American Flooring (Okemos) 517-349-4666
    
General Restaurant Kitchen Equipment Maintenance     
Eye Serve 517-712-7629
Michigan Food Service 517-626-2599
    
Signage    
Foresight SuperSign 517-999-2847

High-Quality Food, No Frills, Crazy Prices

Saddleback BBQ – Started the first locally owned ghost restaurant in the Lansing area. To commemorate the ghost restaurant we decided to add them to the permanent menu. Check it out now!

High-Quality Food – We utilize Saddleback’s smoked meats for all of our proteins. These meats are smoked for 10-12 hours using all Michigan Hardwood. While sourcing fresh ingredients to compose the rest of the food. For many large chain restaurants that offer similar products, the meat seems to be an afterthought; for us, it’s the foundation.

No Frills – We share Saddleback’s existing commercial kitchens. TB&B’s is a takeout and delivery restaurant only. These efficiencies allow us to have crazy low prices with premium ingredients.

Crazy Prices – The majority of our meals start for less than $10 and include chips, salsa, and a water.

Ghost restaurants are quickly gaining popularity. Mainly because you can offer the public new menu items and “launch a new restaurant” with very little investment. Ghost restaurants have far less risk than a traditional restaurant, and make your existing brick and mortar location more efficient. We started our new restaurant in less than a week and for under $500.

Toast Now

Ghost Restaurants rely on online ordering and delivery to be successful. When starting “Tacos Burritos and Bowls”, we knew we needed a cost effective method to quickly offer these features. We chose to go with Toast Now. For $50 a month we now have a workable solution. This allows our customers to order for in store pickup, curbside pickup, or delivery.

We have tablets at our restaurant that receive the orders – from there our front of house staff places the orders in Saddleback’s existing Toast terminal. It’s not a seamless system, but it’s effective and relatively inexpensive.

Website

For our website we followed the same ideology as the online ordering system – Something quick and inexpensive. We chose to use Wix to make our website. Wix makes it incredibly easy to make a simple, good looking website. Our philosophy was to essentially make an online brochure. We linked to our Toast Now menu for customers to make their order. All in all the website took less than 48 hours. It’s functional, and we think it looks pretty good.

Social Media

Using our existing social media channels we advertised the launch of our new website. This helped generate excitement for the new menu. We sent out an email blast to our entire email list as well as a text message. All the news we announced was met with incredible reception.

Photos

To ensure we had high quality photos of our new menu we brought in an amazing local photographer. We made every item from the new restaurant and had him take photos of all of them as well as all of the items together. We now have high quality photos of our whole menu: great for online ordering, the website, and social media.

The Z Grills Initial Startup and Burn-in Process

The initial startup and burn-in process must be performed before your first cook on your new pellet smoker. Like any pellet smoker, your grill needs to be seasoned before use. The entire process takes about an hour, and you’ll need enough wood pellets to run the grill on HIGH for at least 45 minutes. Be sure to perform this outside or in a well-ventilated area.

If reading isn’t your forte, here’s a helpful video!

Purchase a Z Grill today!

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Remove Everything

• Open the hopper and grill lids.
• Remove the grill racks, grease tray, and baffle plate that sits over the fire-pot.

2. Turn the Grill ON

• Ensure the controller dial is in the Shut Down Cycle position.
• Turn the switch ON.
• If you see "Er2" on the display, the grill is not in the Shut Down Cycle mode.

3. Set to SMOKE

• Turn the controller dial to Smoke.
• Listen for the fan to start running.

4. Check Auger Operation

• Confirm that the auger is slowly rotating. You should hear a faint "whirring" sound.
• The auger will rotate for a few seconds, then pause for 30-40 seconds. Over the next 5 minutes, it will turn on and off periodically.

5. Check the Fire-pot

• Hold your hand above the fire-pot to feel for air movement, confirming the fan is working.
• You should hear the fan running when the controller is on Smoke.
• Observe the ignition rod at the bottom of the fire-pot—it should turn a dull red color within 4 minutes. Do not touch it!
• Some smoke may appear as surface oil burns off; this is normal.

Once you’ve confirmed that:
✅ The auger is rotating periodically
✅ The fan is blowing
✅ The ignition rod is heating up

Proceed to the next step.

6. Add Wood Pellets

• Pour about 4 lbs of wood pellets into the hopper—just enough to reach the safety grate.
• Close the hopper lid.
• Only add a full hopper of pellets if planning a long cook. Always store pellets in a sealed container to prevent moisture absorption.

7. Turn to HIGH

• Turn the controller dial to High to feed pellets from the hopper through the auger tube into the fire-pot.

8. Wait for Pellet Drop

• About 7-8 minutes after adding pellets, they should start dropping into the fire-pot.
• As soon as you see pellets dropping, move to the next step.

9. Ignite the Fire

• Turn the controller to Shut Down Cycle, then immediately back to Smoke to activate the ignition rod.

10. Fire Up Your Grill!

• After 3-5 minutes, you should see lots of smoke, followed by a flame.
• Congratulations! Your grill is officially running.
• Reinstall the baffle plate, grease tray (no foil), and grill racks.
• Close the grill lid.

11. Burn-in Process

• Turn the controller to High and let the grill run at maximum temperature. This burns off any remaining manufacturing oils.
• The smell may be unpleasant, so avoid doing this near an open window.
• After 10-15 minutes, the smell will disappear.
• Keep the grill on High for at least 45 minutes, then:
  • Turn to Smoke for 10 minutes to let the fire die down.
  • Switch to Shut Down Cycle (leave the power on).
• The fan will run for 10 minutes before automatically shutting off.

Once the grill has turned itself off, you can unplug it—or start cooking!

12. Time to Cook!

• Once the grill has shut down, open the lid and wipe the grill racks with a damp cloth.
• Cover the grease tray with heavy-duty aluminum foil.
• Start the grill by turning it to Smoke with the lid open.
• After 4-5 minutes, you should see lots of smoke. Wait until you hear a roaring fire and see less smoke before closing the lid and setting your desired temperature.
• Let the grill reach the target temperature before placing your food inside.