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You often see stats like, “80% of Restaurants Fail in Their First Three Years”. There are countless clips of investors saying never to invest in a restaurant. So why do they so often fail?

Sales Tax. It sounds absurd, but not accounting for it properly can quickly become the kill shot in a company that relies on thin margins. In Michigan the Sales Tax is 6%, the average (successful) restaurant has 3-5% profit margins. This means forgetting to account for sales tax can take what looks like a profitable business and quickly put it in a desperate situation.

The idea of running out of food for your guests is terrifying.

One of the largest reasons this happens is overlooking one crucial aspect. The staffing. Most weddings have 1-2 photographers, 2-3 bartenders, a catering staff, as well as staff at the venue. This can quickly lead to having up to 10% more guests than you accounted for.

Please be sure to mention this to your caterer, it may be the difference between everyone being happy and people leaving hungry.

Saddleback BBQ offers catering for all types of events: weddings, corporate events, picnics, tailgates, etc.

To receive a free quote, just use this link: https://saddlebackbbq.tripleseat.com/party_request/16389

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!

We try to hold our smokers at a temperature of 250 degrees for our briskets.

Very rarely do we go above that temperature but we have cooked at a lower temperature, around 225. I think anywhere in there you are pretty safe. We fire up our pits half an hour before putting our meat on the smoker. Once the pit is hot I place the point towards the hottest part of the grill. Most of the time that means where the heat is coming from. I smoke at that rate till about 160-170 degrees. At that point I wrap.

To learn more about wrapping and finishing the brisket, check out this article!

Wrapping can be done with either butcher paper or aluminum foil. Wrapping helps keep moisture in and also helps the brisket get through the stall. The stall is the time when moisture leaves the brisket and the brisket actually cools in the process. It can be a painful time when using a stick burner. You are constantly loading the firebox and nothing is happening inside. It can be hours of no movement in temperature.

After the brisket is wrapped, it’s back to smoking as normal. We pull our briskets off the smoker when they reach an internal temperature of 203 degrees.

The rub is the key to creating a great bark. There are thousands of rubs out there and all of them are probably pretty good. The bark is what you want to make of it. It can be as simple as the Texas Style “Salt and Pepper.” Here at Saddleback, we use a blend of brown sugar, salt, chili powder, garlic, and onion powder

You can spend a lot of time trying to develop your own personal rub recipe. In my opinion, do not reinvent the wheel. Just go with someone else that you can order online or snag a recipe from the internet. I think the process is more important than the rub.

Everyone trims differently. Not only does everyone trim differently they do it for a purpose. I categorize all things barbecue into three categories. Profit (Restaurants), Backyard, and Competition. Most BBQ can be broken down one way or another into those categories.

I also think that you can take little things from each but the Restaurant guy most likely won’t survive following the methods of the competition guy. Just like the Competition guy probably won’t be winning World Championships using the restaurant’s secret recipe. Everything that we will be talking about is coming from Backyard Guy. A backyard guy can mess around with things. He isn’t handing his perfectly cut, trimmed, seasoned, with his magical wood, secret sauces, and rubs into a table of judges. Chances are he is bringing that bad boy inside and if it’s worthy might make it on on his or her Facebook page.

Steps to Trimming a Brisket

Trim Top fat down to about a pencil eraser in depth. When getting it from the butcher it might already be trimmed that low if not lower. If it is lower don’t worry just leave it as is.

Briskets can have over-hanging fat on them I tend to get rid of that and make it a little more straightforward like a box. It’s mostly for aesthetics but I don’t think a lot of that fat renders into anything.

The flat can at times be pretty thin towards one side or another. Sometimes it is good to just cut that away. It tends to burn and can be a difficult part to eat.

On the underside of the brisket, there is a shinny silver skin. This is totally debatable but I think it is worth removing. This can be a time-consuming effort but makes it easier to cut and more enjoyable to eat. The trick is getting your boning knife slightly under the silver skin without taking too much of the good meat away.

There are two large chunks of what I call hard fat that have to be removed. One is found on the bottom of the brisket and one is kind of between the brisket and the point. Both take some work to remove but with practice, it isn’t as hard as it seems.

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.

Beef Brisket is what some consider the Cadillac of the BBQ world. For me, the true test of a barbecue restaurant rests with its brisket.

There are some key characteristics that I am looking for when looking for an ideal slice of brisket. I want a great outer bark, which comes from the seasoning or “rub” that is applied to the brisket before smoking. I love a nice red/pink smoke ring around the edges of the brisket. Lastly, I like a perfectly cooked brisket, not too tough but also doesn’t crumble right in front of you. You will know the perfect brisket if it can be pulled apart with almost no effort. If you place a slice of brisket on your finger, the two ends should be able to meet.

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.