Jillian’s is FUN! Community Blog

Measuring your P-Mix

Working on a side project for Jake on how the new menu is working for us, I have been using our P-Mix to find out and this what I have found out for using our new menu for a year….

In one year, we have used 13,388 lbs. of ground beef we sold in burgers that is an equivalent of 2 school buses.

In one year, we have created 196 gallons of chili that is 20 full tanks of gas for an average car.

For the amount of burgers sold, we have sold 52,170 that is 26,085 feet of burgers if you were to line the burgers up side by side, which is almost the size of 3 golden gate bridges, 72 Rose Bowl Football fields and is the distance of 4.94 miles.
 

Jaime

Jake’s making a monster opportunity out of a hand sized monster!!!!

You probably have seen those crazy eating competitions on the food network and tv, from huge pie eating contest or to eating hot dogs till you explode. At Jake’s, we try to bring that same kind of commroidtry and competition with the flare of our burgers. Speaking with Jake last  “Wow, its great to see how much attention we get with our Monster Burger displayed on our window I have been only standing here watching for no more than 2 minutes and 25 guests walking by had to stop and simply look at the burger. There were many people who even stood, posed, and took pictures with the massive burger.” said Jake. Jake and I agreed using the monster burger display we generate an extra $200 in food sales because it looks so good! So, the following day Ray and I were discussing club ideas and our two servers Jason an Lincoln, came to us saying, “Someone has accepted the Jake’s challenge.” His name was Jeremy he said ” That burger looks pretty good I think I could eat it.” I replied, “All right you got it! If your able to finish this challenge you will be the first!” He accepted the Jake’s Challenge. The parameters of this challenge is that you must complete the entire burger of 5 patties 5 pieces of american cheese, and 10 pieces of bacon on a standard Jake’s Burger build in 10 minutes. Jeremy had started on a good pace eating meat first in quarters then eating the bread. ” Wow! this burger is so good but, its fresh its burning my mouth from mouth for being so hot.” He said laughing. His friends shouting “Shut up and eat you only have four minutes left!” At exactly 9:59 he ate his last piece of the Monster he was the pioneer of the Jake Challenge. He ate about 2.35 # of mouth watering goodness! “I never knew something so good can make you so full!” Jeremy laughed. As his reward we bought his burger and gave him a filled up Lucky Seven card stamped for another burger. Already, word of mouth has started and people wanting to break Jeremy’s record! That’s why at Jake’s we can take something as simple and a delicious traditional hamburger into a monster of free advertising of word of mouth!

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Jaime

Jake’s Cooks make it their own…Making perfection…

The warmth of Southern California has come once again to the street of Colorado.  You can see the many new faces and visitors of Pasadena walking up and down Colorado looking for a quick bite to eat. Then the smell finally hits them, the intense stong smell of the best burger of Pasadena Jake’s! It has been great to see such a turn around I’ve had with my cooks. We had a very strong amount of food sales in December around 9K a week but with their hard work, dedication to small detail, helping each other out, and most importantly passion for the love of the food they make we are averaging just short of 15k. “It takes a lot of time and planning to work in our kitchen.” say Everado Patino. “At first we use to laugh at Jaime about how much we should plan ahead and organize ourselves in the kitchen like office work or the military like it wouldn’t pay off but, when you have the cafe filled with customers wanting to eat “my” burger we have to keep our guard up and give them our best.” I have them constantly working with the tools I used in my training we have become legends when we use our Lettuce system we love the p-mix because we have the correct gauge on how much we need to prep and order. We also love the Kitchen Financials because we all sit together and organize the best times to fit the schedule and how much to prep. Yet I may have shown them a few tricks here and there with the Lettuce program, they impressed me with what they gave me this following week. My cooks have made their own daily cleaning program. They worked on what was the best time to get the kitchen clean to “our” standards. I was very impressed what they came up with and how dedicated they have been on getting it done; especially with our new dish machine and the installation of Butler Chemicals. Their doubled efforts have carried on another trend another perfect score from the Health Department. Now their next goal is to be the best burger in Southern California. And I believe to the fullest they will do it and do so much more!

Jaime�

Make it reign!!!! With a Jake’s Original!!!

It started off raining in Pasadena, sometimes can be a turn off to many buisnesses but, I was able to put a smile on my face. I see the advantages of the rain. There is a local bus stop going across 5 cities and a majority of those stops do not have any cover from the rain. I sought this as an opportunity. I spoke to many people asking them to come inside in the cafe and take a seat out of the rain. From there was where I wanted them. They sat down smelling the juicy hot tasty burgers. They can sense the aroma of our fire hot home made in house chili. Then people started taking food to go on the bus. I had one couple who moved from Pasadena about 8 years ago and was forced to take the bus due to their car being in the shop. They use to eat at Jake’s a long time ago and saw our new cling. They took the challenge of creating their own burger and the end results we won!. We sold to our guests that having a traditional burger can never go wrong when you make it your way. The guest said ” I have to tell you, I am going on that bus with over 25 stops and 3 cities I go across and I will tell everyone about how great those burgers are!!!!” Jakes is back with the blog!!!

Ray making a difference once again!!!!!

Doing my normal walk thrus on our event/ party execution I see Ray taking charge and setting up the day’s events. Ray had it all planned out before I walked down. All the chaffers, tables, and billiards room looked beautiful! Its great to work with him in events because I can see that passion and desire he has for these events to make them special for our guests! He is a believer that we are not just selling a party or event but, a memory that a group, a family, or friends have together in these tough economical times. Creating that memory that lasts forever is how we truly generate profit here in Pasadena. Jake, Ray, Deanna, and myself our firm believers of it. Memories are truly priceless. But after going on my tangent, When I was helping the cooks presenting the food, Ray was already speaking with the host of the party already making her smile and feel welcomed at Jakes and talked them into buying another 30 drink tickets bringing in another $200 for the event. Good Job Bro!!!!! Keep it up!!!

Jake’s making it their own again….

Jake and I are very passionate with what organizational systems goes in the cafe and how it operates. There are times that we may disagree on some matters but, our passions keep us with our main goal, making the best burger in Pasadena. Jake and I sat down couple of months ago planning and organizing how we should make the FOH and BOH operate when it gets busy in such times of December with events, parties, X-mas shoppers and finally the mother and father of them all the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. While Jake and Ray discussing plans on how we should do our acts of service for the FOH when it gets busy, I was already breaking down the lettuce program with the BOH piece by piece. I made it clear knowlege how important it was as well as their prep list. I also focused on how important it is to know every station on building on your own burger. A cook may not be the best at cooking but, maybe better at prepping so, its important to know than it is to act. My cooks also worked hard on their competing with each other on food time races. They call it making the best the fastest! Jake and Ray refined our counter service which our servers got down to it! They worked as a team and putting the guest first at every possible chance. So, with all the practice made perfect just these past three days we made $11,000 in food alone not counting our beverages in the cafe! My hat goes off to our Cafe FOH and Jake and Ray working with them daily to improve our fast pace system. Also, thanks to our cooks because without them we wouldnt have our best burger!!!

Wow 40 K in 14 weeks here we come!!!!

I was convinced after speaking with Tony in our last coach’s corner together as a group, that I needed to do something over the top to reach our goal of $30K for the week. I was really having a hard time putting the 3 circles of our Jake Concept together: the Cafe, the Bar and Billiards, and Events. My circle was the Cafe I asked myself, “What can I do to ensure that I can put an imprint on my circle? Then I came up with an idea to boost our sluggish N/A Bev Sales. I put together a contest with all our Cafe servers on selling the most gross in N/A Bev, Beer sales, Liqour, Wine, and I would give an extra $20 credit for every Lucky Seven Card I would get back. All, I have to say is wow! This contest has really taken off in a good way. Our cafe servers have averaged over $700 just in beverage sales compared there sub par $450. We have Tam who is leading overall with a little over $10 K in 13 weeks so far. Also, Lincoln who is in second under $9.5K in 13 weeks just in today alone $525 beverage sales on a Monday!!!! Who would think a small burger stand can generate so much????? Plus the number of lucky seven cards coming in is extra ordianary; just on Sundays we can collect close to 10-15. I have to commend all our Cafe Servers for upselling very well! Right now as a group there are at $38 K. I am very sure they will be beat 40 K by the end of the week!!!! Who says Food up sale contest next???? I do!!!

Taking a “Monster Opportunity” on the streets of Colorado….

Ahh the day after Christmas, it was a new day at Jake’s with my clip board in hand doing my Open Manager Checklist for the day. I started outside Jake’s and looked at the streets of Colorado blvd. I thought to myself I should do a small “Coach’s Corner” like the ones we work with Tony and Jake. I asked myself, “What can I do to make this window more appealing to new guests and people walking around Colorado Blvd?”Then it donned on me, I started to make the mammouth Heartattack burger! I took 5 patties, 5 pieces of american cheese, and 10 pieces of bacon to make this mammouth Create your own burger! Also with this burger, I made a Chicken Bowl with Fries. I also decorated this piece with liqour bottles, beer bottles, and our NYE flyers. Just five minutes of finally putting the piece together people were standing taking pictures of the burger and coming in to eat. I decided to do this because, it take the average person two seconds to make a choice on whether to eat at a place or not. So, I figured I have a 50-50 chance for a guest to come in or not so this would have to help. I never figured it would help this much though. Within and hour and a half we were in $1,200 in food sales that was a lot of burgers and bowls. Everyone was doing a great job Deanna and I helped our great team to succese. By the end of the lunch shift they already sold $2200 in food. That is a lot of burgers!!!!

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Jake’s Cooks making it their own….

I cannot be any prouder of our BOH staff then I have been this past month.  With a whole new concept such as the Create Your Own Burger a lot thought it wouldn’t have taken off as fast as it has. I kept the notion at Jake’s that I am here not to train cooks. I have graduated with top honors in a top league culinary school and I refuse to make mediocre cooks. I wanted to train Chefs and Kitchen Managers and I have at Jake’s. Jake’s presented me with this great opportunity. I have been fortunate on taking on these great team members. I have installed the lettuce program into these young men. They are firm believers in our Line Checks and Prep Lists they understand that we alone keep the tradition that has been bestowed on us since 1947. We understand the check and balances of what happens when we are producing waste. We stop and look at the problem, address it, and fix it. In our kitchen unlike many large kitchens we only have no more than 2 cooks at a time. I would love to see any cooking tandems try cooking over 35,000 varieties of burgers in 7 minutes. They are simply the best. I see their passion everyday in their face and work ethics. They are the reason why we average a food cost under 29% these past six months. Ray and I just finished an interview with a large up and coming web site focusing on their food as one of the newest and best burgers internationally and I want to thank them for making it this far.  So they have Lettuce Program down, next BOH Operations, then after that they will run a Jake’s of their own one day…..

Jaime

you think you have an awesome kitchen staff!?!

i need to give team san fran a shout out. i have been with some of these guys since the opening ( almost 10 years  ) and each holiday season seems to get less stressful and more seamless - a well oiled machine pumping out party after party after party after party with add on parties in between ..oh, and slammin convention lunches on top of it. tamayo, our chef actually gave me a hard time that the week of christmas seems slow and why do we only have a few parties - he asked what am i doing to bring more business in? that is where our core values really hit home…he is making his food cost his own… always thinking of ways to save money and hold everyone accountable. i feel lucky to be part of the team.

jennifer

Be jealous KM’s I have the best cooks ever!!!

Tuesday night, we had our Block Party for our good friends at Burke Williams we turned our kitchen into a pasta making machine. Trying to cook for about 120 people pasta in our small kitchen is pretty amazing but we had a tough problem. How do we cook over 25 # of pasta, sauces, cheese sticks, and meatballs with one large pot and at the time 3 working stove top burners.  Lots of hard work at first but, Lupe one of our cooks had a great idea he thought of turning our deep fryer into a pasta machine. That was brilliant. So we quickly changed the oil and set up the machine as a pasta cooker. Wow we were cooking pasta so fast. I was getting many compliments from all the Burke Williams staff on how great the food was. Great job guys!!!!

Jaime

Everything Matters while your standing in line….

I was at Ralph’s grabbing my usual V-8 Fusion drink before heading into work wearing our Jake’s Happy Hour T-shirt. I overheard the Ralph’s employee working the register saying to the bagger “Man, I am so hungry and that Jake’s work shirt he wearing is reminding me how good their chili cheese fries are.” Then the bagger said, “I have never ate at Jake’s is their food good?” So, as I overheard this I called work and asked them to make some Jake’s Burger and Chili Cheese fries. I took them back to Ralph’s and gave them the food. I said “Enjoy some food on me and take these lucky seven cards because today your luck will be so much better especially eating some burger and fries.” So, that day after I had built some new regulars.

Jaime

MEMPHIS…HOLIDAY IN A CONSTRUCTION ZONE

With the current transition with our Mall to an up-scale, all suites hotel and a remodel in our near future, we decided that if you can’t beat them…. JOIN THEM!!!!

On Wednesday, November 12 we hosted an Open House called “Jilllian’s Holiday in a Construction Zone”.

Our staff was looking sharp with Santa hats, hard hats and construction aprons……

We decorated our building with Holiday Flair!

Guest enjoyed  **EAT**DRINK**PLAY** and everyone was having a great time! Thanks to our kitchen staff, compliments were pouring out about the beautiful and very tasty food! And of course the bartenders were spreading plenty of holiday cheer!

Team Memphis pulled out all the stops and created a HUGE buzz for the Holidays and has everyone very excited about our future remodel.

Oh, and did I mention… several leads were generated for Holiday Parties!

Thank you to Wade, our Fearless GM, and the rest of Team Memphis for their very hard work!

Food Quality….

Impacting Food Quality

To all Jillian’s Kitchen Managers and General Managers,

First of all, let us congratulate all of you for the hard work you have put in recently.  Our new Banquet Packages have thrown some challenges at our staff and our kitchens.  We have introduced new menu items that are doing very well.  The new Café Menu is getting close!!!  Obviously our guests are ready for better selections and variety of items. As Kitchen Managers it is imperative that you all take the time to make sure your food is the best it can be at all times. When your kitchen is producing great food – the word of mouth advertising with our guests spreads quickly!  Your first priority is to ensure Great Food Quality on every shift. This is a huge task and does not happen without proper planning and follow up. We wanted to review some topics and give you some direction that we feel will help your team continue to improve food quality. Please take the time to review this information with your GM. Also team up with your GM to identify areas to improve and put a plan together that addresses how your team will impact these areas. Be ready to share the plan with your GM and Regional.

Continue reading Food Quality…….

A sharp eye siezes opportunity, confirms system check!

I must stop and take the time to recognize Martin Tamayo our Kitchen Manager for jumping all over a great opportunity.

As we all know prices of everything have being soaring! On review of some invoices Martin noticed our fresh Salmon jumping from $5.75 per pound to almost $8.00 a pound.  This is a huge sales item for us and the cost has a big impact on COGS for our property.

Martin pointed out the issue to the vendor and after several calls, diligent follow up and maintaining a great supplier relationship our vendor found the issue, and resolved it very quickly.  The cause of this error was a simple as fixing a programming issue.

It seems that the owner of the Seafood Company locked in our prices into their system for a year. It just happened that while the owner was away on vacation the price lock expired!!  So the staff at the seafood company just kept shipping but at the open market price.  Since we have been a loyal client for almost 8 years we get very special pricing, as well as a volume discount.

The end result is that there was an error and our pricing is back to the $5.75 rate. We have received credits for the over charges and better, more aggressive pricing across the board on all seafood items from this supplier.

A good lesson for all of us is…..high tech is great, but there is still a margin for error. Basic receiving procedures pay off huge dividends when we follow the systems we have in place.

Great job Martin!

MONSANTO - ASI

On Tuesday, June 24, Memphis hosted the Monsanto - ASI Conference Kick Off Event! It was a total building buyout for 400 guests with **EAT**DRINK**PLAY** on the agenda!

It was a fantastic night that included World Champion Billiard Player Sarah Ellerby challenging guests to see if their skills could match hers. (She let them win….a few!) The “King of Beale Street” Billy Gibson showed off his blues harmonica skills in the Video Cafe. Local Ice Creamery Maggie Moos served up tasty delights and guests feasted on a 3 enormous buffets that were not only filled with amazing food, but looked INCREDIBLE! ASI even filled our “claw” machines with special fun prizes for the guests to win.

Our entire team went above and beyond to make our building look fantastic and insured that the ASI guests were having a great time.

When I was leaving the club last night, I ran into the Monsanto - ASI clients. I was greeted with hugs and comments of how great everything went! They were blown away with the service of our staff, how incredible our building looked and just how much fun their guests had. She said that we were the talk of the conference!

 Thank you to Beth our GM, all of Team Memphis, Lisa, Dave Wallace (no one can match your banner hanging skills!), Dave Downey…. Oh my, the list goes on! This was such a team effort! THANK YOU!

Monsanto

I wanted to share with everyone a GREAT party we had here in Memphis last night…..

Monsanto had a partial building buyout with use of our Hi Life Lanes and 9 Ball Lounge. With the support of a fantastic team here in Memphis and Patricia, we delivered a WOW that left Monsanto speachless! We decorated with two ice sculptures, flowers, balloons, live plants, green linen, etc…. Not a detail was over looked!

We have a pending event in June with Monsato and last night they asked about anoter date in July!  - The power of the WOW!!!

Thank you team Memphis and Patricia!

ESM Menu Food Show in Indy Sets the Stage with Huge Success!!!

Back in February we started the process of launching a new Banquet Menu for the ESM departments nationwide. Darren De Roche-GM of San Fran, Spence Crisco-KM of Charlotte, Chip Romp-VP of operations started the long hours of preparations with many conference calls and ideas being thrown at them from all directions. I was also able to take part and watch the project “GROW” into what I believe will take our Event Sales Department to the next level. Many Thanks to Darren, Spence & Chip!

Last week a group of us arrived in sunny Indy for the first of 3 food show conferences to showcase our new ESM menus. The General Managers, Kitchen Managers & ESM’S from Indy, Memphis, Champaign & Worcester along with Tyler Warfield, Darren DeRoche, Spence Crisco, Chip Romp, Dave Wallace and myself set out to learn and understand about the new menus along with gaining a “TON” of new knowledge about banquet table presentations and tricks of the trade from each other.

The energy level was Awesome and the food Outstanding!

The GM’s & KM’s arrived at 5:30am to prep and cook all of the food- a huge undertaking but executed with perfection! The ESM’s arrived at 8am to find that they would each be given a specific menu and they were to set up the buffet from scratch using any and all props they could find floating around! Great Stuff!

The GM’S & KM’s finished around 10:30am and the ESM’s walked us thru each buffet and explained the flow thru and decorations for each of their buffets. A very PROUD moment for all. I believe each of us at the show were equally impressed with what we had accomplished. We each learned more about our business and each other and that is what it is all about.

After eating for what felt like hours we gathered for a round table discussion. We were all excited and proud of what will become of this. A lot of great discussion and ideas tossed around.

We have two more shows slated for Charlotte on July 19 and San Fran for August 1-I will keep you posted. Thank you to all who participated.

Food for thought

As some of you know we have been working on improving our menu. I am hopeful that we will have a new menu launched during the summer. That said, I want your opinions. Please take a minute to share what you like, or don’t like about our menu. I’m looking for feedback on all aspects. Taste, Price, Portion Size, Presentation, Menu diversity, etc. No holds barred. I WANT HONEST FEEDBACK. The only way we will improve is if we can be honest with ourselves about what is right and what is wrong in our company. This is your chance, and I am listening.

 I’ll start with a couple of comments. I think our wings are as good as any other restaurant out there, that said, we can improve them by offering more sauces. Our pizza’s need to improve. Our fish sandwhich is not good. Our Cuban is excellent, and unique. Our burgers are good but could be much better with a change in bun and seasoning. Just some of my thoughts….

I really look forward to hearing your opinions….and thanks. GS