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!

 

 

 

JaimeÂ

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!!!

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…..

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Jaime

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

Thanks to Jillian’s IT Stars!

Team Seattle just wants to thank James Lee and John Sowders for their amazing dedication and hardwork. We found ourselves without our computer here in Seattle (Restaurant Magic included). As you all could imagine, this sent us here into quite a panic! Until we lost the computer, we didn’t know how much a key part of everyday here at Jillian’s it is. Come to find out we had numerous viruses on the computer that were deleting programs and files. As we were all stressed, James and John had us send in the hard drive, fixed the problem quickly and low and behold I sit here writing this blog from the very computer!

Once again, thank you James and John for your constant support to all the locations and spending tons of time on the phone and helping out, even when it is very late at night. It is definitely appreciated. You two are the best!