Building a better back-of-the-house: a design for efficiency and quality

Nation's Restaurant News, March 27, 1995 by Alan Liddle

Vegetables -- broccoli, carrots, yellow squash and cauliflower -- are portioned and bagged in plastic with seasoned butter during the prep process and then stored in plastic containers on the line. The make-up person pops the needed number of bags into a microwave to cook and steam the vegetables in their own juices, and the expediter opens the bags and positions the butter-coated vegetables on the appropriate plates.

The large Idaho potatoes used at Outback are basted with margarine and coated with kosher salt before baking. They are pulled from the oven at set intervals and chain policy calls for their use within an hour.

Before sending the spuds on their way, the expediter fills them with a scoop of sour cream and a scoop of butter whipped with whipping cream. Bits of bacon and chives are also available for the potatoes of guests desiring those condiments.

Even with a fetish for from-scratch cooking, Outback chooses to take some shortcuts for consistency, labor-saving or convenience' sake. Among them is the baking of brownies from a mix made to the chain's specifications.

Once blended, the brownie mix can be portioned and poured into pans to be held in the walk-in refrigerator for up to three days. The appropriate number of pans are then pulled from the walk-in daily and baked off.

Outback portions can be called "generous" by almost any standards, with steak and prime rib cuts ranging from 8 to 20 ounces, fish steaks weighing in at 10 to 12 ounces and chicken breasts hitting the scales at 5 and 8 ounces. That factor and the chain's fondness for fresh foods contribute to relatively high food costs of 41 percent of sales, Avery says.

Company officials say that when beverage sales and pouring costs are factored into the mix, the chain's total food and beverage costs represent about 39 percent of the gross.

Chainwide, for all departments, Avery says, labor costs range from 19 percent to 23 percent of sales, depending on unit volumes and state and local laws covering such things as minimum wage and tip credits.

Lakey says his kitchen labor costs range from 9 percent to 13 percent of sales.

To protect outback from wild fluctuation in food prices, which can be disastrous for a concept running high food costs on a regular basis, Tim Gannon, the chain's senior vice president of operations, tries to get suppliers to guarantee the price of major commodities for extended periods that now average about six months, Avery says. Because Outback's signature items are steaks, the chain continually must guard against theft.

Avery says daily manual inventory counts are compared with sales reports to make sure that the number of steaks missing at the end of the day matches the number reported sold.

That precaution and other "common-sense" steps are taken to foil would-be thieves at his unit, Lakey says.

"We use clear trash bags so we can see if large items are going out the door, and we lock the back door a set time daily," the kitchen manager says. "We don't allow employees to bring in big, bulky bags [or purses], and while employees are allowed to eat one free meal a day, they must cat it here so there are no `to-go' containers walking out of the restaurant."