Trixies leads 'junk food' revival

Nation's Restaurant News, April 17, 1989 by Ken Frudman

TRIXIES LEADS 'JUNK FOOD' REVIVAL

NEW YORK -- In an age of health and fitness obsession, a funky, Southern-style Manhattan restaurant is popularizing a variety of fried, high-calorie, cholesterol-laden side dishes by catering to young post-junk food eaters.

Trixies, on 47th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, offers a wide range of $2.95 to $3.95 a la carte accompaniments, such as sweet potato fries, fried plantains, grits with butter, scalloped potatoes with black beans, and Cheddar-garlic mashed potatoes with year-round entrees, such as fried chicken, homemade meat loaf in puff pastry, fried catfish, and surf'n'turf--filet mignon and jumbo shrimp.

"We suggestively sell these heavy side dishes as comfort food, especially in the cold fall and winter months," says 27-year-old Dana "Trixie" Flynn, the restaurant's sole owner and inspiration.

Of course, Flynn offers her 1,500 weekly customers more nutritious side dish options as well. Among the healthful options: a carrot and beet puree, collard greens, rice with black beans known as hoppin' johns, mixed vegetable succotash, red beans and rice, grilled Chinese cabbage (or bok choy), and a broccoli and snow pea pod julienne.

Side dishes account for 8 percent of Trixies' gross sales, anticipated to be $1 million-plus in the second full year, Flynn says. The restaurant opened New Year's Day 1988 and is currently serving only dinner Monday through Saturday from 6 p.m. "until the last customer leaves," Flynn explains. Trixies will begin serving lunch in the fall, she adds.

Side dishes are listed on the bottom of the dinner menu with the encouraging slogan, "Have A Side Of..." If the written advertising doesn't work, waiters and waitresses chime in with their own cheery side dish song.

To boost the $25 average per-person checks, servers push sides of collard greens, plantains, hoppin' johns, sweet potato fries or "majentic" mashed potatoes (Trixies' so-called majestic mashed potatoes mixed with magenta-colored beet juice). It's not unusual for one customer to be convinced to order more than one of chef Dan Tulip's side dishes "to share," Flynn says.

That option, particularly in regard to side-dish finger foods, is naturally enhanced by Trixies' layout. The majority of the tables are side by side in the center, forcing diners to sit New Orleans style -- communally, elbow-to-elbow among friends and strangers. Private booths run down one side, and a banquette stretches alongside the front window and under the telephone.

By far and away, sweet potato fries are the restaurant's most ordered side dish, the signature add-on accompaniment. In fact, Trixies goes through 40 to 60 cases of sweet potatoes a week, according to Flynn.

The popularity of Trixies' sweet potato fries was tested recently when the restaurant had to raise the price from $2.95 to $3.95 a serving because of the drought in the South. Sales of the shoestring fries have nonetheless held steady, Flynn reports.

Flynn and Tulip are experimenting with three types of sweet potato fries. "We want to be able to freeze them and sell them retail to be warmed up later in the oven," Flynn says.

Part of Trixies' merchandising and marketing strategy is to allow its predominantly Yuppie clientele to mix and match entrees and side dishes. For instance, homemade meat loaf in puff pastry is often paired with garlic spuds, homemade gravy, and succotash ($14.95); surf'n'turf is usually tied in with white-beans salsa, roasted new potatoes, and the carrot and beet puree ($15.95); fried chicken is matched with pesto garlic spuds and succotash ($13.95); and catfish with pecans is accompanied by hoppin' johns and collard greens ($13.95).

"We try to be as flexible as possible," says Flynn, who describes her food concept as "friendly American cooking with a twist."

The twist in this case is an eclectic catch-as-catch-can list of daily specials that might include Thai chicken with coconut curry and Spanish rice on Monday; gravlax with sugar, salt, fresh dill and cilantro on Tuesday; gumbo with corn pone pudding on Wednesday; grilled tuna with orange cilantro butter on Thursday; black angus beef with corn-tomato salsa and whole baked potato on Friday; and fried chicken with bourbon dip, Creole dip, or pesto sauce on Saturday.

PHOTO : Dana 'Trixie' Flynn, owner of Trixies restaurant in New York City.