Hey Capital Icebox,
Thanks for posting your grievances in a somewhat humorous form. For someone like me who obsesses over the quality of the meat and fries and literally loses sleep over them, it helps to hear it from someone who obviously cares. I hear complaints, some small and some large, every week. Often times, because of the nature of the business, I’m not at liberty to give a very detailed response to those expressing some of their "fatter" concerncs. So I’m taking the opportunity here. I’ve never responded to a post before, but your kind and thoughtful approach inspired me to put off sleeping so that I might try to explain the other side of the story.
Doing what we’re trying to do - serve an organic Wagyu burger and fries cooked in olive oil isn’t a straight-forward task. There’s a reason (in fact lots of reasons) that no one has done it before. Most people thought I was crazy to try to do what we’ve done, but we’ve given over three years of our lives (including planning, researching, etc) to doing it, we're doing it successfully, and we’re not about to give up now.
Elevation Burger uses organic Wagyu beef which is almost impossible to come by. Sunnyside is out of the market and we buy from their supplier now. (All Sunnyside was doing, was getting almost mature cattle shipped to them from another rancher, feeding them for a few months and slaughtering them.) Getting consistency with this beef is extremely difficult. There are times (evidently you haven’t experienced them) when the burger has optimal juiciness, and then there times when it doesn’t. This is mostly a function of how the cows are raised, how long they're kept before slaughter and what they’ve had to eat in the last few months before being slaughtered. Unfortunately, I don’t have any control over this. If I had another half million to invest though, I would gladly try to take control of it. But even with all of these uncontrollable factors, what is the result? You get a burger that is the same size, and (usually) better in taste to what the “other guys” are selling, while at the same time nutritionally superior, and comparable in price (I believe the other guys are 14 cents cheaper for a single cheeseburger and we are 3 cents less for a double cheeseburger.) I don’t think you’ll find a better deal out there.
Add to what I’ve just said the fact that the meat we buy is twice as expensive as normal ground beef and that fuel costs (note that farming, cattle ranching and olive growing are energy intensive endeavors) are rising rapidly (and getting passed through to us through every single product we sell) and I think you’ll see that Elevation Burger, even with some of the inconsistencies you point out, is still an outstanding value.
I’ve talked about the beef, now let’s drill down into the fries for a moment: We’ve gone through hoops too numerous to mention and too convoluted to explain in order to make the fries that we make. (We're actually patenting the process). Are they always perfect? No. Are they pretty good? 98% of the time they are. Are they better than 92% of what’s out there? I think so. We have recently been at the mercy of the world Olive Oil market. Because of rapid reduction in world supply, the particular brand that we used, and that you used to find so appealing, unfortunately ran out of stock. What they are now making in their place is, I agree, not quite as nice as the old stuff. So what I do I do? Usually, after everyone is asleep and I’ve put in a 10 hour day, I surf the web and track down alternate sources. What follows is an elaborate and sometimes frustrating effort of obtaining samples, testing them, and trying to find something comparable. So far, I'm finding nothing that is as good as the stuff we are getting. And olive oil is just one half of the problem. Come August, the market will run out of the kind of potato we use, and then we will be compelled to switch to its red headed stepchild, the Norkotah. This will, again, change the experience slightly and will inspire many comments to me and to Don Rockwell I'm sure.
Over the last nine months I’ve given a lot of thought to the main issue that you’re raising, and I think it’s this: People want conflicting things. They want the uniformity and speed of McDonalds, but they also expect a fresh and 100% consistent product. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to occur unless you go to one of two extremes: 1. You become a monster chain with thousands of stores that has the ability to dictate to suppliers exactly what it wants or 2. You become a sit down restaurant that charges extremely high prices. This second option allows you to be ultra picky and pay premiums for whatever you want to buy, and still be profitable. But if you’re running a single-location, high volume restaurant and charging relatively low prices, the reality is that there is a tradeoff. If you want fresh and un-homogenized, un-McDondaldized product, you have to deal with the variation, the seasonal differences, and the perturbations of nature that manifest themselves in the food you buy and serve. Will we be able to strike a better balance between these two poles (i.e. fresh/juicy and consistent) in the future? I think so, but we still have some things to learn about buying, sourcing and controlling the production of the products we buy for use in our restaurant. We also will probably have to get bigger so that we have more leverage in the market place (but of course when we do that, someone will complain that we're too big, not realizing that bigness sometimes allows you certain prerogatives, that directly influence your food, that are not possessed by the little guy!)
Anyway, thanks for listening, and I hope that when you come to Elevation Burger, you’ll realize that the best way to enable us to achieve these goals is by continuing to support us.
Sincerely,
Hans Hess
Owner
Elevation Burger
PS. Introduce yourself to me in the store. I'll buy you lunch and we can chat face to face!
