Wheels on the road.
We first introduced you to Aaron J. Michaels and Culinary Convenience Inc. in February of last year. The place is a full service "mobile toy store for chefs," and major restaurant equipment supplier. From plates to knives to chef shoes to grills, if you need it, they've got it. And Aaron will roll right up to your door with it in his fully stocked, walk-in mall of a truck.
We recently spoke to Aaron, here's what he had to say.
There're a lot of places that closed before they were open in 2009. I can't divulge that information because I could end up in a lawsuit, but unfortunately there are people that should not be in this business that are in it, people that don't understand the business. Their dream is to open a restaurant, but they don't know a thing about it.Log on to culinary-convenience.com for more info.
That's why there's an 86 percent failure rate. When I was in school, that was the standard for the restaurants that failed.
Most of the time they're under-financed. They don't understand, they think they can operate on a very tight budget and they can't. They buy the wrong pieces, the wrong applications, in the wrong locations, and they don't do anything unique.
I used to always hear from accountants and doctors and lawyers who were making very good money, "Oh I wanna open a French bistro, an Italian restaurant...." They make a lot of money and they end up investing and losing everything. They try to go cheap in the beginning and basically when you don't buy quality you get the result of that purchase.
Anybody successful in 2009 kept it simple.
They went back to the roots. They went back to business 101 and learned what this economy means and what people are looking for. People are still goin' out to dinner, people love it. People love good restaurants that know the business in South Florida, that know the meaning of service. They've learned to diversify and cater to what the people are looking for.
Steak 954, Jason Smith is an amazing Chef de Cuisine. He puts out phenomenal product and you come out of that restaurant fully satisfied. They know quality.
Meat Market, phenomenal job.
Prime 112, they believe in quality, they find that quality pays off in the long run.
All our clientele is good: Joe's Stone Crab, Michy's, Sra. Martinez, Pacific Time and plenty more.
We just started culinary-convenience.com We need to diversify to be successful. It's for people who are not even in South Florida. We're expanding to new clients in new markets.
There are residential people, cooks who are looking for special things who really like to cook, and like having the best equipment, or want to find really good kitchen shoes, or restaurants in other states looking for equipment, or anybody who wants to buy anything can buy from us.
We show we can do more than just what we normally do.
