Young boys dream. In my early years, while friends fantasized about being astronauts, soldiers, and firemen. I wanted to be Darren Stevens on the television show, Bewitched. The prospect of being married to a beautiful witch who could conjure up Benjamin Franklin in the middle of her living room with a twinkle of her nose was appealing to me as a six-year old boy. Though what truly intrigued me about that show was Darren Stevens’ job as an advertising executive. Even at that early age, the prospect of coming up with creative ideas and pitching them to a client appealed to me.
As the decade of the sixties ended, my television crushes moved to Marsha Brady and Laurie Partridge, but my career dreams leaned towards Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. No longer was I enthralled by Madison Avenue pitches in a 32ndfloor office but being on the road with the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band and all that a job such as that seemed to bring with it— the groupies, the lifestyle, and the music.
By the mid-seventies my goals had switched from the desire to be on the stage at a rock concert to being the guy backstage writing about those concerts. I subscribed to Rolling Stone magazine for three decades beginning in the seventies. Writer Cameron Crowe— who was just a little older than me— was constantly on the road with the bands I loved. That became my dream job all throughout high school.
When it was time to go to college, those former dreams had waned, and I felt aimless. Since I had been working as a radio station disc jockey I majored in communications. Though my primary focus was partying. Since there was no job availability for a full-time partier, the lifestyle caught up with me and I flunked out of college.
Flunking out turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me because it forced me back into the workplace. I found a job managing a deli and fell in love with the restaurant business.
I fell quickly and I fell hard.
It was truly love at first sight. I became all-consumed with restaurants, food, and the hospitality business. My dreams became more focused, more reasonable, and more attainable. I managed the deli during the day and took another job waiting tables at night. I went back to college and got a degree in Hospitality Management. I studied restaurant books in the library between classes and stayed up late after my server job designing menus and future restaurant concepts.
My original goal was just to own one restaurant so I could wear shorts and t-shirts to work every day. Though, as with most things in my life, plans changed. I didn’t open one restaurant to start, I opened two, side-by-side, on the same day.
Since then, I have opened 24 concepts. As of today, we have seven up and running. Over the years I have sold several of those former concepts, closed a few when the lease ran out, sold the property on one, sold out to partners in others, and re-concepted almost a dozen times. If one is going to stay alive in this business for almost four decades one must be willing to change, evolve, and keep moving forward. I’ve never bankrupted a concept, but I’ve closed a couple making sure to take care of all the team and vendors.
As a restaurateur, my greatest talent is in concept development. We have a New Orleans-themed casual restaurant that is our flagship, a neighborhood bar with four manned bars and six bar spaces spread indoors and out, two Italian restaurants, a burger joint, and a breakfast/lunch community café. We’ve opened several concepts that are in the various notebooks of restaurant concepts and ideas I’ve dreamed up over the years. But there was no bakery.
I dreamed of a bakery for almost a decade before I opened one. I fell in love with bakeries while traveling overseas in Europe and felt a strong connection in the mornings while dining on freshly baked croissants. I was four decades into this restaurant journey when I finally got around to making a bakery a reality.
I am often asked which of our concepts I like most? This isn’t a copout answer, but there is no correct reply to that question. I love them all like I love my children, equally. Though, just like my children, one might be a problem child in the moment, but I have always believed, “Business is problems, a successful business is problems well handled.” The alternative is to get out of business, and I never plan to do that. I love them all, and I love them all for different reasons.
But opening a bakery had been a singular dream for a long time. After a couple of dozen openings, and in an area of the industry that I was unfamiliar with as an owner, I knew that we should slow-roll the offerings at the bakery. We rolled out breads first. The team nailed those from the start. We focused on King Cakes next and, in my opinion, came up with one of the best I have ever eaten. After Mardi Gras we began to focus on the pastry case. We nailed half of the items, but others we continued to tweak.
It wasn’t until a month ago when I brought a pastry chef up from New Orleans that we began perfecting our croissants. This was a sea change for our small bakery. Not only are croissants my favorite pastry in a bakery— and my morning go-to in bakeries around the world— but the croissant dough is a workhorse. If the croissants aren’t right neither are the almond croissants, chocolate croissants, ham and cheese croissants, chocolate-almond croissants, Danish, and a few other items.
After a few weeks working with our team, the croissants began tasting like my favorites in bakeries across the country, and even in France. It took a year, but, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the restaurant business over the years, it’s that one must keep pushing forward to continually get better every day. Now that the croissants are where I want them to be we will focus on other items in the pastry case before rolling out cakes, pies, take-home goodies from our coolers and freezers.
I love bakeries. I love being a bakery owner. I love the early morning beehive of activity that occurs in the hours before opening. The wonderful aromas that come from the freshly baked breads out of the deck oven and the beautiful, sweet fragrances that escape throughout the building every time they open the doors to the rack oven. I love that people eat and meet in the morning over croissants and coffee and gather in the afternoon for cookies and cappuccino. I especially appreciate that we are able to use the bakery as a commissary which can supply our other restaurants with freshly baked products on a daily basis.
Lasting success in the restaurant business rarely comes overnight. One must be willing to stick things out, change, evolve, admit mistakes, and keep moving forward, relentlessly. But one also must keep dreaming. Stay tuned.
Onward.
Homemade Boursin Cheese and Cucumber Sandwiches
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 Tbl salted butter, softened
1 /2 tsp Creole Seasoning
1 /4 tsp Minced garlic
1 /8 tsp thyme, oregano rosemary, chives, basil, dill, sage
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped fine
2 Tbl half and half
1 tsp sherry vinegar
1 /4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 /3 cup sour cream
To make the cheese:
Place all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on high speed until all ingredients are well incorporated, scraping sides of the bowl occasionally to ensure all ingredients are combined.
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced into very thin rounds
1/2 cup shaved red onion
12 pieces wheat bread
Spread the boursin cheese mixture evenly over six slices of the bread. Arrange the cucmber slices on each piece of bread, making sure to cover the entire surface of the bread. Spread divide the red onions evenly atop the cucumber slices and top with the remaining slices of the bread. Cut the crusts from the sandwiches and cut each sandwich into 3 rectangles. Cover well and refrigerate until needed.
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)
