Feeding People from My Kitchen
 

I'm just throwing this out there.
I've had kicking this idea kicking around in my head for a while.

Was thinking of opening up my basement to some home cooked meals.
The meals would be pretty simple, I make food, you will probably eat alongside myself, maybe some of my friends and some random strangers.

It would be a relaxed casual atmosphere, I'm not really serving people so much as buying the ingredients and cooking. You would probably end up scooping up your own portion of potatoes or veg or whatever, grabbing your own water too.


Hypothetically speaking, would $15/plate or head or whatever sound reasonable?
Obviously no tax or tips or anything like that.

I would probably stock beer and might want a small profit on it, but that would be extra.



If I was doing prime rib or duck confit or something more uppity, I would probably bump it up to a $20 bill.



Let me know, just kind of curious. Are people creeped out eating food from some guy's basement who isn't food safe certified? Does the prospect of paying to scoop your own veggies and starch turn you off?

your creations are awesome and look great, but to make the effort to go to some dude's basement and serve myself is not something I would go make my way for.

at 20/plate for something uppity, the price point is stretching it IMO: atmosphere, self-service, et cetera.

Sounds like Chef Todd's Apartment 12B. But $15-20/head sounds more than reasonable after seeing the stuff you've made

:fuckyea:

i want your ribwich and fried chicken

throw in prime rib or beef wellington

EPIC MEAL TIMES @ CULVERINS

underground restaurants like what you are planning are becoming real popular. I think it's great idea.

Sounds a little weird to me anyway, but others sound like its a great idea. You would need proper licensing if you were going to do it like that and espesially if you wanted to serve alcholol you would need your serving it right.

You can think of it as him inviting some "friends" over for dinner and in return for food they are just pitching in money to cover some costs. I think that is how other underground restaurants operate.

I've been to one of these "Home-served" place who can serve 2 full Chinese style banquet inside his house. Excellent food better than most full-size Chinese restaurants in Vancouver. He actually ended up moving to a bigger house so he can host more people.

I think the most important thing is to screen your guests. Start with just people you know and their friends. Start small and if everything works out it would do great by just word of mouth.

Good luck! =D

epic meal time with some epic blaze?? :D:alonehappy:

^ im down.

Seen pics of dishes that you've made and they look delish.
Make it happen!

Double post.

Underground restaurants are illegal and that's part of the appeal.

I would not serve alcohol but let people BYO. The government is very strict on serving alcohol.


This one is run out of a condo:

VANCOUVER: Chef Alex Mok underground supper club « are you gonna eat that?

List of a ones in Vancouver
http://www.saltshaker.net/underground-dining-scene

I know Alex from back in the day, he's often on the radio etc. Enough said, I'm sure you can google. FYI, number 1, it's underground and it's illegal. there was a place in richmond where the house was burnt down and what happens? sorry, out of luck, not part of insurance since you ran a business from it ( how will they know? Well, police and the fire station will come and interview the withness and they aint' going to lie).

Doing it as a JOB versus doing it for fun is totally different thing.
1) you need food safe, you need a decent oven / range / etc that's fit for a restaurant
2) your food needs to be done well and it has to be "worth" it.
3) you have to constantly change up your menu. No one is going to come back every 3 months for the same thing
4) you are planning at 5 course meal, for 8 people, you're going to be using over 100 plates and utensils, that's a huge investment and you'll need someone to help you clean. That's a lot of work if you're doing it yourself. (what about an assistant?, sure but that's $$$)
5) You won't break even if you're doing 15 dollars per head. People are expecting something that's not just a steak and some smooth mash potatoes, it has to be something that's they have not tried before and you have to carry it out all the way from 1st to last course. You might be amazing for main course, but you need to have just a solid of a background for dessert etc.

I've done it before and it's a lot of work. Good luck!

My suggestion:

Invite friends only. Close friends. Not the chump you met last week through a friend. Not the hot blond you met two months ago at a conference. Not the professor you keep in touch with from 2nd year.

My friends and I do this on a regular basis but we only stick to our close group of friends. The last thing you want is unwanted attention. Somebody from the Strata thought we were running an underground kitchen and things got ugly. Any way, every time we did something like this, we all split the bill amongst ourselves and a few extra bucks to the host. We're mature adults so money is never really an issue.

Well, good point about the legalities of it all.
I should probably just limit it to friends + guests.
I mostly wanted to check if the price point for the kind of atmosphere was even acceptable.


As for help, my bro is on board. He's just as passionate about food as I am, almost all the pictures I've posted are joint projects, not mine alone. We wanted to do something together as fun and practice.

Good point about BC and the liquor licenses. Probably a BYOB would work much better without getting me into all sorts of trouble.


6793026,
I wasn't going to turn this into work, not even a weekly thing. It's just purely for my amusement. It's like if I'm roasting a chicken, why not throw 2 or 3 in my oven (it is a commercial oven after all) and see who wants dinner. Ditto with things like ramen. Making a small batch and a large batch is really just about the same amount of labor.



Yuffa,
Any info on that home cooked chinese meal? That sounds epic.

I found the food at ambiance of chef Todd to be overrated. Yes it was a great idea and step away from the norm but I would not go back..

I feel exactly the same. Went to 12B with a friend who said it was highly recommended to her. It was ok, but I wouldn't go back.

My friend had a pig roast this summer. Charged $20-$25 a head, set menu, came with a alcoholic beverage. Hes been doing these quite regularly too, found a good niche in the market as all his events sell out.

Latest one: Alice in wonderland meets fine dining (underground culinary event)

$129 gets you: 5 course Prix Fixe menu + Entertainment + A Cocktail + BYO Wine/Beer.

:) Swallowtail huh.

$129 per head? dear lord

Why aren't we doing this @ our T-Cafe meets? :rofl:

What am I missing out on?
:alone:



Anyways, in the midst of making tonkotusu ramen stock... After I'm happy with the stock, I'll invite over some friends and some church buddies and see what they think.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2021.29.50.jpg


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...2021.40.43.jpg


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2022.18.42.jpg

^ Nice Mise en place porn. Are you gonna make your own alkaline noodles as well?

Of course you would know.

dam.
looks real good too :T