Notes, stories, and conversations about food, hospitality, technology, and turning ideas into action.
July 9, 2026
Happy Thursday
I realize that most weeks I'm mixing in conversation from multiple podcast episodes at once. The launch of this Scaling Up newsletter was a few weeks after the launch of season 4 of the podcast, so we'll always be a couple of weeks behind until I slow down on the show. I hope that's ok!
Anyway, on my mind this week is the notion of deciding when housemade/handmade makes sense versus when to outsource or bring in machinery/automation to scale up production. It came up in conversation with Jenn and Chat, founders of 55 Hospitality, on the podcast, and the three of us lit up as we began to talk about it.
I remember when I opened my first restaurant, a hot dog spot called Bark, we made our own sauerkraut. (Almost everything was made in-house). We found chardonnay barrels and hand-cut hundreds of pounds of Norwich Meadow Farms cabbage. It took the whole crew a whole day, then, of course, another month to ferment. It was very tasty. That said, we were going through like 1500 lbs in a month. Then I finally calculated how much it was costing us.
The yield on cabbage for kraut is ~50%, and that's before you factor in the insane number of man-hours required to hand-cut cabbage. Even when we tried shifting to cutting the cabbage on the meat slicer, it still took an entire day. I remember thinking, "This is insane. We are not a factory, and there's just no way we can keep up with this." But the thought of buying premade kraut was just not something I was willing to do. I never found a premade kraut that I loved or that we felt would align with our ethos of quality at the restaurant.
But we started to search and found one from Hawthorne Valley Farm. It was pretty damn tasty. And then it clicked, we are buying from farms, we want to support these farms, why the heck are we killing ourselves just so we can say we make our own kraut? Turned out to be a very easy decision and changed how we thought about the menu. Every decision would be based on what was best for the customer and our model, not what made us feel better about ourselves.
I am certainly not advocating for buying all premade food. We are in the business of cooking. The point is that every decision we make about what makes vs what we buy, what we prep by hand vs what we use a machine to help with, should be based on what is best for the customer. Every kitchen will be on a spectrum, and that's a good thing.
We subconsciously do this with more than we think, even if we believe we make 'everything' from scratch. Very few restaurants, for example, are making their own fish sauce, or soy sauce, or cider vinegar, or dried cayenne powder. There may be a good reason to be fermenting your own sardines and making fish sauce, but that better be a good reason. Because the time and labor spent doing that in-house vs buying from Red Boat or Blis, is time not spent on something else core to your business.
Now, if your restaurant revolves around fish sauce, then yeah, maybe make your own. If not, think about who you're making it for. Is it for you or your customer? Also, I know this example is a bit of an extreme, and maybe there is only a handful of restaurants in the world that actually make fish sauce in-house, but it's a fun example to make a point. So feel free to swap this example for homemade ketchup if that's easier:). But we all know Heinz is king.
Check out the clip below and the episode, and would love to hear your thoughts so chime in.
Some things are definitely just fun and rewarding to make in-house, no matter the effort. One of those for me is the Mexican sauce Mole. I went down a deep rabbit hole of exploring regional Mexican cuisine for quite some time, and one of my all-time favorite versions of the sauce comes from the Veracruz region, a town called Xico, and the sauce is Mole Xiqueño. It's a lot of work to make, but well worth it. Sharing the recipe below, this one is inspired by the late, great Diana Kennedy, actually.
And speaking of making things in-house, meez has a lot cooking! Excited to share what's coming very soon. We have been moving so much faster with AI, rebuilding the foundation of how our product and engineering team approach development. From an updated recipedraft and approval workflow and menu build cards, to a meez MCP and faster data transfer and AI-powered meez intelligence to transform your recipe and menu data into actional revenue driving outcomes, and getting the answers your staff and customers need by simply chatting with meez.
Jenn, Chat, and I discuss why it's ok to get a machine to cut hundreds of pounds of peppers, save your Nenox for the shallot brunoise. And to Jenn's point, "Everything is reflected in the price point."
Jenn Saesue & Chat Suansilphong of Fish Cheeks, Bangkok Supper Club, and Bubs Bakery
Jenn Saesue and Chat Suansilphong, co-founders of 55 Hospitality, met while managing a Thai restaurant group in Hell's Kitchen and went on to build Fish Cheeks, Bangkok Supper Club, and now Bubs Bakery, the first top 9 allergen-free bakery. All of it bootstrapped, no outside investors. We recorded this one in person in the dining room at Bangkok Supper Club.
Why Fish Cheeks opened with under 20 items and no pad thai
Pad Thai was pushed by the Thai government (most Thais eat it once a year)
Refusing to dial down the spice for the American palate
Why sourcing is the only moat once recipes leak
The stigma against machines in kitchens, and why it's shortsighted
Building Bubs with Melissa Weller: taste good first, allergen-free second
This sauce takes a lot of time, but it's worth it. It's maybe the sweetest version of the classic Mexican Mole, due in part to a lot of local fruits from Veracruz used to make the sauce.
You should not rush into making this one. Carefully toast the spices, nuts, fruit, bread, etc., slowly in the lard. Make sure to get a nice char on the tomatoes and the chilies. Some people also char the onions and garlic instead of sweating with no color. I find there is so much toast and char already in the sauce that it's not needed, but feel free to double up on char if you like!
Obviously, it will be great with poultry, pork, beef, and actually works really nicely with salmon or Sable (Black Cod) too. (Try slathering the fish filet with the sauce, wrapping it in banana leaves, and roast in the oven for ~15min.)
