Happy Thursday,

We spent a lot of a recent podcast episode talking about Chilis.  (Yes, the 🎶 I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back...🎶, that Chili's).

They have had a massive comeback under the leadership of CEO Kevin Hochman, focusing on food quality, simplifying the operation, and a marketing play that leaned heavily on viral social media moments that I can only imagine has incredible economics as opposed to traditional advertising.  

The menu engineering here, in my opinion, is brilliant.  The secret sauce is literally the sauces (and a few other SKUs that carry a ton of weight).

More specifically, they have done an exceptional job cross-utilizing a few high-leverage sauces that create a lot of optionality without the need for a lot of SKUs.  

Around 10 sauces like Honey-Chipotle, Nashville Hot, Buffalo, and Cajun sauce are mixed and matched across a handful of proteins to create an exponential number of options, so the menu seems big, but it's deceptively small in SKUs.  

Why is this important?  Every additional item you have on hand in inventory requires its own care, its own storage area, its own pars, and has its own unique volatility in the supply chain.  The fewer SKUs you have, the more variables you can control.  The less training that is required.  The more buying power you have for higher volume of each SKU.  

And there is an added benefit.  The focus on a smaller number of SKUs means you can spend more time not only ensuring they are managed well, but making them uniquely your own flavor profile (sidenote: David Chang, I hate you have given me a complex about saying the words flavor profile).  This use of a select small number of component recipes that are super-dialed in and have something unique that makes them stand out gives you a huge advantage to help your menu stand out.  

I have talked about this in some past emails and in this blog post.  I am a big believer in the power of cross-utilization not just for the economic benefits but because it's also a lot of fun when you nail a few recipes that will work well across a lot of mediums.  I'll share more of those in future newsletters.  

For today, I thought it would be fitting to share a baby back rib recipe.  This one is a sous-vide rib for those who don't have a smoker but want the perfect texture and smoke.  Candidly, it's a derivative of a recipe from ChefSteps, a great resource for recipes.  

🎙️ The meez Podcast

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How Chili's Got Hot Again and the K-Shaped Economy Debate

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Mike Jacober and I got into the Chili's comeback this week. Kevin Hockman's SKU rationalization, why the K-shaped economy debate might just be clickbait, and why Sysco buying Restaurant Depot actually matters.

Plus a long detour into why sausage is the most underrated burger format in America.

• Inside the Chili's turnaround: Kevin Hockman, fewer SKUs, faster food
• Is the K-shaped restaurant economy real, or just a good headline?
• Why Sysco buying Restaurant Depot is a smart SMB play
• Sausage as the better burger meat (the case, finally)
• CAPEX on equipment vs OPEX on headcount when you raise capital
• Cabbage Key, manatees, and a triple tail that actually delivered

👉 Listen to the episode

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📔 Chef Notes

Cross utilization and reducing SKUs

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Shared my thoughts above, but you can check out the clip below or, better yet, just head to the podcast and get the whole episode.

👉 Clip from the pod here  

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Recipe:

Sous vide baby back ribs, Kansas City style

Aside from this being a great recipe, it's also a great example of the power of dynamic scaling in meez.  Plus, if you're a fan of standard or bakers percentage in recipes, we highlight that option as too.  

For many cured meats, sausages, and BBQ, oftentimes all of the seasonings are simply a percentage of the base weight.  In this case, you just weigh your rib rack, update the quantity you get into the recipe, and the remaining ingredients scale accordingly.  And if you're weighing in a different unit of measure than is shown, just change the unit and then the quantity.  Easy peezy.  

You could technically do this without using an immersion circulator (sous vide).  Swap the sous vide step, wrap the ribs in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, and cook in an oven at 200deg F for 4 hours, but the sous vide method will be far more controlled.  

If you're not into the pink salt, you can omit it and swap for kosher salt, but it provides a nice color and a little of the classic BBQ ring effect as well as some additional safety with the cure; it's not essential if you don't have it.  But it's pretty easy to get on Amazon.  

👉 Check out the recipe

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We are always looking for operators, chefs, and food industry leaders who have a story to tell.

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⚖️ Want to learn more about dynamic scaling?

👉 Find some time with our team here

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