The California Restaurant Association (CRA) came to Santa Barbara on Wednesday for a wide-ranging discussion with local hospitality leaders on the various trends in the industry, such as the increasingly high costs of food and staffing, legal compliance issues, focusing on priorities, and how to compete and grow in an ever-changing market.
Held at the Santa Barbara Public Market event space on Victoria Street, the event featured networking opportunities — and refreshments, of course — followed by opening remarks from Jot Condie, CRA president and CEO. Then a lively panel discussion on “Navigating the Future of California Restaurants” with Don Conner, CEO of Whiskey’N Rye Smokehouse and ‘Que in the Public Market; Chris Miller-Root, Sr. project manager of kitchen operations at The Cheesecake Factory; Sherry Villanueva, co-founder of Acme Hospitality; and Peter Sherlock, executive director of food & beverage at Chumash Casino.
Keeping real time track of data was of high importance and a priority for staying nimble, especially when profit margins can be slim. Using technology to your advantage and simplification of systems was also a running tip for success.
“You have to have systems,” said Sherlock. “If you don’t have systems, procedures, policies, procedures in place. You’re done, and that’s for one restaurant or a thousand. It doesn’t matter. That’s the way the kitchens work, right? You don’t have a system. You’re not going to be able to get to it.”
While all four participants have vastly different operations, some of their core ideas were remarkably aligned.
Asked what keeps them motivated, Miller-Root said, “the thing that pushes me most is that there’s so much that needs to be learned within the industry. So the more that I can continue to press information and support to the industry and realize that there’s a lot more growth there, that pushes me through.”
“A lot of people get into this business because they love treating other people well, but they may not understand the economics and the operations and the resources that are involved in all those components,” said Conner.
He continued, “And I just feel, you know, we’re in the business of hospitality, which could be restaurants, wineries, hotels — a variety of things that fall into that realm — where we have the opportunity to impact people’s lives and their feelings, and for those people to go away from our businesses feeling special, and that’s why I personally kind of get excited about the business.”
Villanueva added, “I think for me, what keeps me going is the privilege of being in service to other people, and I really mean that from my heart. I feel like it is a true privilege when we can be in service, when we can care for people, and that’s both our guests who are coming to our restaurants every day and our team who come to work every day. And that idea of really leaning hard into service and doing it in a way that makes, to your point earlier, makes them feel cared for. I think it is a privilege and it’s a responsibility. And I love when guests trust us with their most precious and important moments of their lives, and our team trusts us to run a profitable and a stable business that allows them to provide for their families. You know that relationship between all of us, and really being in service to them in that way is what keeps me going.”
Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse, a former restaurant owner himself, was in attendance, as were owners and operators of several of the town’s bars and restaurants and representatives from the hospitality industry. This was the first event of its type here, but California Restaurant Association territory manager Rachel Campana, who moderated the panel, said they hoped to have future events in Santa Barbara. For more information, see calrest.org.
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