LIVE TO EAT: Food for thought from Ryan Rogers.

The umbrella.

We like to say in the restaurant business that we can tell consumers what our restaurant is, but within six months, our consumer tells us what the restaurant is.
-- Ryan Rogers

For those with the wherewithal to elude Louisville Business First's paywall, there is an excellent short interview by Haley Cawthon with Ryan Rogers, founder of Feast BBQ, Royals Hot Chicken and bar Vetti.

You'll recall that his first restaurant was the now defunct Feast BBQ in New Albany (2012-2018), currently being remodeled as an addition to The Exchange.

Rogers' sentiments about Louisville's restaurant industry are worth noting.

Chef Ryan Rogers talks Royals expansion, Louisville restaurant industry

What’s your opinion on Louisville’s restaurant industry? Do you think it’s overly saturated?

I think it’s a healthy restaurant market. At the end of the day, the restaurants give the best service, the best food and the best value are the ones that are successful. I think competition is good in the marketplace.

The one thing I would say is that we have a lot of people who want to get in the restaurant business because they see it from the outside and think it’s a fun job to have. But it’s a job at the end of the day — it’s not a retirement plan or something you do as a hobby — it’s a seven day a week job.

I think that competition will only continue to improve the quality of the restaurants that we have in Louisville.

Feast BBQ in New Albany is closing, and the last day will be Wednesday, March 28.

Happy times.

Rumors have been swirling for months, but today Ryan Rogers finally made the formal announcement. It's sad, but I'm looking forward to what comes next in this prime space that share a wall with The Exchange.

Nostalgic? Here's the 2012 press release, and a column of mine from the same year.

More details as they emerge ... for now, just the facts.

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Feast BBQ

It is with clear eyes, but a heavy heart that I announce our final day of operation in New Albany will be on Wednesday March 28th. Feast BBQ outgrew our space in New Albany the day we opened the doors to 300+ people there on July 4th, 2012. We have been faced with the challenge of operating a restaurant in too small of a space, with nowhere to expand, ever since.

I am appreciative of the overwhelming support we have received over the past 5 and a half years from the community as well as from our employees present and past. I look forward to putting the building in the hands of someone who will continue to steward the historic property for years to come.

I hope that you will continue to join us at our larger Feast BBQ - Market St. NULU location in the NuLu neighborhood in Louisville (909 East Market Street). We are also working diligently to finish building an additional Feast BBQ location in downtown Jeffersontown’s historic Gaslight Square District (10318 Taylorsville Road) that we hope to have open this summer.

Today, we operate three other restaurants (Royals Hot Chicken & bar Vetti) and employ over 120 people across HiCotton Hospitality. We will continue to support our mission of supporting our staff members by covering the costs of shift meals, we pay a starting wage above minimum wage, offer employee discounts to our other restaurants, and help to cover the costs of healthcare for our full-time employees. All of the employees in New Albany have been offered jobs at our other restaurants.

I would personally like to extend a special thank you to Steve Resch, Jerry Finn and Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County, my Family, Phillip Beaman at Monroe Shine & Co., Inc., Keith Pulliam with Applegate Fifer Pulliam LLC, our first year employees, and the myriad of others that took a chance and supported a 26 year old who had no idea what he was doing.

As a special thank you, please enjoy $3 Beers Tonight (Saturday), $2 Beers on Tuesday, and $1 Beers on Wednesday. While they last. We certainly don’t want to waste any beer.

- Ryan

LIVE TO EAT: Rogers, McCabe, their new Bar Vetti and Danny Meyer's "no tipping" movement.

For every action ...

Danny Meyer Has a Few ‘Tips’ of His Own, by Anna Lappé (The Nation)

An interview with the restaurateur behind Shake Shack on ending tips and educating diners.

Meyer is increasingly seen as a leader in bringing progressive values to a cutthroat industry. Case in point: In 2015, he announced that a number of his restaurants would eliminate what he’s called “one of the biggest hoaxes ever pulled on an entire culture”: tipping.

 ... there is an opposite and equal (and predictable) reaction.

Danny Meyer, David Chang, Others Sued Over No-Tipping ‘Conspiracy’, by Whitney Filloon (Eater)

A lawsuit claims restaurant owners are profiting from zero-gratuity policies at the expense of servers and diners

The no-tipping movement has widely been praised as a way to improve the lives of restaurant workers, but a new lawsuit claims restaurant owners are really the ones profiting from zero-gratuity policies.

A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in California federal court names several Bay Area and New York restaurants — including those owned by no-tipping pioneer Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group — as defendants, and claims that no-tipping policies are “part of a conspiracy to charge [diners] more for their food,” Law360 reports.

The suit argues that restaurant owners, including Meyer and Momofuku boss David Chang, colluded to establish no-tipping policies in “secret meetings,” and that the real aim of such policies was to line their own pockets by raising menu prices.

Across the river, two food and drink professionals who are quite well known to New Albanian eaters have embraced the no-tipping model.

As a reminder, in most of Europe the service and various taxes are included in the bill, and either indicated clearly on the check or posted in plain sight. The rule of thumb is rounding up; if you think your server did a good job, bump the total a Euro or two, up to 10% maximum. However, you're under no obligation to do so. 

In essence, what you see is what you get. I've always liked it that way.

Best of luck to Ryan and Andrew with Bar Vetti and their "no tipping" policy.

How HiCotton Hospitality plans to make pay equitable in its restaurants, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

Business partners Andrew McCabe and Ryan Rogers are tired of people looking down on restaurant work as an entry-level job, but they also recognize that making a good living wage in the industry can be tough.

“Before I opened my first restaurant, I was like any other restaurant employee in this city working as a line cook making an hourly wage and trying to figure out how to make ends meet,” Rogers said. “How do I pay my rent? How do I pay my car? How do I pay my insurance? And then: What am I left with?”

With the new Italian restaurant Bar Vetti — opening Monday, Oct. 16 — McCabe and Rogers are testing a different way to compensate employees that they believe will allow workers to make good money and eliminate wage discrepancies between employees who work behind the scenes and those who work out front.

“We want to change that [perception] and make it more of a career path,” said McCabe, who also is executive chef at Bar Vetti.

First, Bar Vetti has a “no tipping” policy, so servers and bartenders paychecks won’t suffer if business is slow. And second, Rogers said all workers would be paid “well above minimum wage.”

“It’s a big gamble for us. It’s an experiment,” said Rogers, founder of the restaurant group HiCotton Hospitality.

Ryan and Ian and Roger on the radio, tonight.

Those infernal Louisville-area television stations with such short attention spans forgot all about me after the Sherman Minton Bridge reopened earlier this year, so it’s time to take my talents to Clear Channel radio, at least for one Thursday night in June.

I’ll be joining Ryan Rogers and Ian Hall tonight on Chefboyardean. The show runs from 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at 1080 AM Talk Radio, WKJK. Ryan's new Feast BBQ is days away from opening in New Albany, and later this fall, Ian is moving his Exchange pub + kitchen to space adjacent to Ryan's in the former Shrader Stables building on Main Street in New Albany.

Chefboyardean is hosted by the legendary Louisville chef Dean Corbett, but Dean’s out of town, so stepping in as the radio program’s guest host is my former beer student, the freelance food writer and all-around great guy Steve Coomes. Just like Steve, I have the perfect face for radio, although Ryan and Ian are fairly photogenic.

We’ll be talking about Feast, Exchange, NABC and downtown New Albany’s dining and drinking scene. Tune in, and read Steve Coomes's explanatory column here.

A compendium of NABC news.

From my "other" blog.

Ryan Rogers and Roger Baylor on the radio. Read below to find out when.

Haggis Laddie is back -- even if its primary reason for being (Celts on the River) is not.

"LIBA kicks off 'Independents Week' a little early with the Louisville Brewfest," coming June 22.

NABC Black & Blue Grass at Iroquois Amphitheater for Counting Crows concert, June 25.

Turbo Hog Malt Liquor: It's a long story, indeed.

Full text of the Feast BBQ press release.

The Feast BBQ press release has been excerpted elsewhere, but I thought it might be convenient for you to read all of it. Native New Albanians, or anyone who has lived in the city for any length of time, should take note. Ryan might have chosen to situate his start-up in Louisville, but chose New Albany instead. Several on-line accounts I've seen today actually used the term "restaurant row" to describe downtown NA. Believe it, people.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: R. Ryan Rogers
Tel.: (502) 296-8325
Email: bbq@feastbbq.com

BBQ TO JOIN DOWNTOWN NEW ALBANY'S RESTAURANT ROW


Feast BBQ scheduled for Spring opening

New Albany, IN ( January 10, 2012) Chef Ryan Rogers announces the opening of his first restaurant – Feast BBQ - in the Spring of 2012 at 116 West Main Street in downtown New Albany, Indiana. Feast BBQ will be focused on great BBQ, Bourbon, and Craft Beer.

Chef-owner Rogers is excited to be a part of the burgeoning food scene in Downtown New Albany and is eager to contribute the BBQ recipes, techniques, and sauces he has been crafting. “Low and slow is an understatement. At Feast we will take the time needed to treat the BBQ with the utmost care and attention”, states Rogers. “ While extremely labor intensive, the results are worth the efforts”. The menu will include traditional BBQ such as pulled pork, baby back ribs, brisket, & chicken along with house-made sides, and a variety of appetizers and desserts.

In addition to BBQ, Chef Rogers plans to offer New Albany’s largest selection of bourbons with over 50 brands, as well as a wide variety of beers where he will maintain a focus on locally- brewed and craft beers.

Chef Rogers is a graduate of the renowned French Culinary Institute. His past kitchens include Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York (where Chef David Chang was named 2007 Chef of the Year by both Bon Appetit and GQ's), The Oakroom (Kentucky’s only 5 Diamond Restaurant), Zanzabar (where as head chef he received 3 Stars from The Courier Journal), and the Anchorage Café where, along with Andy Myers, he was called one of, “The Brightest New Chefs in Town” by LEO Weekly.

Feast BBQ will be located at 116 West Main Street across from the YMCA. The building was built in the Italianate style and served as various New Albany saloons from the 1880’s until the mid-1980’s when it was vacated. Renovations are currently underway for the Spring 2012 opening. The original brick walls have been uncovered and will showcase a series of photographs chronicling the building's history and revival.

You can follow the construction and launch of Feast BBQ on Facebook and Twitter at facebook.com/FeastBBQ and twitter.com/FeastBBQ