Episode 02
Piggy’s Reopens Its Lunch Buffet. Owner Talks About Lingering Challenges Being a Restauranteur.
Guest: Chris Roderique, Owner of Piggy’s & Uno Venti Restaurants
About BizCast Greater La Crosse
We bring you news from the business community. From startups to experienced problem solvers, you’ll get in-depth insight on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Greater La Crosse. Our show is a collaboration between WIZMNews.com and BizNews Greater La Crosse ( GreaterLaCrosse.media ).
Transcript
Chris Roderique 0:02
Pre-pandemic it was pretty simple because we had 17 years of experience or something. And now it is just it. It is so difficult.
Vicki Markussen 0:15
Welcome to Greater La Crosse BizCast, news from the business community. I am your host, Vicki Markussen. And joining me is Chris Roderique. He is chef and owner of Piggy’s and Uno Venti, and obviously interesting times happening in the restaurant industry, not just downtown, but throughout the community. A part of that is because we just don’t have the business travelers back.
Chris Roderique 0:35
I think the business travelers are a huge part of, we call it a weekday business. A lot of people Fridays and Saturday nights, that’s when they go out because they’re working. Every restaurant is busy on Fridays and Saturdays during the week. That’s where the challenge comes from. We rely heavily on the business travel, especially being downtown that is a huge part of our business, you bet.
Vicki Markussen 0:56
How much do you think it is down? And how do you know it’s down?
Chris Roderique 0:59
Even just walking through the dining room, my main factor is I would just look at the bar and the bar would always be packed with business travelers because we’re surrounded by hotels. We’re probably 30% of where we used to be. I mean, it used to be just packed. Nobody wants to sit by themselves as a business traveler. They will go to the bar and have a conversation with the bartender and have a bite to eat. And we just don’t see that. As strong as it once was.
Vicki Markussen 1:25
We also know that Kaplan, Logistics helped other businesses downtown if moved to remote working. Obviously, that has changed the dynamics of your customers as well, again, for that weekday crowd. How have you adapted your business?
Chris Roderique 1:40
Yeah, well, that’s that is the tough part. That’s the challenge. Since the pandemic, we have not reopened for lunch. And the reason we haven’t reopened is exactly what you said. There are so many businesses that are still remote. It’s a challenge. Do you open for lunch, and hope for the best, when pre-pandemic you had 3000 people within walking distance. We’ll take a chance on that, but right now, we’re a little cautious to bring it back. We have been talking about it. We’re looking at maybe a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. But again, we want to make sure that we’re smart. We want to do it right. We want to make sure that we’re successful and deliver the product that people are expecting.
Vicki Markussen 2:23
But even the physical use of your building has changed. A lot of people say what happened to the upstairs dining?
Chris Roderique 2:29
Yeah, well, when we, when we were shut down. That was pretty traumatic. We actually laid off 71 employees.
Vicki Markussen 2:37
Wow.
Chris Roderique 2:37
That was the hardest meeting I’ve ever had to do. So then when we were given the green light to slowly begin opening and stuff like that, we were talking. The restaurant business was going to be a challenge, as it is, let alone two of them. Add in Uno Venti there now you’ve got three of them. It’s just like, let’s think about this. What we decided to do is renovate the, the lounge downstairs. Then we took a hybrid menu from the upstairs and downstairs and put that in place. Then as we looked at how business was returning to the lounge, and after six months, and we decided to you know what, let’s just revamp the upstairs into meeting rooms or event rooms, whatever you want to call it. The thought process behind that is now we can book events, we can book a rehearsal dinner on a Friday night, we can book a bridal shower on a Saturday, we can do anything, where there now the predictability is there. We know we need two cooks, two servers and a dishwasher. And that’s it, to where if you have a full-blown restaurant, the predictability is gone. You have so many factors that come into play, be it weather, what’s going on at the Center, what’s going on in town because then you have to staff for a busy night. And then if you don’t have that busy night now you’re just wasting expenses. We decided that we would work smarter, not harder. So we have the one restaurant just going Tuesday through Saturday right now.
Vicki Markussen 4:04
Trying to predict people walking in the door or whether an event is going to have as many attendees – and be able to do that far enough in advance is very challenging. Can you talk about all the pieces that you have to monitor to know how much food to order, how many people to put on?
Chris Roderique 4:18
Pre-pandemic it was pretty simple because we had you know 17 years of experience or something, and now it is just it is so difficult. I mean, there are Tuesday nights that are sometimes they are just packed. Then the next Tuesday there’s nothing in, how do you plan for that? We are always adjusting. Our menus are still printed in house on paper so that we can make the changes. You know you have supply chain issues. Oh, you can’t get codfish. Well, how do these places do fish fry when you can’t get cod? There was a shortage of shrimp. You can’t get big shrimp. Scallops are through the roof. You are constantly adjusting, and you’re trying to find ways to just you know deliver a great product again, with managing your expenses. That’s that is the tough part. Now, I mean, expenses are murdering people out there.
Vicki Markussen 5:06
And not only that, but people have their favorites, right. They know they want to come to a restaurant because they love this dish. And if they can get it, how do you manage expectations?
Chris Roderique 5:18
That’s, that’s the tough part. It happened to us. And we had seafood Thermador. I have had that on the menu when I opened in 2001. Scallops are through the roof. They’re like $35, a pound. Shrimp got ridiculous. Lobster. All this stuff got so expensive. And to keep any type of margin, we would have had to been charging like $55 for this dish. It’s just it’s not, it’s not worth it because you’re not going to sell it. And then you’re just going to have spoilage. I ended up taking it off. I got you know, a few people, “Oh, I’m so disappointed.” I said, “Well, stay tuned. Maybe we’ll be able to do a feature with it sometime soon.” It is, it is a different animal now.
Vicki Markussen 5:55
So as you are adapting and changing the use of your space, you were able to help out an entrepreneur.
Chris Roderique 6:01
I’ve had a gentleman that’s worked for me off and on for probably the last 10 years. His passion has always been to open his own place. It was very difficult to find a location, you know, those types of things that we all are faced with. One day I just said, You know what I said, we’ve got those event rooms upstairs. I said, Why don’t you just take like the one on the north side and just, you know, set some tables and chairs and just do your thing, just test the waters, see the reaction and go from there. Just get it out of your system and just get going with it. And he’s been doing that for probably the last three months. On Sundays. His place is called Sagra. It’s an Italian for a festival. And he’s rustic, Italian. Reservations only. One seating. Sunday nights right now. He’s hoping to expand that but, and all, Mitch is doing a great job with that. We’re pretty proud of him. And it’s again, I mean, when I was, you know, a long time ago, that was my dream. I’m happy to be able to help them out. He’s doing a great job,
Vicki Markussen 7:05
You collect a little bit of rent, that’s the win for you. But for him, he doesn’t have to pay for a full kitchen. He does … like it’s ready to go. It is turnkey. He just opens up. He’s ready to go. He can test things before he has all of the long-term lease, the overhead. How significant as that as someone wanting to open a restaurant?
Chris Roderique 7:29
That is huge. It certainly wouldn’t have happened pre-COVID Because the upstairs dining room was rocking and rolling. For him, I think it’s great exposure. His risk is minimal. My risk is minimal because, you know, the space is just there. You know, there’s a lot more to operating a restaurant than just cooking good food. Those are the things that he’s kind of learning now. His saying to me is, I just want to cook. But Mitch, we have to do the numbers. We have to do the payroll. We have to pay the taxes. We have to … you know …. So it’s a great eye-opener for him to have that there is’s a lot more to it than just cooking food.
Vicki Markussen 8:11
For small businesses that are locally owned their businesses, their retirement plan. So as you own a building as you own restaurants, you’re starting to think ahead and say, how what’s the exit plan? Right? That’s honestly what some people say is you have to start a business and understand what the exit plan is. So you’ve put your building up for sale. Can you talk about that?
Chris Roderique 8:33
Yeah, so we just decided to list the building. The real estate itself is for sale. Piggy’s is not. Uno Venti is not. If somebody wanted to come in and maybe do their own thing, then they would have, uh, Piggy’s would then pay rent, Uno Venti would pay rent. Creative catering company, in the ballroom, and off site catering would pay rent. It’s an awfully cool building.
Vicki Markussen 9:02
It is.
Chris Roderique 9:02
1871 historic, you know, maybe someone’s got some ideas. We just decided let’s let’s just put it out there and see what happens.
Vicki Markussen 9:10
And from a purchaser perspective, obviously, when banks are lending money, they love to see that there is income coming in. So if there are restaurants that are willing to pay rent, it certainly opens up possibilities for someone else using that space.
Chris Roderique 9:25
True. Yeah, like you said, built in income.
Vicki Markussen 9:28
Thank you for listening to Greater La Crosse BizCast – news from the business community. I’m Vicki Markussen. We’ll see you next time.
