![]() The last one we had was mostly seafood-based, and we ended up selling way more steak than crab or raw oysters! A few weeks ago we ran a series of burgers that cost over $15 and included ingredients like duck fat, escargot and smoked goose skin, and we flew through those specials. They’ve been taking place the last Monday of each month… we let a different chef take over the kitchen, or Chef Klenotic spearheads something. Since that worked, though, we’ve done a few “chef takeover” diners. The lobster itself costs us around $25 a pound, not including the rest of the plate, so there’s a lot of risk in carrying an item like that unless it’s selling well. JESSE: Well, we sell a ton of lobster rolls in Ohio, and it was one of the most well-received specials that we ran, which is how it ended up on the menu. Now that you’ve established that, what’s next? As they keep coming back, though, I’m guessing that you’ve found that there’s an untapped market for upscale fare. It’s not something that I would have expected, given the local economy. ![]() I was surprised, for instance, when $18 lobster rolls showed up as a special on the Wurst Bar menu. ![]() MARK: As someone who finds business strategy unusually interesting, it’s been fun watching you change things up, and try new things. If you take out the remodeling, I think we have the process down to 6 days at this point. We opened Wurst Bar in 15 days, including remodeling and menu design. As for building the place from scratch every year, that’s been a great learning curve in the past 5 years, we have basically opened 6 times from scratch between the two places. So, whatever employees want to go with us to either place are more than welcome to. This past year, we brought anyone (from Wurst Bar) that wanted to go with us and experience island life, and we returned with an Ohioan, Brigid, our Island House floor manager. JESSE: Every year, the Island restaurant, which is seasonal, has a crew that’s about 80% new. MARK: Did you bring your kitchen crew with you from Ohio, or are they all locals? And, if they are from here, how hard was it to build that team from scratch? I expected the food side to get where it is eventually, but it’s nice to see the hard work our kitchen crew delivers getting acknowledged so rapidly. I mean, most of the work in pouring a craft draft is done by the brewery and the distributor before it even hits our draft system. I do feel that we are more unique as a bar in that we sell a lot more food than anticipated, but we also put a lot more effort into the food than we do into the beverage side. As for the breakdown between alcohol and food, the other restaurant that I operate ( Kelley’s Island House in Ohio) does about the same in terms of food-to-drink sales, and it’s more geared toward food culture, than the beverage side of things. JESSE: Well, honestly, everyday I’m caught off guard by something. Has that been the biggest surprise, or are there other, more significant, things that have caught you off-guard this first year in business? MARK: I’m not sure if you want for it to be public knowledge, but you’ve mentioned to me before that over half of your sales are non-alcohol, which, I suspect, isn’t something that you were anticipating when you opened a bar right across the street from Eastern Michigan University. To commemorate the event, I thought that I’d interview the bar’s owner, Jesse Kranyak, and see how things have gone since we last spoke… One year ago this month, the Wurst Bar opened its doors in Ypsi.
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