May 9, 2003
I'm an easy diner; my sympathies lie on both sides of the fence. For me, a restaurant is the sum of its parts--the food, the kitchen and the cooks, the menu and the wine list, the bar, the servers and the service, the tableware, the decor, the furniture and lighting, the bathrooms, the signage...believe me, it goes on. A truly great restaurant has all its parts in harmony. It's a rare achievement. After a lifetime of restaurant patronage, I know that there are many ways of running a restaurant, many variations on the theme.The vibe at the Paradise is like schizophrenia--easy to recognize, hard to define. Things have happened here, important things for some people. You sense there was a heyday; it seems grounded, with an long-unpolished venerability. And it's crazy at the same time: service quality, a major selling point for a restaurant, is recklessly erratic; food quality is inconsistent. The atmosphere is often peculiar--soap operas on TV, slovenly staff members in loud argument, dirty tables, and a late-night bar crowd that looks like a casting call for a David Lynch movie. The appeal of such lackluster eccentricities quickly fades, and the reputation tarnishes. Word on the street turns sour.On my third day in Lawrence, three years ago, I went to the Paradise for a late breakfast, primed for a loaded omelette, plenty of coffee and the sunday Times. The server came to the table with the coffee pot in hand--immediate bonus points--and a pleasant greeting. When I responded, "Fine, thanks. And you?", the show began. I heard about financial troubles, impending eviction, sick kids, rotten men, lousy bosses, back-stabbing co-workers, cheap customers...at one point during her wretched soliloquy, I felt certain she was going to ask me for a loan. Luckily, another table was seated nearby, halting the spew. And she did the same thing to them, nearly word for word. And the next table. Eyes were rolling like miserable ferris wheels, and whenever this server left the room, there was an audible sigh of relief from her victims. At the end of my meal, as I was standing and prepared to bolt, I asked her how long she'd worked at the Paradise. "Five years", she said, "five crappy years". And therein lies the rub.There really is no formula for success--70 percent of restaurants close after only one year of operation. There are only some broad, time-tested equations with an infinite number of variables to plug. Add to that the limitations imposed by cash flow, government regulation, the national economy and the whims of a fickle public, and restauranting becomes as challenging as quantum physics. But one equation seems nearly always right, or, at least, makes the odds appear less impossible: Nice place + nice people + good food + good service = happy customers. Happy customers return, and they spread the good word. Positive word-of-mouth is the best advertisement.Lunch at the Paradise a couple of months ago with a friend that always embarrasses me in restaurants: blatant leering at the waitresses; grilling the server on the menu and kitchen prep arcana; lots of silly special requests with his order; endless pretentious complaints about the food; and an unbelievable depth of stinginess. For him, this visit was a triumph. He ordered a latin-themed main-course salad--something "Baja" or "Yucatan"--which featured shrimp, avocado, a salsa-based dressing and tortilla chips for $7.95. I had a bacon and cheddar omelette. The dishes arrived looking like they had been plated with a shovel, and the shrimp and avocado salad contained neither shrimp, nor avocado, nor dressing, nor chips. The eggs were stone-cold and the toast was drywall. It was a bad deal that took fifteen minutes to be put approximately right. After that, only sonar could locate our now-surly waitress. There were a total of eleven other diners in the entire place.Good servers are few and far between. Most of the time, servers work the least hours, complain the most, and make the most money--tips, goofing with co-workers and a free meal appear to be their purest motivations. To this server ilk, the tip is a given, expected just for flouncing over to the table--the quality of their service is irrelevant. And when their typically self-centered and haphazard performances are righteously reflected by a light tip, it's the customer who's a jerk. Bad equation. A good server, on the other hand--a loyal ambassador of the house--is an invaluable asset to a restaurant--perhaps a restaurant's greatest asset. More host or hostess than plate-schlepper; one who sees a guest, not a customer; one who is well-trained, well-informed and well-cared for; a person with highly-developed multi-tasking skills and a personality suited to close contact with the public. Dealing with the public isn't easy; much of the time, the customer is wrong, especially in restaurants, where the unrealistic expectations, attitudes and pretensions of the guests further muddy the waters. But without them you have no business--you have to find a balance. A common, and often fatal, symptom of restaurant imbalance--disharmony--is poor service.Dinner with Patrick Quinn and Alan Nelson, Monday night at 7PM. Patrick and Alan are notorious, long-time downtowners and both are confirmed Paradise breakfast devotees. Each of them had been there for breakfast that same morning--our server, Mollie, knew these guys well. We were the only table in the bar section (the window booth), and she took good care of us. I had no idea what most of them meant, but the following names thudded softly around our table--absurdly underscored by the Cartoon Channel--while we looked over the extensive menu: "The Black Jack Inn. Melissa McCoy. Homestead Grays. Chuck Mead. Lisa Wilson. Cornucopia. Jenning's Daylight Donuts. Tin Pan Alley. Harvest Cafe. Red Lion Bill. Hound Dogs. Carlos' Red Hot Garage. The Bull and The Boar. Billy Ebeling. The New Yorker. Fifi's. Freedy Johnston. Shorty's." "Icons of the heyday," I surmised. I ordered a couple of starters: Crab Cakes ($5.95) and Baked Brie in Phyllo ($6.95). Quinn, rejoicing in the newly-born "Moscow-on-the-Kaw" which is Boog, Rundle and Schauner, ordered the vegetarian lasagna special ($8.95, dinner salad included). Alan picked the KC Strip with a baked potato (8 ounces, $15.95, dinner salad included). I had yet to try the burgers at the Paradise--the Paradise burger with Swiss and Bacon looked good ($5.20), and the home-baked bun advertised on the menu clinched the decision. A side of wedge-cut fries cost $1.10. (The dozing bartender switched the channel on the TV, deducing that Fear Factor was more appropriate to the dinner ambience--an episode in which the contestants eat the penii of large game animals.) Apart from variances from menu descriptions and sloppy presentations, I've rarely had a problem with the food at the Paradise--it usually tastes fine. I don't expect high art, just good eats. But I go mostly for breakfast--a dinner experience featuring a piece of salmon so old you could smell it before it left the kitchen had engendered a defensive dining posture...eggs is eggs.The crab cakes were two shades from burned, yet the centers were cold, served with a mayonnaise-based sauce best described as vague. The brie was still solid in the middle and the phyllo dough damp and plastic, not flaky; the accompanying marsala-sauteed mushrooms suffered from too heavy a hand with the wine bottle--the alcohol hadn't cooked off and the mushrooms were boozy. Both cooking errors were the result of overly-high heat: appliances in restaurant kitchens are set to higher temperatures than average home appliances. The large volumes of cold and/or room-temperature foods introduced to hot surfaces drastically lowers the temperatures of those surfaces, as does the constant opening of oven doors. Burning appliances at higher temperatures compensates somewhat for the cooling effect on busy nights, and explains why, on slow nights, things look cooked on the outside but remain uncooked within--the temperatures should have been adjusted to suit the slower pace of business.But we were hungry, and forgiving of such "minor errors" at the Paradise--the appetizers didn't last long, the last of the sauces mopped up with their good, home-baked bread. Quinn enjoyed his salad--words I never thought I'd write--even commenting on "the nice vinaigrette". "This was one of the first places in town to offer vegetarian dishes", said Quinn, connecting to his salad, "and, in the late nineties, they had babe waitresses". "They were also the first place downtown to have fresh seafood, and to bake their own bread," recalled Alan. They dredged up more names and more anecdotes while I watched the human parade on the sidewalk, one of my favorite things about the Paradise. Both Alan and Quinn have lived in Lawrence for over twenty years, and their affection--nay, reverence--for the Paradise was plain to see. Our main courses arrived, and I was immediately jealous of Alan's steak. It was cooked exactly to order and, to me, at half a pound, just the right size (although by Kansas standards, I'm an underachiever in the beef consumption department). A good baked potato with a healthy dollop of sour cream filled out the platter. Quinn's massive portion of vegetarian lasagna came with a thick wedge of garlic bread. My burger was thick and juicy, the house-baked bun yeasty and light--the thought "best burger in town" flashed through my mind. The fries were standard foodservice issue, overcooked. Conversation ceased as good food worked it's magic--if you know Alan or Quinn, you'll realize the import of that statement. Mollie kept us happy with prompt refills. The bartender surfaced from his coma and prudently switched back to the Cartoon Channel. This meal was a relative success, but we were still the only table in the bar section and one of only four occupied tables in the house. Breakfast at the Paradise three days later at 1.30PM. The usual bacon and cheddar omelette. Two other occupied tables in the bar section, a half-dozen in the rest of the house. A group of dawdling employees in loud conversation at the bar, a situation that the young, unshaven server seemed reluctant to depart. In fact, he continued his participation in the conversation as he waited on his tables, shouting his comments across the room. The omelette came, but no silverware. Coffee refill? Impossible. When the toast finally showed up, it was inedible. (Come on, guys--it's toast! Cooking 101.) The bellowing server dropped me the wrong check--when I pointed it out, his mood immediately darkened. He slipped the right check into the folder, slapped it down and stalked off. Remarkably, he was annoyed with me for not wanting to pay the wrong (more expensive) bill. Every small town has a version of the Paradise Cafe, and they are all more than mere eateries. They are the attic treasures of a local culture; places where, once upon a time, the cool people of the moment made a cool scene happen. Many of those people are now players in Lawrence's social, political and economic cultures. But those times have changed, that sheen has faded and there's no coasting on flat ground. It's time to be a restaurant again, and that's much more than paint on the walls and cosmetic refurbishments. It requires an honest and deep personal inventory from management--an examination of identity, purpose, product and systems. You can't just blame all the tired, poorly-trained employees, sweep them out the door, dust your hands off and proclaim the problem solved. Fish rots from the head down; if there's trouble in any business, look first to management. Management carries forth the vision, management creates and implements the systems, and management sets the pace and tone. In a sense, restaurants are living organisms; they are human concepts and constructs, operated by humans, for the use of humans. And just like humans, they get tired, they get sloppy, they look a little shabby. And just like humans, they can shake off lethargy, apathy and old, counter-productive habits and get happy again. I hope the Paradise does exactly that.
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mamsir (anonymous) says...
I'm sorry to find out about the demise of the Paradise Cafe. I have heard about it's tainted history with past ownership, etc. You would think that an establishment such as the Paradise might just be invincible because of the local support and ravings it received, not to mention how long it had been in existence. What a shame that poor management was able to shutter its doors and possibly twist it's identity into something that Lawrence doesn't need much more of- a bar. If anything, by turning the Paradise into a bar the owner has created more competition for himself than he would have had as a strongly supported locally owned legendary restaurant. I am sure he will find this out if/when he attempts it. I almost laughed when I read that the current owner thought that the failure was due to restaurant competition (I would have laughed if I wouldn't have been so pissed). If anything, there is a lack of competition in the restaurant industry (in Lawrence), and the city could always use a new dining concept to tempt its palate.
I currently live in large city, and it is so frustrating to see so many potential concepts flop because the "entrepreneur" hasn't taken the time to develop a concept and business plan. Something as simple as poor location, not thinking about your target market, or say, turning a legendary restaurant into a mediocre rock bar is a predictable road to failure.
Please, Mr. Owner, sell the poor bastard to someone who is truly interested in running a successful restaurant and allowing it to shine with all of the potential that it has (had?). I hope that the community fights like it always has for the Paradise, and I look forward to seeing the new and improved Paradise cafe RESTAURANT on Mass. when I move back to Lawrence next year...
December 23, 2003 at 6:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )