Chef Erik Blauberg is the restaurant fixer. Like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction, he comes in (right into the kitchen — “I’m not in an office all day. I’m in the trenches,” he told the Daily News in 2008) when things fall apart. For a restaurant, that means empty tables.
Blauberg, who was formerly the executive chef at Manhattan’s 21 Club, has one strategy (besides “streamlining” the staff, which would shock no one) that might surprise: veganism. He adds vegan and vegetarian items to a menu based on the assumption that there are so-so-called Veto Vegetarians out there. When a vegetarian is eating out with us carnivores, goes the theory, the group will not eat at a restaurant that doesn’t offer meatless, (and, yes, even vegan options), costing the restaurant the business of the entire party.
Blauberg tells Plate magazine, in the June edition, about two long-running New York City restaurants he was recently charged with resuscitating. “If you put a vegan item on the menu,” Blauberg told Plate, “It will outsell a regular item.”
Now, while we’re not quite sure we’d follow that as a universal truth, Blauberg reports that at one of the restaurants, “We launched the new menu, and the first night we sold 60 or 70 vegan options.”
And at the other buckling boite, Blauberg advised putting a vegan burger on the menu to complement the Kobe burger. “Most of the time the vegan burger outsells the Kobe burger,” Blauberg says. “They sell 100 to 150 vegan burgers a night. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Of course, one reason might be that his vegan burger has a menu price of $15. Now, we’re not sure what the Kobe burger costs at the place because restaurants who call in Blauberg don’t exactly advertise that they needed the Wolf, but rest assured it probably ain’t $15 bucks. We have Side Dish investigating and will report back when we uncover this mystery omnivore’s delight.
And for the record: Give us a nice ground chuck and we are fine.