Goodbye filet mignon, hello hangar steak. Foie gras, we hardly knew ye.
Faced with an especially cost-conscious and formality-phobic dining public, some Chicago restaurants are gearing down in a big way, changing their looks, menu prices and even names to appear less stuffy and more welcoming.
Blackhawk Lodge, a nine-year fixture in the North Michigan Avenue area, ditched its white tablecloths and progressive-American menu in August to become Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap, an informal hangout with an old-fashioned menu that’s big on beer, burgers and barbecue.
Harvest on Huron, a critically heralded contemporary-American restaurant in River North, has gutted its dining room. It will open in mid-November as Allen’s Cafe–still featuring the upscale cooking of chef Allen Sternweiler, but with dishes that are less complex and less expensive.
Mossant Bistro, the dining room of the Hotel Monaco near Wacker Drive, is reinventing itself as South Water Kitchen, a concept serving macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and other homespun American dishes. It will open later this month.
Lowering prices is not exactly a new technique; it’s a well-established strategy for troubled restaurants. And when prices drop, there’s typically a reduction in niceties such as linens and fancy floral arrangements.
But up until now, price-cutting rarely affected a restaurant’s essential identity. Restaurateurs seeking to attract cost-conscious customers typically added a few lower-priced dishes to the menu, introduced promotional discounts, or eliminated luxury ingredients (foie gras, lobster) in favor of more affordable items (short ribs, lamb shank). The emergence of Jake Melnick’s, Allen’s Cafe and South Water Kitchen suggests a growing number of upscale restaurants may be taking drastic measures to lure customers.
Patricia B. Daily, editor-in-chief of Restaurants & Institutions magazine, sees this as a trend that’s likely to be around for a while.
“A lot of restaurants, if they didn’t have good bar business right now and the ability to build on that, would be hurting much more than they are,” she says. “And with the bar business comes a more casual approach, the creation of a more convivial environment. As restaurants re-concept, that’s what they’re reaching for. The starchiness has to go away.
“There’s a belief all this hangs on 9-11,” Dailey says, “and it’s not that simple. The vibrancy of the economy was fading . . . and these lingering effects have more to do with that than the events in New York and Washington.”
Each restaurant’s makeover also addresses specific issues. Five-year-old Harvest on Huron won plaudits for its food, but customers and critics griped about the restaurant’s noise and comfort levels. Mossant had almost nothing to lose with its remake; the bistro concept never found an audience, and was further hampered by the Wacker Drive reconstruction project. Blackhawk Lodge was by all appearances a successful operation, but its concept probably had run its course–and with sister properties Bistro 110, Cafe Spiaggia and Spiaggia mere blocks away, Levy Restaurants was well-positioned to bring in a low-end concept.
Though its check average is just $14, compared to $40 for the old Blackhawk, Jake Melnick’s is compensating with volume, say its owners.
“Every week has been busier than the week before,” says Levy Restaurants president Larry Levy. “We’re selling tons of beer, and we’re serving more lunches in one weekend than Blackhawk Lodge would serve in a month. The most gratifying comment I’ve gotten is, `Boy, did the neighborhood need a place like this.'”
Though increasing customer counts was a prime motivation, Levy says changing the Blackhawk concept was also a product of the national mood.
“These are very serious times,” Levy says, “and Blackhawk was a very serious restaurant. I think people want to relax more, to be with friends more and to lighten up in general. We wanted to create a place where you’d find only the things you want to eat, a blue-jeans atmosphere where you can identify every [menu] ingredient.”
Blackhawk Lodge’s timber-and-stone dining room remains virtually untouched. Gone, however, are the white tablecloths and formal place settings; Melnick’s tables are topped simply with wire caddies that contain paper napkins, flatware and condiments. The greatest cosmetic changes took place in the lounge, where the bar was lengthened, bar-height tables added, and the room filled with video games and a dozen TV screens.
The menu offers seven hamburger varieties, several incarnations of barbecued ribs and chicken and pub-style appetizers such as Buffalo wings and nachos. “We eliminated every fancy inclination, every ingredient that was hard to pronounce.” Levy says. “The only exception was the wasabi mayonnaise on the tuna burger.”
The Blackhawk Lodge wine list was lengthy and ambitious, including some bottles priced well over $75; Melnick’s offers about 20 bottles, almost all less than $40. But there are 50 beers, 16 on tap. Prices are modest, and regular specials ($2 for Amstel Light and Heineken on Saturdays, for example) drive the cost even lower. “For $14 you can get a burger and two beers,” Levy says. “Some nights, $14 gets you a burger and three beers.”
Converting Mossant to South Water Kitchen was influenced as much by the calendar as national mood. Though general manager John Inserra (who also owns value-conscious D. Bob’s American Bistro in Park Ridge) acknowledges the new concept reflects “the changing landscape of America,” the timing has more to do with the two-year Wacker Drive construction project (set to finish Nov. 20).
That new face, set to debutNov. 25, will feature an intimate-but-informal atmosphere that Inserra says “will evoke the comforts of home.” The focal point will be a 30-foot-long exposed kitchen that will fill the dining room with the aromas of buttermilk biscuits, roast chicken and beef stew. Vintage Chicago photos and other memorabilia will lend a sense of history.
At least seven basic entrees, from skillet-fried chicken to oven-braised pot roast, will be priced at $14, along with most of the blue-plate specials, including veal parmesan (Wednesdays) and New England seafood boil (Sundays). A few entrees are even lower, and only two are $20 or more. The bar area will feature American bourbons and beers, along with specialty cocktails named after U.S. highways (the Route 66 will be a signature), and will accommodate light eaters and time-constrained pre-theater diners with a menu of appetizers, sandwiches and pizzas, priced from $3 to $12.
The changes will be far less dramatic at Allen’s Cafe when it opens in a couple of weeks. Chef Allen Sternweiler bought out his former Harvest on Huron partners, brought in a new financial partner and changed the name to reflect the new ownership. And, since he figured “a new name should have a new look,” Sternweiler stripped the dining room to the bare walls and started over.
“The decor was out of date,” he says. “We had too many complaints about the lighting, seating and noise level.”
Sternweiler also plans to simplify his menu without compromising his culinary integrity. That means there still will be plenty of dishes such as a slab of foie gras sandwiched between halves of a diver scallop, and longtime favorites such as the prosciutto-wrapped rabbit loin stuffed with rabbit sausage will remain on the menu.
“I just want to take it down about a half-notch,” he says, “by using ingredients that are accessible and more familiar to a broader-based public. For instance, a dish of grilled filet with a potato gratin using horseradish-infused cheese and a shallot-bordelaise sauce might become a filet with red wine sauce and a simpler gratin.”
Sternweiler says beverage prices will drop even more dramatically. “We need to be sensitive to the economy,” he says. “I want to get away from the nightclub-priced $11 martinis–drop the prices and get it back in volume.”
This less-complex, less-formal, less-expensive movement is not universal; Charlie Trotter’s and Tru still thrive, and in the suburbs, Les Deux Gros found success after re-concepting itself into a more formal restaurant. The white tablecloth is not yet endangered. But there’s less room at the top.
“There will continue to be a handful of high-end restaurants that do spectacularly well,” Dailey says, “but they will be the exceptions. A lot of others will have to find ways to adjust to this new dining environment. The more relaxed approach in which we live our lives will continue to translate into the restaurants we choose.”
Casual corner
Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap
41 E. Superior St.
formerly Blackhawk Lodge
Cuisine THEN: Contemporary American
Cuisine NOW: Beer-friendly pub food
The look THEN: North woods lodge
The look NOW: North woods sports bar
Appetizer THEN: $10
Appetizer NOW: $8
Entrees THEN: $21
Entrees NOW: $14
Allen’s Cafe
217 W. Huron St.
formerly Harvest on Huron
Cuisine THEN: Contemporary American
Cuisine NOW: Contemporary American
The look THEN: Nightclubby, intense
The look NOW: Lots of oak, cream accents
Appetizer THEN: $11
Appetizer NOW: $9
Entree THEN: $23
Entree NOW: $21
South Water Kitchen
225 N. Wabash Ave.
formerly Mossant
Cuisine THEN: French Bistro
Cuisine NOW: American Heartland
The look THEN: Tres French
The look NOW: Masculine charm
Appetizer THEN: $9
Appetizer NOW: $6
Entree THEN: $19
Entree NOW $15
