How to Diversify Your New Unit with a Cooking School

Let's forget about operations, finance, and marketing just for a moment. The thing that turned you on about the restaurant business was food -- interesting, creative, unique, and delicious food. Does that describe you?

If your restaurant's concept is built around a great chef (perhaps, you) and outstanding cuisine, you might be able to leverage that cache into another revenue stream and a way to generate marketing buzz. Cooking schools are gaining popularity in this country. Popular interest in food is at an all-time high. Folks not only want to eat your creations, they want to know how to make them at home. If your chef or kitchen crews have the right appeal, folks will want face time with them.

Certainly most restaurateurs don't go into the business with the idea of opening a school. Take Frank Brigtsen. He has been in the restaurant business in New Orleans for more than 30 years. The restaurant that bears his name opened in 1985 and is now considered a landmark in the French Quarter. Brigtsen has won numerous awards for his cooking expertise, including 1994 New Orleans Chef of the Year and Top Cajun Restaurant in 2000. To say that Frank Brigtsen has "been there, done that" in the restaurant business is an understatement. And if you got Frank off in a quiet corner with a glass of Merlot, he might even admit to you that he was getting kind of bored with it all. There were no new challenges left.

That is, until Judy Jurisich invited him to sign on as a chef and help develop classes at her New Orleans Cooking Experience, one of 11 cooking schools in the Crescent City. "This was something new, something I hadn't done before," Brigtsen said. "This has energized me in so many ways and that energy spills over to my own restaurant." Bringing energy and stimulating creativity in your staff is one of many benefits that may come with adding a public cooking experience to your restaurant's menu of services. With just a bit of effort and planning, a cooking class in your restaurant or featuring your chef may "kick things up a notch" -- maybe not a far as Emeril Lagasse, but certainly enough to measure in dollars and cents for your bottom line. There's no reason you can't integrate a cooking school into your business plan from the get-go, but you need go into it with clear objectives, and of course, an understanding how it will integrate into the -- yes -- operations, finance, and marketing of your establishment.