They’ve had to adapt their menus from full-service, to no service, to takeout, to patio dining, to limited indoor, and back again.
Trying to anticipate food and supply costs, while figuring out how to best service customer needs has been challenging, but chefs have been inventive with their culinary creations and adapting dishes to meet the needs of the times.
Perhaps the most inventive of all in Orange County is Chef Jonathan Blackford.
Blackford spent 10 years as executive chef at A Restaurant in Newport Beach and the newer sister concept, CdM Restaurant in Corona del Mar.
His creativity in those kitchens was enough to earn accolades, but it’s what Blackford has done since leaving A Restaurant in early 2020 that has taken him in new directions, and earned him the Business Journal’s nod as Chef of the Year.
Ghost Kitchen Twist
“It has always been my goal to open a restaurant of my own, but the timing wasn’t right for a full-service dining experience—it was too much money to sink into something with no clue what would happen” during the pandemic, Blackford said.
Blackford considered a typical ghost kitchen where people could pick up their food, but he reasoned customers “would not drive to an industrial park to pick up dinner. So maybe I could find a nice location that is centralized with more exposure, but then we’re talking more rent.”
His ideas evolved into having a hot dinner pickup menu, high-end grab-and-go, and a curated gourmet market with many housemade products from pasta to pate.
And thus Fork & Knife was born.
17th Street Haven
Blackford found a former bakery on 17th Street in Costa Mesa and transformed it into his culinary paradise.
He opened for business last October and has been doing brisk business ever since.
Part of his success has been due to the following he acquired from patrons of A Restaurant, but the rest comes from creating a unique business model that people have responded to.
“Fork & Knife is actually three concepts in one and I believe that it speaks to current dining habits and what the public wants right now,” Blackford said.
“People want a neighborhood place that offers fully prepared dinners, quick meals to carry-out and quality products that you would find at a gourmet market. That’s what Fork & Knife aims to deliver.”
The culinary focus of Fork & Knife is a daily hot menu that can ordered with advance notice, plus custom-made sandwiches and desserts.
But it’s his grab-and-go section that has been getting a lot of attention.
“I want to serve as an extension to the home kitchen by providing the freshest and most flavorful meals and dishes,” Blackford explained.
Experimentation
To provide flavorful, restaurant quality grab-and-go meals that would taste and look as good at home as in a restaurant, Blackford experimented with cooking times and temperatures to see what combination would result in perfect meals once reheated at home.
“I started playing around cooking things at 200 degrees,” which Blackford said retains moisture but does not offer much color or flavor on the outside, so he cools his meats and fish and then chars the outside or gives it a quick sear, so it’s perfect once reheated.
“I even use sous vide—we have a pulled pork that we sous vide in pork fat for 12 hours, apply a dry rub and then char it on the grill,” Blackford said. Once the pork is reheated, “hit it with a fork and it shreds.”
He’s also experimenting with his hot dinner menu options, which change twice a month.
“We have a pizza on the menu right now, our first time,” Blackford notes. “I have a stone for the pizza to cook in our oven, and the dough is similar to what we used at CdM.” The vegetarian pizza has asparagus, ricotta, mozzarella and cremini mushroom.
His four-course hot dinners range from $40 to the mid-$50 range. Current options through March 13 were toasted Italian loaf with olive oil, an anti-pasta salad, choice of five entrées (which determines total price), and dessert.
When dinner orders are picked up, Blackford plates them at the scheduled time in sturdy containers along with instructions for reheating.
“We are trying to do things that I would serve at a restaurant—nothing is compromised. I can sell it for less because we do not have an overhead. I don’t want to serve anything that’s just okay. I want people to be stoked with what we do.”
New Concept, New Questions
Blackford has also begun catering for small parties, and has been rotating his list of made-to-order sandwiches.
One thing that has not been easy—explaining to customers what he does.
“It’s a new concept, so when someone comes in and they say do you have a menu—well, yes and no. We kind of do, we kind of don’t,” Blackford said.
Now on the website he’s added a menu for almost everything he stocks in the grab-and-go section plus a pastry menu, and he has a menu board prominently displayed in his store.
As far as gauging how much food to make daily, he admits that every day is different.
“One day we can sell 50 short ribs, and the next day we won’t sell one. But that’s fun and exciting. Recently we have been selling out of almost everything towards the end of the night, even though we restock during the day with things we think we’ll sell.”
Blackford’s business plan was aimed at making most of his money with the hot dinner pickup, but “our grab-and-go is 10 times more than I thought it was going to be. That’s now probably 75% of our business.”
Blackford has imported items for sale in the retail section of his store, but he’s also making his own pickled vegetable, preserves, jams, jellies, condiments, and even barbecue sauces. He also acquired a dried charcuterie cabinet so he could start making his own custom charcuterie.
Oh—and fans of A and CdM will like the fact that Blackford makes his famous duck liver pâté and sells it by the jar.
“We can barely keep it on the shelf,” Blackford said.
Business Challenges
As a business owner (along with a partner investor), Blackford now must deal with things like the cost of to-go containers, which have increased in price since most restaurants have had to add to-go orders to their menu options.
“Every restaurant in the country needs them now, so they now cost three to four times what they normally go for, it’s a huge difference,” Blackford said.
“But if you are going to do high-end grab-and-go, we have to have high-end containers. We have to do the full experience—even our plastic silverware is high end.”
Blackford’s high-end grab-and-go dishes include a succulent chicken, glazed salmon, short ribs, and a tuna sandwich with wild caught tuna and a baguette that comes from Spain.
He also has a selection of housemade pastas and salads, and side dishes.
Volumes Brisk
For those curious as to the volume of food Blackford sells, he said it’s close to what he was doing at A Restaurant.
“I use a lot of small purveyors, and during COVID we have some of their biggest orders, so I do not have problems hitting minimums,” said Blackford, who uses 30 to 40 purveyors for his range of dishes and retail items.
“I have always been that guy who likes very specific things—every steak is 1855 brand or similar, same idea with everything we make. We are using a product because we like it.”
Next Steps
Blackford’s next undertaking is to increase his dessert options, and his grab-and-go options—to a point.
“With grab-and-go, people are not as adventurous,” mused Blackford.
“In a restaurant you can tell a customer certain things and sway them to a dish, which we can do to a degree but not the same as at a restaurant. We have to build up that trust. It would be cool to have rabbit pasta as a grab-and-go, but we would not sell much right now. Once we build up that trust, which we are starting to get, we can do stuff like that.”
“That’s in the future. Nothing is limiting us from doing anything. We want to keep it interesting.”
