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“We serve about seven million people a year. So we have about seven million opinions as to what we should and shouldn’t have on the menu.”
Richard Vellante has a long title. It’s one of those titles that barely fits on a business card and either speaks to a man with a big job or a big ego or both. Richard breaks that mold. He is a friendly, enthusiastic and active man, maybe even a little embarrassed by his grand title. He does however have a very big job in every sense of the word.
Richard is responsible for running all the 34 Legal Sea Foods restaurants and ensuring that both the operational vision and, of course, the culinary quality aspects are implemented to the exacting standards set by Roger Berkowitz. With over 4,000 employees this is no easy matter. Each simple decision takes on it’s own complexity, as more and more departments and areas of the company are involved.
Richard is charged with keeping the restaurants on track and the chefs in each location motivated, involved and owning quality. Not a simple task with the ever present risk of things becoming too corporate and losing the unique feel that every “Legals” manages to retain.
To help keep a sense of equilibrium in his life Vellante does the odd marathon and triathlon as well as practising yoga and a touch of transcendental meditation.
Q How do you manage 34 restaurants and have them all turn out a consistent level of food?
It’s a rush. The skill set you need is vastly different running 34 restaurants rather than running your own restaurant or running a couple of restaurants. For me the focus needs to be less on myself, and more about the people.
Q Who creates the menu, how does that happen?
We serve about seven million people a year, so we have about seven million opinions as to what we should and shouldn’t have on the menu. Our guest base is complex. There are individuals that have been at Inman Square, and know that very well. They know that it was inexpensive to have fish and chips. Now we have LTK, with the “Y” generation guests that are looking for new things to stimulate them. So, how do you keep that balance between the people that say, “I remember when you used to have the seafood casserole - and how can you take that off the menu,” or “I remember the blue fish pate” and the folks that want the latest in menu trends. Just like anything else, things evolve and change. Tastes change and impressions change. So, it becomes a balancing act.
To your question as to how we make the menu happen, I’m a part of it. I have a team that’s a part of it. My role has changed in this company over the last year. Not only am I the executive chef, I’m the executive vice president of the restaurants. It means that I’m in charge of the restaurants. I’m responsible for the vision as to where we’re going with the restaurants and then implementing it. I have a team of people that coordinate all of this - you can imagine numerous areas of the company that need to be communicated with when there’s a menu change, it affects the website, marketing strategy, finance, IT and operations.
Q You don’t just whip something up and stick it on the menu?
No - it is so far from that. That’s what’s so different from when I first started here. I was used to saying we need to change this or that and it’ll be all set. Now it touches so many places - even the supply chain. Do we have enough of an item? You really have to consider a number of different factors and morph them together so that any changes are successful.
Q Where do new ideas come from?
I’d say 90% of the time ideas have been done before. I learn from and am inspired by travel, trying different restaurants, life experiences, just things that you see and then think about. I enjoy looking through books like those on my shelf or magazines, not having any preconceived notion, but just looking through. As you look, you say oh, you know that’s great, and I wonder if it would work this way. Those are the things that we do. We talk about different things. We get together as a group, and we just discuss food. So, travel, experience, reading is where we get it from.
Q How do you keep up with trends, food fashions, and feeding a new generation of Legal Sea Foods guests?
Great question. Number one is the engine that fuels us, which is Roger Berkowitz. I have to give him a tremendous amount of credit. He just doesn’t sit still. He also surrounds himself with people that don’t sit still. Whether it’s the food or whether it’s us as a company doing things that are a little different. As you can see on my wall, these are our core values. We take these very seriously.
So, how do we keep that going? We talk a lot about not resting on our laurels. We talk about not dying on the vine. We constantly innovate. For example, we want to have the guests be able to pay at their table, so the credit card doesn’t leave their sight. We are the first company in North America to have pay-at-the-table, literally the first. We want to be a leader in technology, because we realize that one of the greatest areas for fraud in credit cards is the restaurant business. It’s the only place where your card is given away. And there’s a lot of theft that way, obviously. So, that’s one example right there.
The other one is sanitation. You have heard about our adoption of the HACCAP Program. You’ve seen the laboratory downstairs. A lot of people would say that’s way too much money to invest in quality. We’ve been doing things like that for years. Having staff wear gloves, we were doing that 20 years ago. Trans fats! Seven years ago Roger came to me and said we need to take trans fats out of everything, especially out of oil that we fry food in. Why was that? It was because we’re in tune with our market and that’s where Roger comes into play. He says that we need to position ourselves as a company at the forefront of these types of things. That’s what he does and we do as a company.
Legal Sea Foods is a unique company. We’re fortunate that it’s privately owned. One of our passions and mission is to be in the forefront of these things. It’s part of our DNA. Employees are rewarded for coming up with ideas. You’re not rewarded for staying with the status quo. We look for individuals who want to change with the business and want to embrace that change. It’s not a company for everybody, because some people are uncomfortable with always trying to change things around and refine things, but that’s the important piece that keeps us alive.
Q At 34 restaurants have you become a “chain”. How do you differentiate the individual properties?
We don’t see ourselves as a chain. Because if you do go into our restaurants they all look different, and they’re all set up differently. Even the menus are different. So we don’t consider ourselves a chain. We don’t approach it that way. Each chef has the opportunity to work on creative dishes that they want on the menu. We give them that autonomy. We work it out, test it and see if it makes the right sense in our philosophy. If so we put it on the menu. We have the chef’s name on the menu in each restaurant. They each have a sense of pride about what they do.
We also have culinary summits. There’s an event that we call the “Smack Down” which we do once every two years. We get all the chefs in. It’s like March Madness. We bracket the different regions until they all meet each other in the finals. It comes down to two individuals that have a cook-off, just like in “Iron Chef.” We have a lot of fun. There’s a lot of creative energy here that we try to nurture.
Q When you walk into one of the Legal Sea Foods, what do you think? What’s your impression? How do you feel about Legal Sea Foods, the restaurant?
I would probably look at it differently than most, because I’m always worried about the overall operation and the perception we give guests. I equate the restaurant to a car. We’re a Volvo. We’re not a Lamborghini, and we’re not a Chevy Cavalier. With a Volvo you have a safe car. You know when you drive in one you’re in safe hands. When you think of Legal Sea Foods, you’re thinking of quality. You know you’re going to get the best possible quality. You know that you’re going to get a good meal. It’s somewhere that you can take your friends or someone that’s visiting Boston and know that they are going to have a good experience. For our restaurants outside of Boston, you can always be assured that your experience is going to be consistent and as good as downtown Boston. I think that’s important for us.
“I equate the restaurant to a car. We’re a Volvo. We’re not a Lamborghini, and we’re not a Chevy Cavalier.”
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