Restaurant Ideas

These were things I was going to do in Louisville and never got the time to. They are needed. Im fairly certain in the right location they would make a mint. Someone take the ideas and run with them.

1. Oyster Bar. Im not talking the ridiculous "concept" pushed by Doc Crows but an honest to goodness Old Florida Panhandle style oyster bar. Like an AwShucks or Shuck'ems. Shuck them right at a long bar in open view of customers and everyone.
Menu:
Raw oysters on the half shell $1 a pop, which wholesale for .35 to .55 a piece last time I priced them out with the distributor in town.
Broiled/chargrilled varieties: $2 a pop Oysters Dupont, Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters with Sriracha and Butter, etc. Rotate through 5 varieties.
Thats it! Maybe be adventurous and add a fryer for fried oysters if you want.
Full liquor license but beer is key with oysters.
Potential location: Across the street from the Icehouse on Main Street is a location for lease last I checked. Has a garage door you could simply roll up in the summer, let traffic from conventions and down town and sports games roll in.
You make your money on volume and alcohol. Having well trained fast shuckers is key. Dont skimp on employee training.

2. Gourmet Popsicles. Think organic strawberry, basil, lemon grass. Pineapple, mint, ginger. Go crazy. Keep them interesting. Keep them organic. Cost $3-$5 each depending on ingredients
Benefits: No brick and mortar needed. Make them off site.
Use push carts at Waterfront park, both university campuses, sporting events, etc etc. Maybe get a small icecream style truck and hit large neighborhoods like Norton Commons.
Run it through the summer and shut down in winter. Little overhead needed for start up.

3. And a concept I saw elsewhere and wanted to bring to Louisville. Waffles and Milkshakes. A themed dessert place, not breakfast. They were doing like 8 varieties of liege waffles (google it) made with pearl sugar in the batter so it gave the waffles a definitive crunchy caramelized outside. They also had 6 varieties of milkshakes.
Thats it. They were running 10am to 10pm but I would probably go latter to catch the college crowd near the UofL or Bellarmine campus. Put one near Highlands and one in the East End.
Call it Louffles.

4. And I always thought Louisville needed an honest to goodness NY style deli and sandwich shop but never really fleshed the idea out very well.

Thoughts?

I don't care about popsicles or waffles and milkshakes but an oyster bar interests me. My question is, where can you buy retail oysters for a $1 each. Maybe in the panhandle, which I think has barely edible oysters, but nowhere else I've ever seen. $3 an oyster is the going rate for cold water oysters around town, which seems about a dollar high to me, but doesn't seem too hard to get by the restaurants.

"Raw oysters on the half shell $1 a pop, which wholesale for .35 to .55 a piece last time I priced them out with the distributor in town"

I would love to know what distributor you called because we buy directly from a west coast farm and can't get a price that cheep. How long ago was the "last time I priced them out"?

Love the oyster bar idea. Ate someplace similar in FL (Shuckers Oyster Bar) which also sold steamed blue crabs. Tables had rolls do brown shipping paper to cover them. Rolls of paper towels on the table. No silverware, cut 2" dowel rods into clubs. It was great.

As far as raw oyster pricing I think Rumors on Shelbyville Rd has them for $16 per dozen. When I had them (last April) they were big and very tasty.

I don't care about popsicles or waffles and milkshakes but an oyster bar interests me. My question is, where can you buy retail oysters for a $1 each. Maybe in the panhandle, which I think has barely edible oysters, but nowhere else I've ever seen. $3 an oyster is the going rate for cold water oysters around town, which seems about a dollar high to me, but doesn't seem too hard to get by the restaurants.

You can get them at Whole foods in Louisville for a $1 and change last time I stopped in (3 weeks ago), and they will shuck them for you right there.
There are numerous oyster bars across the Southeast, not just the Florida panhandle selling them at that price.

"Raw oysters on the half shell $1 a pop, which wholesale for .35 to .55 a piece last time I priced them out with the distributor in town"

I would love to know what distributor you called because we buy directly from a west coast farm and can't get a price that cheep. How long ago was the "last time I priced them out"?

It was 3 years ago, but yes I know there could have been a lot of price fluctuations in that time. However I still know of plenty of places serving oysters at or near $1 a piece so they cant have skyrocketed that much. I would suggest looking at Gulf and Chesapeake Bay oysters rather than West Coast.

Most oyster eaters just want big fat raw oysters, they dont care about them coming from a fancy farm from the West Coast. People who grew up eating oysters arent connoisseurs, it doesnt matter where they are from, they just need to taste fresh like the ocean. Now you can market them as such (a fancy delicacy), and obviously its worked okay for some people. But for most of us who grew up eating oysters...we know better.
Hence the hundreds of raw bars throughout the Southeast, including in tourist locations like Orlando, serving raw oysters are reasonable prices and making a killing.

I've tried oysters at a number of places around town and most of the time they've been pretty disappointing. A much as I'd like to see an Acme Oyster House-type place in town, or a Sarge's Deli, I have a feeling that taking those places away from their cultural home causes them to lose something that just can't be duplicated.

I've tried oysters at a number of places around town and most of the time they've been pretty disappointing. A much as I'd like to see an Acme Oyster House-type place in town, or a Sarge's Deli, I have a feeling that taking those places away from their cultural home causes them to lose something that just can't be duplicated.

I think you just need some one to authentically embrace it and run it like it should be....a hole in the wall with a huge bar, fast shuckers and cold beers, with college football on big screens.

And I agree most of the oyster places in town are an abysmal disappointment. Their "big" oysters are the size of nickels and they charge $3 a piece for them. *cough* rip offs *cough*

Cold water, wholesale oysters are in the .70-$1.35 range for East Coast and $1-1.75 for West Coast.
Warm water oysters are not such a good idea up here. They are much more likely to have dangerous bacteria. What the restaurants are charging is pretty much in line with the market. These things are not cheap and West Coat are more expensive because the oysters beds have been effected by environmental issues.

"Raw oysters on the half shell $1 a pop, which wholesale for .35 to .55 a piece last time I priced them out with the distributor in town"

I would love to know what distributor you called because we buy directly from a west coast farm and can't get a price that cheep. How long ago was the "last time I priced them out"?

I'm with Alejandro on this one.

Yes, you can buy cheap(er) oysters.
But they are gonna be tiny.

Yes, there is a perceived "explotation" of markup because they're "fancy".

But I assure you, the markup is not purely profit.

You also have to figure in a huge labor margin as well as storage solutions (not to mention a risk of potential spoilage - high on any live seafood) into the mix.

Shuck a few thousand oysters in the course of two days and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not going to even begin to touch on the issue of staff retention. No qualified cook in their right mind wants to spend their entire shift doing nothing but shucking oysters, much less pretty much your entire staff. There's a certain amount of pay you can quantify to skilled labor, but also a certain amount that is reasonable for the job. With job duties like this, you're basically paying a premium for under skilled labor, purely because the job is no fun, and you're doing it purely to keep people happy and retain them.

It's not exactly a sound business model from a staffing standpoint alone.

Places near the water can do it because they are able to get oysters for dirt cheap, because they are digging the out of the dirt only miles away.




And that Popsicle stand idea? Not a bad one. Look up King of Pops in Atlanta.
Great concept, but again, entirely seasonal... What's the plan for the off season, or bad weather. King of Pops (last I checked) operates one location in a gas station parking lot. They do great business, and are highly regarded... But I think it's someone's hobby project.

There are at least two fancy popsicle/paleta places in Nashville that I'm aware of. Not that we must copy them; it just surprises me that we have no one trying to fill the $4 lemon verbena and mint popsicle market by now.

Steel City Zpops in Birmingham is a Popsicle operation that is beginning to expand. They have moved into Texas I believe. They are great!!

Louisville has had the popsicle/paletta thing. Lasted about one season.

Not sure where you would find a staff of oyster shuckers willing to work for what little you'd have to pay them to make up for a 50% food cost on those oysters!

[Robin Garr]

Not sure where you would find a staff of oyster shuckers willing to work for what little you'd have to pay them to make up for a 50% food cost on those oysters!

This, except maybe with an awesome bar program and a reasonable markup the liquor/beer/wine operation might make the numbers work? Also highly visible tip jars designated for the shuckers?