Weekend July 4 2015

I disagree with MCD as number one when they are closing 350 locations.

 

Which ones do you like, 

Why?

What are they doing that exudes managerial accounting?

This is a real challenge, I mean nothing new about a burger, but here are all these chains exploding with business with a bit of different take on the traditional burger. 

 

What is your idea for a great burger joint?

 

Five guys for example has free peanuts to shell while you wait…..

Weekend July 4, 2015

Texas is bar be que crazy, finding the 'best'

 bar be que restaurants has become the Holy Grail for Texas Monthly. 

Bill Miller operates 57 restaurants in the SA area, with others in Corpus and Austin. As a result in a fit of Rodney Dangerfield can't get no respect, on never hears about Bill Miller in Texas Monthly. But stop in any of the 57, and you will find it jammed with folks at lunch. Their Christmas and Thanksgiving order outs are legendary ins scope. 

To keep quality uniform, all the briquet is cooked at one downtown location and then trucked to the locations. 

Frankly I suspect that if there were only one Bill Miller location,  and like the Salt Lick in Driftwood, you had to drive say half way to Bandera, then a mile down dirt road,and if you wanted a beer you had to bring it yourself, Tx Monthly would kick dirt on Coopers and go bonkers over Bill Miller. 

Turnover in the restaurant industry is legend. Check out the Bill Miller policy on how to retain good employees here and Here.  Note that many managers start in high school and come back later. 

Again this is an example of managerial accounting in action, a great business model. 

 

Weekend July 4, 2015

Frost Bank has a small booklet for free at its location. I wold call this their Mission Statement on Quality. It includes aphorisms like

We wouldn't do anything with your money we would not do with ours. 

check out their philosophy here.

Weekend July 4,  2015

My latest gearhead guilty pleasures are Jay Leno's Garage, new episodes posted late Sunday evening on youtube.  and Wheeler Dealers, many older episodes are on you tube. Recently Jay Leno featured a lady who is CEO of In and Out Burgers, the daughter of the founder I believe. She is driving one of his hot rods no on the drag race circuit. He commented that since its founding in 1948, he thought the chain had done well in that it never wandered away from its original concept. Now Jay is a smart guy and that got my curiosity going. 

 

I have a photo of the actual menu in the store but for some reason it is not loading in typed. But the point is that you can have a double burger, a cheeseburger, or a hamburger or order 1 or 2 or 3 and get that burger plus fries and a drink. And that is it, period. Burgers come with may, lettuce and tomato, you can add or delete the onion. 

 

As we study managerial accounting, you will learn the importance of building multiple products off a single base product, like burgers. I looked and there are two recent locations in San Antonio, on just outside 1604 on Culebra and that other in Windcrest, i.e., both east and west. the place as jammed at noon on July 4 I could not count all the people working behind the counter, but ours was out in just a few minutes. 

In and Out just opened their 300th location. I think the point there is that they are very careful in how many they open, Whataburger has about 750 locations. 

 

Meanwhile last year in North America MCD has 14,379 locations. When MCD was just getting going in the 1960s it was said that they never had a failed restaurant. That can no longer be said. IN fact one article reports the new CEO i s shuttering 350 restaurants. And big does not necessarily mean better, Recall how General Motors fell from a 60% market share in the US to about 14%. Net profit for the last quarter just dropped by a one third, Ouch. 

One of the big gripes is a clutterred menu.  Another study noted that MCD got away from the dollar menu and never replaced it with anything. Back in the 1960s MCD advertised a good meal and change back from your dollar. Sure inflation is up but…

JCP nearly went bust under Ron Johnson. Johnson tried to change all th JC Penny's at one, big mistake. JCP dumped him barely  in time to save the chain. 

Keep it simple, if it ain't brooke don't fix it. As MCD struggles with Kale on the menu, In and Out has customers near lined up out the door with iceberg lettuce and tomato. How complicated is that?

 

 

 

Thursday July 2. 2015

The wife and I enjoyed lunch today at Ernesto's.  We will be studying managerial accounting in Summer II. A couple of topics will include the Balanced Scorecard and Total Quality Management.. Ernesto's is a fine example of both. By the way for new students, we do hope you will click on the links to learn more about Balanced Scorecard and TQM or you could look it up in the textbook, no time like the present!

We were greeted by our waiter who took special interest in our presence. He asked if this was our first visit, did we live in SA or were we visiting. I replied a good friend had recommended Ernesto's and I had looked it up on the internet and bingo here we are. 

Later Ernesto himself came to the table and inquired in similar fashion. Both assured us of a  great meal and it was.  By the way, Ernesto himself re filled our water glasses. He explained that it as a family affair with one son and chef and the one who greeted us was also a son. HIs daughter is involved. 

One of the dynamics of Balanced Scorecard is Customer Satisfaction. Both of them were interested in  our satisfaction and whether we planned another visit. We certainly do plan another visit. 

I had the grilled cod with the Acapulco Sauce and the wife had chicken enchiladas. But clearly Ernesto has a Vera Cruz approach to traditional Mexican fare as well as  borrowing from the great French tradition of special sauces, see below. 

 

I inquired and yes Ernesto had worked on the recipes for the sauces. And in Vera Cruz fashion, the chicken enchilada were not smothered in chili and yellow cheese but rather finished with a nice tomato onion pepper compote. 

it was clear the restaurant was a believer in TQM, this is the idea that each product maintain a consistent level of quality. In the restaurant business this is of course what keeps people coming back!

It is hard to beat the business model of a successful team working on the same goal each and every day realizing that their success derives from customer satisfaction. I recommend Ernesto's as both a lesson in the practice of Managerial Accounting (Ernesto probably does not think of himself as a MA but I promise he is sure doing it right?) and a great place to dine.

Bravo Ernesto!