written and researched guide of the behind the scene of a restaurant for the entrepreneur

f you own a restaurant , or are interested in doing so, this book would be of great benefit to you.
To the lay foodie, this book may provide insights into the office workings of your local eatery.

Whilst there were some nice stories here, from strife to success, I expected more visual information pertaining to the case studies mogavero referenced.
Mogarevo has a long history of using data to enable businesses to increase their profit margins, not just in the food industry and really, If you need help hire him, don't read the book.

The culinary food tour was of the most interest to me and helped to break up the heavier, more sales oriented parts of this non fiction read.

Restaurant Analytics versus Good Ole Gut Instinct

In this well written and well researched guide to what the author, a restaurant analytic software engineer and salesperson, refers to as the New Guard versus Old Guard way of running a restaurant from an owner’s perspective, the underground culinary tour emerged

The New Guard refers to those savvy restauranteurs who value analytics or data on every single metric that can be measured. They will avail themselves to the author’s innovational software and use it to their best advantage in the fickle, trend heavy world of the dining out industry.

The Old Guard refers to the old way of doing things which is basically summed up as relying on gut instinct rather than hard data to examine trends that can make or break a business’s bottom line.

These metrics examine all areas of a restaurant’s overall performance from server competency to ordering to avoid waste and maximize profits.

The underground culinary tour refers to the bacchanalian bus tour from restaurant to restaurant over the course of two days. The restaurants were chosen based on their standout qualities and the chef/owners chosen to be part of the tour were also chosen based on their rising star. The author acts as the tour’s co-host.

Put all these elements together and you have The Underground Culinary Tour, a disjointed and perhaps audience confusing book.

The author is perfectly poised as the happy recipient of selling his brand because as far as the book goes, he has no competition. He offers several case studies of restaurants and restaurant groups who have used his software to overwhelming success. In spite of this, gut instinct should not have been as downplayed as it was because running a successful business does take listening to your gut to some degree.

Some of the case studies were guilty of oversimplification such as the one depicting a server who was scared to open bottles of wine tableside and therefore never sold any and her complete 180 degree turnaround.

The sales pitch came through loud and clear. This is not an objective point of view, however warranted it may seem. Mogavero also is fond of industry name dropping which becomes obnoxious after a certain point.

Overall, it is always interesting to look into the inner workings of an industry you are not a part of, at least this was the case for me. I was also intrigued at the level of customer manipulation that occurs during the act of dining. Good to know what to look for from the customer’s perspective.

Data geeks of the world unite!

This non-fiction book is part software advertisement and case studies, and part crazy culinary tour. This can make the book seem a little disjointed at times and almost could be two separate books. The culinary tour was extremely interesting and decadent, would make a great series on Netflix or Food Network. Personally, I was most interested in the way the restaurants use data and the capabilities of the software. Although I am not in the restaurant business, the software and its metrics have wide ranging applicability.

And as a bonus, I now know how to potentially spot waiter theft.

A fascinating look into the world of restaurants and how they are embracing technology to improve the customer's experience and the bottom line. Highlights how successful restaurants are using metrics to analyze all aspects to be successful businesses. When this is partnered with good food the result is a wine for both the customer and the restaurant. I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I been reviewing two new books which deal with the collection and application of data. ....

THE UNDERGROUND CULINARY TOUR by Damian Mogavero with Joseph D'Agnese is subtitled "How the New Metrics of Today's Top Restaurants Are Transforming How America Eats" so again, we are learning about data applications and their impact on consumers. Here, the authors draw on extensive experience in the restaurant industry. Mogavero concentrates on financial analyses and human resource efforts (training a waitress to open a bottle of wine) in order to show the impact on often fragile bottom lines in the hospitality sector. A couple of chapters do provide highlights from the annual real-life Underground Culinary Tour which Mogavero conducts; otherwise, this book is best matched with those who have a specialized interest in restaurants or similar businesses where Mogavero’s ideas could be applied.

THE UNDERGROUND CULINARY TOUR

“The Underground Culinary Tour” is an exclusive excursion that Damian Mogavero and his associates have been organizing for elite restaurateurs. Over a packed forty-eight hour period, Mogavero takes his invited guests, all of whom hail from America’s top or up and coming restaurants, to experience the latest culinary trends that have come to life in New York City. The objective, of course, is to offer a glimpse of how the culinary scene is changing, one restaurant concept, sommelier, or dish at a time.

Fittingly, it’s also the subject of Mogavero’s book, eponymously titled The Underground Culinary Tour.

However, there’s more to the book than simply documenting the said tour; indeed, Mogavero is only able to chronicle one such expedition. The broader point that Mogavero seeks to impart is that the only way to be successful in the competitive culinary world is to be solidly grounded in what’s going on both inside and outside the kitchen.

This means–just like the tour–it’s necessary for restaurateurs of all stripes to be exposed to the trends that are taking the culinary landscape by storm, and in that regard Mogavero is fortunate to consult both for and with the likes of Danny Meyer, Tom Colicchio, and Daniel Boulud, each of whom has welcomed to their restaurants guests from the Underground Culinary Tour at some point or other. But more than simply being attuned to the culinary vogue, being a grounded restaurateur also means running a restaurant like any modern-day manager: with data and analytics.

It’s actually this latter point that Mogavero begins The Underground Culinary Tour with, and one that he returns to often in its pages. As he notes, many restaurateurs of the traditional mode operate on the basis of “gut feel” and rules of thumb from years of experience, instead of the wealth of data that may already be at their fingertips if they took the time to organize it properly. Admittedly, this is a problem that isn’t unique to restaurants; however, Mogavero intimates that it’s rare to find restaurants that adhere to a data-driven culture, implying that it can be a significant competitive advantage for those that do.

Of course, one would expect Mogavero to feel this way, considering that his main business is to provide restaurants with the necessary back-end systems that make data collection and analysis easy for restaurants. Inevitably, The Underground Culinary Tour sometimes reads as a subtle advertisement for his services, if not for the tour itself, which one can readily predict will be even more sought after once the book is published. Yet even if this is the case, the book is nonetheless filled with insights that will do a lot to change people’s perceptions of how restaurants can and should be managed, and should be required reading for anyone aspiring to make a career of hospitality in general.

“Welcome to The Underground Culinary Tour, a world where revolutionary food trends are discovered, the kitchen never runs out, the bar and wine cellar are always stocked, and guests are assured of a special time they will want to relive, again and again.”

Damian Mongavero is one smart innovator. After earning an MBA from Harvard, he went on to found a company that develops cutting-edge technology in collecting restaurant data that can track EVERYTHING. I am not someone who is involved in the industry in any shape or form, I’m just a consumer foodie, but still I found Mongavero’s behind the scenes look to be fascinating and one that provided great insight into what makes one restaurant successful while another one flounders.

I was introduced to a number of chefs/owners in this book as they told their stories, sharing their challenges. One small example was when an owner surprisingly found in analyzing data, that one of his best servers and customer favorite sold lots of glasses of wine but wasn’t selling bottles of wine which is the real money maker. When approached, she was embarrassed to admit her phobia about opening wine bottles. What if she broke the cork or the bottle slipped from her hands? All it took was a little bit of training to put her at ease and increase wine bottle consumption (and profit).

The trackable data by pressing a button is vast in order to maximize customer satisfaction, grow revenues and even weed out dead weight. Many of the finest chefs, big and small restaurants, cruise ships, casinos, etc. apparently use this system to face day to day challenges. I would surmise the author just might get some new customers for his software after reading this book. When I enter a restaurant, I know I will look at things a bit differently now that I have some insider knowledge.

Note: Will also publish my review on Amazon, Twitter, Powells post publishing date.

When I was in college there was this little out of the way bistro that I used to go to all the time. It had the best turkey and Gouda croissants and their creme brulee was to die for. And then it wasn't. I'm not sure what I noticed first but it kind of became grubbier and less pleasant and then the quality of the food took a hit. And then it closed. With zero notice. At some point I found out what had happened. Apparently the bistro had been opened by a married couple - he was the chef, she was the business person. Everything went merrily along until the marriage ended and he got the restaurant in the divorce. With no real understanding of the business end of things he let things slide until finally the restaurant itself was seized for back taxes. This book made me remember that little bistro because they could have seriously benefited from the software that Damian Mogavero and his company created.
There's a lot that's really interesting in this book. The ability to analyze restaurant data and create a model which allows you to safely make purchasing and staffing decisions is pretty amazing. Add into the fact that the data is specific about what people buy, what they eat, how long they stay, etc. that it saves the restaurant owner the trouble of having to analyze the data on their own and frees up time to evaluate new business plans and it's not surprising that Mogavero's software is used by Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio Geoffrey Zakarian, and pretty much any celebrity chef or restaurant empire that you can name.
However, while there is a lot of information that really made me think about the inner workings of a restaurant I really felt that this would have been a fascinating article but makes a very repetitive book. The data itself doesn't change that much in each case and while I enjoyed getting little behind the scenes glimpses what happens at a little beach side restaurant isn't all that different from what happens inside one of Harrah's Resorts. While I'm seriously impressed with Mogavero's ability to meld technology and the dining experience and I wish that more restaurants would implement his software as I think we'd all have better service I don't think I wanted to read 272 pages about it.

The idea of The Underground Culinary Tour by Damian Mogavero and Joseph D'Agnese is simple to understand. Appropriate use of appropriate data can help restaurateurs improve their performance and help demystify that "something" that keeps customers coming back. Implementing the idea may be something quite different. As a reader not in the food industry, this book, couched in a memoir-like narrative, is an entertaining and easy to read behind-the-scenes look at the hospitality industry.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017/01/the-underground-culinary-tour.html

Reviewed based on a publisher’s galley received through NetGalley