Welcome to In the Weeds, a new publication covering the business of independent restaurants.
For this week's edition, I spoke to Chef Dave Willocks. He runs The Baker’s Table in Newport, Kentucky, just outside of Cincinnati. Dave started a membership program for his restaurant about a year ago. Today, it’s the business model he’d recommend to other restaurant owners, and he wonders why more restaurants aren’t going the membership route. And honestly, after speaking to him, I’ve started to wonder, too.
Also in this edition: a tool to manage all your reservation platforms, a very helpful guide to staying compliant when introducing auto-gratuity, and why did a Sysco rep deliver a Michelin plaque?
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Dave and his bread and canapés
The Baker’s Table offers an approachable, thoughtful tasting menu that changes monthly and, thanks to its membership program, welcomes many familiar faces.
In 2018, however, when the restaurant first opened, “it could not have been further from where we are now,” said Chef and Owner Dave Willocks. They were serving breakfast, lunch, and brunch and “got lucky” thanks to some early press and accolades for the Newport, Kentucky, restaurant, he said. His luck ran out with the pandemic.
“After COVID hit, it was like nothing that worked for me worked anymore. We were just bleeding money so bad. Even I barely know how we made it [through COVID]. During that time, I started to say to myself, if I’m gonna survive, I have to really study business. I have to study how to run a restaurant,” he told me during a phone call in April.