Top quality restaurants don't resemble 'The Bear'

Chefs are rock stars. Waitstaff are coveted. You know who never gets their due? Even though they're the key to restaurant excellence, as important as food or service?

Management.

"I think you might have something there," said Rich Melman, founder of Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, the wildly popular family of eateries. Most new restaurants fail, but Lettuce has been in business over half a century and owns, manages and licenses more than 130 restaurants in a dozen states. They know what they're doing.

This epiphany struck me this way: my wife I recently helped our son, his wife and new baby move from Jersey City to DC. I must have really stuck my landing, because toward the end of our two, count 'em, two weeks helping, my wife announced that she would take me out to a celebratory lunch at the venerable Old Ebbitt Grill.

Reservations proved impossible. So we just showed up, and were told the wait was 45 minutes. Parking ourselves at the bar, we ordered drinks. My wife requested an ice tea.

"I'll get it," said a manager at the end of the bar who overheard the order. That struck me as unusual, like a company vice president stepping out of his office to mop the floor.

"Let me comment on that," said Melman, when I described the scene. "I think very small. And that's how we got big. You're probably dealing with the manager in charge of the bar. In busy times, they have key people watching over whatever is going on. There might be another manager watching the dining room. Another manager watching over the kitchen. It's like a great shortstop/second base combination. You know what to expect. You know each other's moves."

Why do some restaurants work and others don't?

"I think it would be called restaurant leadership," Melman said. "There's got to be somebody who has the passion and the knowledge and the stick-to-it-ness to make something work. That becomes the culture of the organization. What impressed you is how the team works. There is a lot of teamwork in a good restaurant. Covering for one another."

Speaking of teams, I haven't mentioned the astounding part. I order the Leidy's Duroc Pork Chop with cheddar grits soufflé and bacon-braised swiss chard.

The chop shows up, a thick, 16-ouncer. A thing of beauty. I reach for my phone — dead after a morning snapping photos. Sure, I could have used my wife's phone. But I had more pressing things to do, like digging into that pork chop.

Regret came later. How could I write about this spectacular pork chop and the organization serving it up without a photo of the pork chop in question? I considered going back the next day and ordering the chop again. But that's seemed nuts.

So I did a Hail Mary, and called Clyde's Restaurant Group, which runs Old Ebbitt. Did they happen to have a photo of their pork chop?

"I do not have a photo on hand," replied Meghan Newkumet, director of marketing. "But let me see what I can do!"

An hour later, mirabile dictu, she wrote back:

"Someone from our team will be visiting Old Ebbitt this week to take photos for you."

And they did.

I know what you're thinking. So what? A marketing person does her job. What's the big deal? And let me assure you that, finding anybody actually doing their job right now is a big deal. Frequently PR reps never respond. My hunch is that COVID tore the fabric of society in some way we have yet to mend.

Melman suggested I talk to his Washington-raised executive partner, Chris Meers, speaking of teamwork. Space doesn't allow me to share our conversation. But he did say something I must repeat, because I've been too timid to say it myself.

"Running a restaurant isn't like 'The Bear,'" Meers said.

I confessed to bailing out of "The Bear" after two episodes. Too stressful. Not how an Italian beef joint runs.

"I watched an episode," said Meers. "That's not how it is, not how it should be. I couldn't stand it for more than a minute. In 'The Bear,' every shift is a disaster. I thought to myself: 'How is that possible?' I always expect consistency and excellence."

It shows.

"These things are never an accident," said Melman. "If you want to be successful, the more you grow, the more you have to have these things buttoned up. It's not unlike a baseball team. They teach in the minors what the systems are. They're teaching pitching systems, teaching how to play the game. How the parent team plays the game. Any successful organization is not an accident."