Triple Bottom Line is a innovative new idea for a neighborhood eatery, an artisan beverage tasting room and food shoppe that serves seasonal local and sustainable food from northern and central California.
As the name implies it's about building a financial, social & environmentally conscientious business (people, profit, planet) that will benefit the community where it's located. There has been a substantial amount of new housing that has been built in and around the San Francisco's South of Market, Mission Bay and the Northern Mission areas and these new neighborhoods are under served by food and beverage businesses.
Triple Bottom Line will not only be a comfortable eatery and a place to socialize with a delicious beverage (think gastropub) but, it'll be like turning a restaurant inside out, with all the ingredients from our seasonal menu available in a complete retail pantry/larder or food shoppe that's integrated into the space. We're an affordable, volume oriented place to find meal and beverage solutions and moreover, a community center where people meet and can spend time.
With an educated urban mentality, San Franciscans in urban areas look for ingredients that are coming from small, local up and coming businesses. We will establish direct relationships with farmers that care about what they are growing, ranchers who see the benefit to pasture raise meats, sustainable West Coast fishermen, small unique California wineries, craft breweries and artisan cheese makers, we support small businesses. An important part of this concept is to have of customers and guests know exactly where everything is coming from and exactly what they are eating and drinking and this will be evident in the labeling which will show origin, dates and nutritional information.
Our menu will offer daily made choices that will be available to eat in-house or packaged to take away. We'll be making different products in-house to take advantage of the seasons and one of our key goals is to be buying in volume so, buying and selling in bulk and repackaging is another key point that will keep our prices down.
While we'll bringing in the best local products to stock the retail larder/market/pantry, we'll also be making a seasonal value added selection of charcuterie, pickles, jams, preserves, pasta and canned goods.
We will also practice many types of preserving like salting, smoking, drying and pickling to take advantage of buying larger amounts. A proven way to preserve food is to employ vacuum packaging, by removing oxygen this method increases shelve life and facilitates low temperature cooking which turns out to be a great way to preserve the integrity of the dishes.
We intend to serve most of our healthy food by weight, where you're in charge of how much you eat. Nothing will be overtly processed, we won't be adding anything extraneous, it's all about whole, nutritious foods and the labeling will reflect that.
We will be known for our in-house made products and we intend to foster a learning environment where we use old and new culinary techniques so aspiring culinary people will seek employment with us. I want to build a business where we come to a team mentality naturally by cultivating mutual respect, valuing input and encouraging both a creative and a traditional culinary mindset. We're not looking for a large staff, we're looking for efficiency and by utilizing new technology we can cut preparation time down significantly.
Design is an important consideration in every aspect of this business and we intend to be a green business from construction through to operations. We'll follow LEED guidelines with recycled, reclaimed and low VOC building materials, energy and water efficient kitchen equipment, natural gas fuel cells, solar power (if possible) and cooking oil fueled generator, a complete recycling and composting program and biodegradable packaging. If there is a flat roof we'll have a container garden to supplement our produce buying.
Re-inventing ourselves seasonally will require that we can be able to change our atmosphere and we will do this through different types of low voltage lighting. There are many new advances in LED, low voltage halogen, warm fluorescent, CFLs and HID bulbs and using theatrical fixtures on lighting bars will give us a lot of latitude to adjust to the seasons.
The business will not have a back room other that for dish washing and there won't be anything built into the space except for HVAC and plumbing (bathrooms, drains). Everything else will be mobile to facilitate cleaning and so we can re-invent ourselves seasonally.
During the day the business is a little more geared towards retail and at night geared a little more towards in-house eating and drinking. Because everything is mobile we would roll the retail racks and produce bins into the refrigerated walk-in making more room for dining and drinking.
There are two main design features that will differentiate us, the first is a walk-in refrigerated area where our customers have access to produce, meat, fish, cheese, wine and beer. The other important design features that will really differentiate us will be our unique, custom built mobile, powder coated cast iron, stainless steel and glass bars that hold dozens of platters filled with small bites to eat and seat 10. These specially bars are reminiscent of the tapas or cicchetti bars in Barcelona and Venice where they serve small bites of food for the patrons at the bars. The difference is that these are self contained mobile units on heavy duty casters. Tapas and the small bite concept is very popular around the world but, nobody has these types of bars on the west coast and there's only two places I know in New York that have anything similar.
Other seating is a combination of regular and bar height reclaimed wood topped tables and benches with welded steel bases and industrial shop chairs. We plan on being an institution but, the building is just a shell or even a stage where we perform, what matters are the people , the products we're sourcing and making and services we provide.
The key to success is to have the right building, the right location and a talented crew to make it happen. I have been studying the area south of market from Ferry Building to Dogpatch through to the Mission for a dozen years and have found some ideal locations within the target area and right now the real estate market has softened considerably. The size of the building could be as small at 3750 sq ft or as large as 8,600 sq ft, all dependent on the amount of money raised for the project.
I intend to do much of the work on the project myself because I have been planning this for many years and can visualize every aspect of the entire project. My own experience is extensive, I've been in the restaurant business for the last 29 years and everything I've done during my career has been leading me to opening and running this concept. My experience working in Manhattan and studying the great food stores there led me to spend 3+ years at Whole Foods and that convinced me that a market, a bar and a restaurant is a logical, synergistic combination that has tremendous potential. There's nothing I'd rather be doing, I love working with great local artisan grown ingredients and creating delicious healthy food and as well as connecting with people who grow and make the food we're bringing in and being around people who share my passion.
We intent to promote the business through a strong Internet presence, using a constantly updated web site and blog that will be connected to all the popular social networking sites. Eventually the goal is to have a restaurant marketing company that would elevate us into the national spotlight.
Our goal is to be more than just a restaurant, bar or market, we're going to be a socially responsible company that is changing the way food businesses operate. Profits are a result of running the business responsibly and with integrity instead of the being the driver itself.
I need a partner who sees the potential of the project, agrees with the approach, has an interest in the best local and sustainable foods and has the ability to find funding. I have a more complete business plan with a pro forma, a few different equipment lists (depending on available funds), floor plans, menus, labor requirements, profitability analysis and pictures and links to other restaurant and markets that have qualities that I espouse or would like to adopt.
