 E-mail Story Print Friendly
|
Friday, June 4, 2004
Zia Diner Owner Dishes on Dining Out
By Anne Hillerman
For the Journal
This conversation with Beth Draiscol of the Zia Diner, 326 South Guadalupe, is part of an occasional series of interviews with regional chefs and restaurant owners.
How did the Zia Diner get started?
It opened on New Year's Eve, 1986. Tom Riggs and Katie Powers were the owners and they hired me to be the general manager. Then they moved on and asked me if I would run it. I became the manager and then I bought the restaurant with a business partner. I recently became the full owner.
How did you learn about the restaurant business?
I'm completely self-taught. I got a degree in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley and then moved to Santa Fe in 1978. I started as a waitress at The Haven, and then worked the counter at Becker's and as a waitress at Victor's. I had a home-baking business for three years. Duke, at 10,000 Waves, bought my chocolate chip cookies and lemon bars. I'd strap the kids in, put the cookies in a box and drive them up the hill. It was really fortuitous that I got hired here. I've had a few weekend seminars on things like cost control, but everything I've learned, I've learned on the job. There's no part of the restaurant business I haven't done myself. I know how hot the kitchen can be, how hard the work is, how difficult some customers can be.
Some places can't stay open for six months. How has the Zia Diner survived for 20 years?
Those restaurants that close in six months don't have enough financing to hold them until they can make money. That's crucial.
Secondly, to succeed you have to know how you fit in. Are you an everyday restaurant or a special events restaurant? We wanted people to feel comfortable here, to come as they are. We established our niche early. That made it easier to work on the inconsistencies in food and service and to get things stabilized. Staff turnover is a fact of life in this business, but we make sure the new cooks follow the same recipes. When you serve comfort food, that's especially important.
How do you characterize your menu?
We call it "down-home upscale comfort food."
Do you have a signature dish?
Well, the Green Chile Piñon Meatloaf is the one people want the recipe for most often. Now, instead of mashed potatoes and gravy, some people ask for extra vegetables. It used to be our Cobb salad, but now everyone has a Cobb salad. We have a new salad, Southwestern Chicken Salad, with corn and piñon nuts and an orange vinaigrette. It's my current favorite. I eat it every day.
Are you involved in developing recipes?
I still bake at home, trying things out. But usually it's the chef or sous-chef. We introduce a new item first on the specials menu to see what people think of it.
How big is your staff?
We have between 60-65 employees. Lots of them are behind the scenes, since we're open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. I have a great staff. My managers are completely competent. The last time I got called at home was three years ago when we had the fire. We were closed from mid-July to mid-August, the peak of the season. I was afraid some of our customers might find someplace else to go, but the public response was great. People said they were sorry we were closed and asked how we were doing.
Who are your clients?
Most are definitely locals. Attorneys, architects, state workers, families who live in the area. The goal from the beginning was to be a mid-priced, locals' restaurant. We wanted customers to eat here all year.
What's changed over 20 years?
People eat more salad than they used to. We have eight or nine salads on the menu now. We have low-carb tortillas for Atkins, but we haven't really changed our menu. And (the low carb diets) don't seem to cut into our dessert business. People order the fruit pies and just eat the filling. And we sell stuff out of the bakery counter left and right. And we now have breakfast.
Why did you decide to add breakfast?
We started because we were forever getting calls about it or having tourists show up between 9 and 10:30 in the morning and wonder why we weren't open since we were a diner, and diners are open all day long. We're pleased with the breakfast menu, and we're working on consistency. Serving breakfast was like opening a new mini-restaurant. We started in March so we'd have time to get things worked out before summer.
What's your biggest challenge here?
How to continue to improve what we do, to fine-tune things, while we stay basically the same. How to be better without being different, without changing the reasons people come here in the first place.
What's the biggest joy for you in this business?
The best thing is the people I get to meet. I've worked with thousands of employees and then there are all the people in the community I've had a chance to get to know— many people I wouldn't have met otherwise.
What is the biggest change you've seen in the restaurant business in 20 years?
Customers are more discerning, discriminating about what they want. They want free range chicken and Taos Farms eggs. They are more interested in natural and organic products, locally grown vegetables. We shop at the Farmer's Market in the summer and buy our meat locally.
Where do you go when you go out to eat?
I like Bistro 315. They do a great job. The Compound, Santacafe, Pranzo, Pascual's. I've heard good things about Rooney's, the place where Whistling Moon used to be.
What advice would you have for someone who wants to open a restaurant?
Be prepared to work non-stop at least for the first couple of years. Have a temperament that can handle perpetual concerns about money and enables you to sleep at night even though you don't know what tomorrow will bring. It's so tough to get a restaurant off the ground.