The Mother Plucker’s Ramblings

If there are two words in the English vernacular that we never want Pluckers to be associated with it is the “Chain Restaurant”.  It never ceases to amaze me to see Americans dining at chain restaurants that look, feel, smell and taste the same in Austin, Texas as they do in Boise, Idaho.  Now I might understand this if the food quality or service at a Chili’s, Applebee’s or Olive Garden was superior to your local eateries.  It is quite possible that back in the mid to late 1980’s, these chain restaurants actually were better than most local places because that was a time that outside of large cities, Americans hadn’t been exposed to other cuisines like Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.  However, these days you have so many choices of where to eat, why would anyone settle for a meal they know is going to be marginal?

For Pluckers, much has changed over the last 15 years as we have grown from a little take-out and delivery restaurant on West Campus in Austin and are now opening our 10th store.  However, we do everything and anything we can do to make each store we open look and feel a little different than the ones we opened previously.  We love the fact that people argue about which Pluckers is their favorite.  Although we may be growing, we promise you that we will never evolve into a typical chain.  What does that mean?  Here is a list of our promises to you loyal Pluckers fan of what we won’t become:

1.  We promise never to lower our prices - We don’t care if there is a recession going on out there.  We refuse to put together a $20 appetizer, entree and dessert for 2 combo to lure you in to Pluckers.  However, we do promise that we will never sacrifice on the quality of our wings, burgers and sauces and to do that means we may need to charge a little more than everyone else.  We do not believe that our guests want us to sacrifice quality in order to save them a couple of bucks.

 2.  We promise never to develop a Pluckers “Prototype” - For those of you outside the restaurant or real estate business, a “prototype” is what the chain restaurants develop so they can build the exact same building in any city in America.  This helps them cut their construction costs because they can repeat the same building over and over.  Boring!  Part of the fun for us is designing new patios, figuring out new ways and places to put our plasma tv’s and creating more interesting dining rooms and bars.  We didn’t get into this business to do the same thing over and over like a factory.

3.  We promise never to develop a restaurant jingle - “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back……”  Ok, so that one is definitely catchy, but we don’t think we need to create a song based on a limited time offer special on ribs to make you want to return to Pluckers.  We think that you can taste the difference in our food and see the genuine caring that the people we hire have for you.

4.  We promise to never allow the masses to determine what Pluckers is - Chain restaurants spend millions of dollars on market research, taste tests and advertising budgets to figure out how they should “brand” themselves in the future.  At Pluckers, the only market research we do is talking to our Pluckers Club members and other guests and make sure we are giving them what they want.  As far as taste tests are concerned, our formula for success is pretty simple…one of us creates a sauce or menu item and if the three of us don’t agree it is great, it doesn’t go on the menu.  We don’t need to sample it to thousands of people to know if something tastes good.  We have highly honed tastebuds developed from years of eating Cajun and Southern cuisine growing up.  And as far as advertising is concerned, sure we have some hits and misses, but we don’t use advertising agencies to tell us how to speak to you.  We use our own judgment and tell you the truth about Pluckers.  And by the way, no ad agency in the world would have suggested “If you don’t like our wings, we’ll give you the BIRD!”

5.  We promise to evolve with the times - Ever noticed how popular chain restaurants hang on too long to their outdated brand?  Walk into a Hooters and take a look at the outfits the girls are wearing.  Are you kidding me?  Those terrible fishnet stockings and orange shorts may have be fashionable in the 1980’s, but so were rugby shirts.  We always want Pluckers to be flexible enough so that our brand never gets stale to our guests.  Sure we like nostalgia too, but we would prefer that it isn’t in what our servers are wearing.

Have you ever noticed that your parents, grandparents and pretty much anyone a generation or two older than you likes to always remind you of how lucky you are?  They run this guilt trip on you like it was your fault that cars didn’t exist in 1920 and they had to walk to school.  The truth is that the greatest technological advances  in America today actually were invented after I was 10 years old.  But hey, you don’t hear us Gen X’ers bitching to Gen Y about “back when I was young”.

If you asked most Americans what the most important inventions of the 20th century were you would hear things like the affordable automobile,  the Space Shuttle and the personal computer.  So as a sports fan, self proclaimed chicken wing connoisseur and pop culture child of the 80’s, I got to thinking about what I considered to be the most important inventions of my lifetime.  Now first of all, I don’t want to hear from anyone about how a prior invention led to any of my most important inventions.  This is my list and if you don’t like it, make your own list.  Now mind you that my thinking isn’t always linear (or rational) without the assistance of mild hallucinogenics.  But after the first puff….all will become not only clear, but it will inspire to re-analyze your own life in ways you never though possible.  Ok, so I am prone to hyperbole. All I know, is that the following inventions have had the greatest impact on my life:

Invention #1 - The Wireless Remote Control

Televisions started finding their way into households in the 1950’s and color tv wasn’t even popular until the 70’s.  However, it is the remote control that changed America.  Let me give you a quick rationale behind this.  Without the remote control, cable telelvsion wouldn’t have been as successful and DirecTV would never have existed.  This is because it would be too much of a pain in the ass to have to walk to your cable box to change channels once there were hundreds of stations available.  So, without cable or DirectTV, there would be no ESPN, and without ESPN, Erin Andrews would not pop up on my screen at least 3 times a week during football season.  The loss of any or all of these would be considered minor catastrophes in my personal life. 

If you are under the age of 35, you probably don’t realize that before the wireless remote control, there were actually two less effective precursors.  The first remote controls actually were attached to a 6-foot wire that stretched out of your television.  What genius thought of that?  Who watches their tv six feet from the screen besides the visually impaired and  grandparents?  This actually may have qualified as one of the dumbest inventions of the 20th century. 

The other form of the remote control had its effectiveness based on how old you were.  For example, my parents got our first color television when I was 4.  As soon as I could read the UHF and VHF dials and understand the spoken word, I was ordained the family remote control.  Dad wants the tv switched from the Incredible Hulk to the Million Dollar Man?  Dave, get off the couch and change the channel.  Grandma wants the tv turned on?  “Dave get in here and come turn on the tv for your grandmother!”  As a four year old, you are only too proud to find anything of assistance you can do to help your family.  All you want to do is earn a little four year old respect.  In today’s world, social services would probably confiscate your child if you had them flipping channels for you all day and night.  In 1976 and in a more innocent time, this was just part of duties of being a son in a house without a wireless remote.

Finally, what man doesn’t love the luxury of being able to switch the channel at 3:00am every 30 seconds between the 1980 Sugar Bowl on ESPN Classic, a Billy Mays infomercial and soft-core porn on Skinamax? 

Invention #2 - NFL Sunday Ticket

When I was growing up, you got to watch 3 or 4 NFL games a week.  This was usually your home team, another 1pm Eastern game, an AFC West afternoon game and then Monday night football.  If your home team was as crappy as my Atlanta Falcons, then usually they didn’t sell out their home games and even that was blacked out.  I know some of you under 35 are thinking, well why didn’t you go to a sports bar if you were such an NFL fan?  The answer is there were no real sports bars until about 1987.   It wasn’t until around that time that people started buying those giant 6-foot satellite dishes and stealing the signal from all over the world that sports bars became relevant.

 In Atlanta, the original sports bar was The Varsity located in dowtown Atlanta.  Not only did they have the world’s greatest chili dog and onion rings, they also had entire rooms dedicated to one television network…and the TV was a 23-inch tube tv.  So as a kid on Sunday’s you could go to The Varsity and run back and forth between the two rooms that had the NBC and CBS games on.  Remember, you would do anything not to have to sit at home and be the human remote control.

In 1994, the NFL was still lagging behind Major League Baseball as America’s Favorite Sport.  It was the combined vision of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the NFL owners that forever tilted the balance in favor of the NFL.  What they realized is that Americans love gambling.  Whether its the millions bet legally in Las Vegas, the billions bet illegally or fantasy football we just love to have some action on a game we are watching.  The problem for the NFL was that too many people didn’t get a chance to watch enough of the teams to feel confident enough  to put money on the outcome.  At the time, Rotisserie or Fantasy Baseball was the predominent form of gambling among sports degenerates like me.  As soon as The Ticket was launched, all of the sudden, you could sit at your house and watch every NFL game on Sundays?  Instantly the focus switched to Fantasy Football, gambling on football with your local bookie and doing all of this while sitting on your couch.

 Invention #3 - The Chicken McNugget

Many Pluckers fans that are 25 or younger don’t realize that before 1983, there were no chicken fingers or chicken wings.  In fact, people in America rarely ate chicken at all in restaurants unless it was at a cafeteria.  Luckily for all of us, McDonalds changed the way we viewed chicken forever.  Instead of being a bland piece of overcooked meat, the original Chicken McNuggets were delicious little fried pieces of chicken parts that were smashed into nugget form.  If you are over 30, I am sure you remember the first first few years after their launch with every 6 pack of McNuggets there was always that one nugget in the pack where you knew definitely didn’t have the taste or texture of any chicken you had eaten before.  It was rubbery, tendony and mildly nauseous.  But dip it in some Hot Mustard or Sweet and Sour sauce and even the worst McNugget beat the hell out of mom’s cooking.

Luckilly, McNuggets gave way to chicken fingers and chicken fingers gave way to the popularity of chicken wings.  Sure, the Anchor Bar in Buffalo invented wings back in the 60’s, but no one was interested in any chicken product until the McNugget.

If you have noticed, all of the above inventions are important to my life for a reason.  That reason is because without these inventions, there would be no Pluckers.  So we should all give thanks to these inventions for helping make our lives a better place.

It’s official, the 10th Pluckers will be in Arlington, Texas opening in September.  Our location is in the Arlington Highlands shopping center in a little restaurant row that includes Chuy’s, Bonedaddy’s, Boudreaux’s and Blackfin.  This will be our second DFW Metroplex location and we are excited to be part of all that is happening out in Arlington including the opening of the new Cowboy’s stadium this Fall. 

The new Pluckers will feature over 50 plasmas (as usual), a circular bar and a huge indoor/outdoor patio to chill and watch games on.  If you are interested in applying for a job please visit the employment section of our website and complete an application.  If you are a Pluckers Club member, keep your schedule open so you can cash in on your free meal and first look at the new store some time in late-August/early September.  If you are a PC member that lives in Austin, Killeen or San Marcos, we are considering creating a bus trip that leaves from Austin and gets you up to Dallas before the restaurant opens for a small fee.  If you would be interested in joining us, please email kwollman@pluckers.net.

For some reason, every person who likes food or has ever been told they are a good cook at some point in his life thinks to himself, “maybe I should open a restaurant”.  It amazes me how many people with little to no experience open their own restaurant.  If you’ve ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, you have a good understanding at what I am talking about. 

I know from personal experience working at other restaurants just how low the morale and standards can get under poor leadership.  I thought it would be a good idea to let you know how to look for the signs of a bad restaurant before you make the mistake of eating there.  On the flip side, there are signs to look for that will tell you a restaurant experience is going to be great.  Some of my rules for choosing a good restaurant may surprise many of you as well. 

Signs to Avoid a Restaurant

The  Building Signage is Out

You know how you drive down the highway at night and see that restaurant sign where half the lights are out?  If it’s a restaurant in your neighborhood and you know the signage recently went out, then it’s no big deal because that will happen from time to time.  However, if you drive by that sign and they never fix it, stay away from this restaurant.  A restaurant that knows they are throwing off that vibe to the public on the exterior, definitely isn’t going to take pride on the interior.

It kind of reminds me of that scene from Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise with the Hotel Coral Essex where half the lights on the sign are out.  Actually that has nothing to do with my point, but any time I can reference any of the Nerds Trilogy, I’ll jump on the opportunity.  And if you are saying, well Dave, there were actually four Revenge of the Nerds movies, please know that I do not consider the vastly inferior made for TV Nerds IV:  Nerds in Love to be a legitimate part of the series.  It’s kind of like Rocky 5, where everyone wants to pretend that it never really happened. 

The Restaurant Has Pictures of the Food on the Menu

On the Pluckers menu, we have random pictures of our food and that is totally cool.  However, if a restaurant has to take a picture of all 36 entrees and place it next to each item on the menu so you know what it will look like, you are guaranteed a terrible meal.  I mean, do I really need to see what the Western Omelet looks like?   In this case be assured that 1) the food will never look like the picture and 2) it will taste even worse.  A notable exception goes to the Waffle House where the pictures can’t even do justice to how incredible an order of hashbrowns “Scattered, Smothered and Covered” truly is at 3am.  

There are more than 5 “Specials” are Offered on the Menu

You may ask, what’s wrong with specials?  Well, anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows that the following scientific formula generally applies:Just like E=MC², in a restaurant:Specials = What’s left in the cooler and about to spoilRemember, restaurants are a business and like any business, they don’t want to throw out inventory.  Unfortunately in our business, we have to try and predict how much of each food item our guests will order before that item goes bad.  What’s the best way to get rid of aging product?  You guessed it, the answer is specials.  Don’t think that fine dining restaurants are immune to this either because they are more expensive.  In fact, these restaurants will be more likely than casual dining restaurants to get rid of inventory through specials because their inventory costs more.  If a restaurant has a couple of specials on the menu, it may be because the chef wants to try out a few new menu items.  However, if the menu  has 5 things on special, they are trying to ditch that last piece of salmon that’s been in the walk-in cooler for 6 days. 

Your Group is the Only People in the Restaurant

Let’s face it, you aren’t Anthony Bourdain about to find that great little hole in the wall everyone else missed.  What you are about to be is the dummy who doesn’t realize that you are the only people in the restaurant because no one else wants to eat there!  By eating at these restaurants, you aren’t supporting the local economy or  being kind by helping out a struggling small business.  You might as well just go up to the proprietor and ask for an order of the runs with a side of salmonella.   

Dave’s Aside – Do as I say, Not as I Do

OK, so I just gave you four foolproof signs of why not to visit a restaurant.  Unfortunately, somehow, I always forget to follow my own advice.  In March, I was in a tiny town in Laos called Luang Prabang.  Because I AM the idiot who thinks he is Anthony Bourdain, I convinced my friend that we should eat at a sleepy (read: no other customers) restaurant by the Mekong Delta.  The place was run by two affable Laotian men under the age of 19 who looked like they had zero restaurant experience.  So what do I do?  After looking at their menu that was full of pictures I tell them to give us all of the “off-menu” specials.  All I can tell you is that having food poisoning for 4 days in Southeast Asia is not my idea of a fun vacation. 

Signs that you Should Eat at a Restaurant

The Building Signage is Out

Now wait a minute, didn’t you just tell me that is a sign NOT to eat at a restaurant?  Well there are rules and there are exceptions.  If the restaurant looks like it has been there for more than 30 years and the signage is flickering, this can be the holy grail of restaurants.  It isn’t laziness in this case, it is character.  Come to think of it, any restaurant that has been around long enough to have the lights on the sign legitimately flickering has to be good. 

The Griddle Looks Like it Hasn’t Been Cleaned in 20 Years

I love a good greasy spoon.  It amazes me how people avoid dirty restaurants.    For instance, most of the best hamburger joints look like they could very well be infested with cockroaches.  I say that means the burgers are guaranteed to be tasty.  Come on, live a little.  In case you didn’t know it, everyday foods regulated by the FDA like chocolate or ketchup are chocked full of insects.  Hell, in Australia they allow up to 8% of chocolate bars to be insects.  A little extra protein never hurt anyone. The next time you are at a greasy spoon, take a look at the griddle.  If it looks brand new, you are missing out on years of fat and grease that has seeped into the pores of the flat-top and being transferred lovingly onto your plate.  An exception would be a greasy spoon that has no customers.  Then you have to refer to the rule above.  However, the next time you are in a city where you don’t know where to eat, look for the dirtiest looking, crowded restaurant and you are guaranteed a great meal. 

Ethnic Food Restaurants That Butcher the English Language

As a general rule, my favorite Thai, Chinese, Mexican and Vietnamese restaurants do not correctly use the English language.  For instance, if you want Kung Pao Chicken, you don’t want it described to you in a way that is easy to understand.  It’s better when it says something like “slice of chicken cooks with green pepper and peanut”.  I think we need to grant these restaurants poetic license the way we would a Wordsworth or Thoreau. A great example is my favorite chicken restaurant in the world called El Regio in San Marcos, Texas.  First off, it is in a gas station which means you know it will be good.  But more importantly, there is a giant hand-painted sign on the gas station that proudly proclaims “El Regio – The Best Chicken Taste in Texas”.  Before it hit my lips I knew it was going to be good.

Street Food

It constantly amazes me how many people don’t consider street food among the best around.  I have been fortunate enough to visit countries all over the world and usually the tastiest food you will find in places like Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico come from vendors on the street.  Not only is it cheap, the food is usually incredible.  Here’s why.  Imagine if all you did to earn a living was cook one or two dishes every day and those dishes needed to be good enough that people came back.  Well, you better be damn good at making those dishes and that is generally what happens.  Even here in

Austin some of the best food can be found on the street or trailers from places like Torchy’s Tacos, Lulu B’s and The Best Wurst. 

Now that I am older and wiser (well some would say that), I have a very clear understanding of just how demented the restaurant business truly is. There is no other respectable business that attracts a greater collection of misfits, con-artists, convicts, sadists, burnouts and debaucherists than restaurants. For anyone who has ever managed in the service industry and more specifically the restaurant business, I am sure you will be able to sympathize with some of the people I am about to describe that worked on our original staff and nothing here will shock you. For the rest of you, here is a little peek into the life of a 22-year old restaurateur and what went through on a daily basis all in the name of opening Pluckers. Names will be changed to protect the not so innocent, no matter how much I would like to provide their dates of birth and Social Security numbers.

Now I do want to preface this story with the fact that none of these types of characters would ever be found working at a Pluckers anymore. Today, we have superior hiring techniques, a better understanding of the restaurant business and have incredible people working for us. Or maybe…we are just the bosses and no one tells us the great stories anymore!

Our original staff at the old Rio Grande store back in 1995 consisted of three types of people. Those on drugs, those who couldn’t hold any other job and University of Texas sorority girls. I don’t know what was more difficult to deal with, the fact our entire kitchen staff were burnouts or trying to convince a Tri Delt that she had to miss a Crush party and work a Friday night. Mark and I, being 22 years old, fresh out of college and basically naive to managing people just couldn’t understand why our employees that we paid $4.50 an hour didn’t care about Pluckers as much as we did.

To give you a taste of what life was like running our first restaurant, here are some fun bios on our original staff.

• The Jewish Cheech and Chong – these were two fraternity brothers of ours that were best friends. I also had the pleasure of living with these guys the summer we opened the restaurant and I figured if you can’t trust your fraternity brothers, who could you trust? I later found out that they had developed a complex scam where if you ordered extra jalapenos with your chicken wings that meant you wanted a “special delivery” with more than just Pluckers food. These two also thought it was a good idea to get my 8-week old puppy stoned every night while I was working until 5 in the morning. But hey, the puppy is now 14 years old so maybe the medicinal qualities of marijuana really do work!

• Jacob – In the first week of his employment, we recognized Jacob’s raw talent as a cook and gave him what was then a monster raise from $6.00 an hour all the way to the lofty heights of $6.50 an hour just to ensure his loyalty. We were constantly amazed that no matter how many orders were on the line, Jacob never seemed to let the stress get to him. He provided a calming effect on everyone around him. Unfortunately, we later discovered the secret to Jacob’s demure demeanor. It turns out Jacob was so whacked out of his skull that once when a chicken wing fell into the fryer, he thought it would be a good idea to stick his hand in the 350-degree oil to fish it out! Needless to say that once Jacob’s hand was out of the oil it looked like a piece of raw hamburger meat. Fortunately for us, Jacob didn’t realize there was such a thing as Workers Compensation because we hadn’t even thought to buy any. He ended his glorious Pluckers career when we heard rumors that Jacob was stealing giant 160-slice blocks of American Cheese out of the coolers. When we asked Jacob to open his bookbag which to find out if this was true, his only response was “Hey man, I really like Grilled Cheese sandwiches and I thought you owed this to me for my hand”.

• Nate – another incredible find as a cook. He worked for Pluckers for over a year which made him the Lou Gehrig of Pluckers employees at the time. Nate had abused his body so much over the years that he didn’t need tongs to turn the chicken and burgers on the 400-degree grill. He would just use his hands to turn the meat because he had no feeling from his shoulder down in either arm. Being restaurant neophytes this of course this impressed us and we promptly made Nate the daytime manager.

• Nate’s Uncle – This guy was the ultimate wild-card. His typical outfit to work was a wife beater, jean shorts and no underwear. When we asked him why he didn’t wear underwear, he told us because it was easier to bathe this way. Huh? We later found out that his daily bath took place during his shifts at Pluckers when he would either go swimming au natural in the pool of the apartments next to the restaurant or he would use our mop sink as a makeshift bathtub before anyone arrived to work. After hearing of this, the mop refused to return to work for 2 weeks.

• Eugenius – to this day, the best guy/worst employee ever at Pluckers. I mean this was the sweetest, nicest kid you could meet. Sure we knew he had the common sense of a toad, but you just had to root for this guy in life. Unfortunately, there literally wasn’t one menu item he could remember how to make. Being a cook on our staff, that was kind of important. Please keep in mind that no Pluckers item at the time required more than 3 steps to completion. His piece de resistance was when a guest called the restaurant complaining about a Chicken Parmesan Sandwich he had ordered for delivery. This was a fairly simple sandwich with fried chicken, mozzarella cheese and marinara served on a bun. Eugenius it turns out had sent the poor guy 4 mozzarella sticks covered in lettuce without a bun. When we asked him why, his only response was “I don’t know, that sounded Italian to me!”

• Our first manager – After working 18 hour days for a year and a half, Mark and I decided to hire our first official manager. We had found this great cook who was a ski-bum from Colorado and he quickly earned our trust. In fact, we liked him so much that he ended up living with both Mark and I at separate times during his employment. This guy was a rock…his integrity couldn’t be questioned….we 100% trusted him with our restaurant! Well, we later found out that during his employment he:

o Had relations with a female customer in the Pluckers bathroom after a shift. Not that unusual in our business, however her request included something to do with Saran-wrap and a spatula.
o Made our walk-in cooler his personal brothel with half of our cashiers.
o Eventually we learned our lesson about becoming friends with our employees. This was because our first manager stole our company checkbook and wrote over $6000 in checks to “Cash”. However, since a crook isn’t always the smartest person in the world, instead of trying to forge one of our signatures and get away with it, this mental moron just signed the checks with his own name leading to prosecution and jail time. Eventually he decided the prudent thing to do was to flee the state of Texas forever because he had previous warrants and we haven’t seen him since.

Everyone thinks owning a restaurant is a sexy business. What they sometimes fail to see is that if you don’t really know what you are doing, you can end up with people that make the cast of “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” look sane. However, this is the lot in life we have chosen and we wouldn’t change any of it for the world!