So I went to Louie’s 106 for their Flavors of Austin menu that was showcased last week. If you haven’t heard of Flavors of Austin, its a pretty cool business model that showcases one restaurant a week with a Restaurant Week style menu. The big difference is that restaurants can set your own prices, number of courses, etc…so restaurants can get a little crazier with their offerings.
So I was happy to see that Louie’s 106 owner Joe Elmiger shined once again with his multi-course menus. Louie’s 106 has statistically outperformed all our other Austin Restaurants during Austin Restaurant Week. I hate to give Joe’s secret away, but it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. Make really exciting menus! It’s a contest for what menu sounds the sexiest, spiciest, and most succulent that wins new diners during restaurant week. And that’s the whole point of Restaurant Week and Flavors of Austin!
For his Flavors of Austin menu Joe offered a 4 course menu with salad, sea bass, choice of beef tornadoes or Rack of Lamb, and cheese cake. That’s the lame, flat, boring way to say it. Personally he could have spiced this up even more, but check out this his Flavors of Austin menu for an example of something that sounds sexy and delicious. And for an even more polished example of the difference in menus, try this article from Austin Entrepreneur Network blogger Bill Leake on his perception of two restaurant week menus from Austin favorites Roaring Fork and Green Pastures. He hit the nail on the head with that blog post and was the inspiration for mine…so rather than go into more detail here…I figured I’d give credit where due. The only other advice I could to add to that is to avoid getting too exotic with your restaurant week menu. I had a client feature an octopus entree on his menu one year and noticed their traffic drop considerably from the previous event. Was that the exact cause? I don’t know. But I’m confident 80% of Americans are scared of Octopus in the kitchen or otherwise. Only a fraction of us spent a couple of summers in Spain exploring things entrees like Pulpo a la Gallega. The rest of them want to hear about Coffee Crusted Rib Eye and Prosciutto-Fontina-Asparagus Stuffed Chicken Breast.
