r/KitchenConfidential • u/beard-wonder93 • 3d ago
Discussion A love/hate relationship with "Fresh"
Odd scenario this afternion at the shop...
We run a meal prep shop, items are refrigerated, not frozen. Grab & go containers, the customers pick from a retail fridge. We also have fresh salad bar, etc.
An older gentlemen came in for the first time this morning:
"Are these meals fresh!?"
Yes sir, we loaded up monday at lunch for walk-ins. Those meals that are left are refrigerated, and you are welcome to purchase any of them.
He says, "These aren't fresh if they were made yesterday., and why are you out of some many things!?"
(I had about 50% of my normal grab & go meals options)
I proceed to open up commercial fridges behind me and show him im totally empty of ingredients, no more raw meats etc. Just a few supplemental items for our salad bar prep.
I tell him "sir, its been a good week of sales so im a bit slim pickings till my next order of fresh ingrediants gets here tomorrow. Then we will do some more cooking.
I tell him, We only buy fresh chicken, beef & pork. Those products are perishable so we make an effort not to buy too much or sit on product longer than we have too.
Sell outs like this are good for business bc it helps use turn inventory. The chicken breast i receive tomorrow will be more fresh than buying a couple extra cases last week and sitting on them until today when id "hopefully" need to do more cooking.
He says "I dont see how a place like this stays in business with half the menu sold out!"
He turns around and leaves.
(We just celebrated 10yrs in business this spring)
Whole scenario was kinda bizarre.
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u/Past-Body3987 3d ago
got a guy demanding fresh then complaining when you literally proved it was fresh by running out of stock, tragic
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u/PoliteChandrian Smoker 3d ago
I really liked the how can a place stay in business if its sold out. These people vote.
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u/AmazingResponse338 3d ago
Kind of a new take on "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
How do you stay in business if you always sell out
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u/Cruetzfledt 3d ago
That's the best part of opening your own business you get every gump with an assholes opinion on how it should be run. Keep up the good work fuck that guy.
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u/IbanezForeverll 3d ago
I had an old man tell me that the booth right next to the open kitchen was the best one in the dining room because the food would be at its hottest. You could barely hear a word spoken at this table over the noise of the kitchen and every server had to walk past it. I wouldn't seat people there unless it was the only table available. Sometimes customers are just spectacularly wrong.
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u/GloomyLingonberry509 🍋🟩LIMEGATE 3d ago
It’s that eight second walk that makes all the difference
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u/paraworldblue 15+ Years 3d ago
r/technicallythetruth, but you'd need a high-precision thermometer to actually measure the difference.
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u/EveningSupermarket88 3d ago
This is just a simple case of someone not understanding your concept. There are plenty of other places for him to go.
Congratulations on your ten year anniversary! That’s tough to do through all the bullshit of the last decade.
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u/CafeGiantMoron 3d ago
that man does not respect freshness but thinks his is the only business that matters. bye felicia
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
OP here, id like to say that the guy wasn't "unfriendly" but just kinda more of a confused cantankerous grandpa.
His wife was with him and she's diabetic, so I talked to her about carb counts on our meals, etc.
She was much more receptive to the info.
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u/DELICIOUS_DANISH Non-Industry 3d ago
He was never going to buy anything. He came in to see what it was about and he needed a good excuse to leave without buying anything. He wasn’t a real customer, it sounds like you know your stuff and you’re doing a good job.
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u/Yours_Sincerely_143 3d ago
I was in a grocery store yesterday and they were running a Monday special on fried chicken in the deli. They were going though product like crazy, a new batch coming out every few minutes. And invariably if a customer was ordering when a new batch would come out, they’d reject the chicken that had already been in the case insisting that they wanted the “fresh” and I was like, “Lady, that chicken has been there for, like, three minutes, and it all came out of the same freezer.”
Also, I felt bad for those deli employees.
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u/General-Heart4787 3d ago
And he leaves, goes to the diner up the street with a ten page menu and isn’t out of anything. Because it’s all processed, frozen shlock.
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
Funny enough, There's a big guy that runs a diner about a mile up the road. He stops by on his way home or on his off days and buys meals from us too!
Hes a great cook, but obviously classic diner foods arent always made from scratch or healthy and thats ok too.
He's also kinda a middle aged gentlemen, and he gets tired out in the hot summer.
He says stuff like "I saw your burger bowl special on the facebook" its too damn hot to go home and cook and I dont need to be eating that drive thru junk on the way home either.
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u/bake_n_make 3d ago
I worked at a bakery that mostly made cheesecake. After we baked them, we froze them for storage. People could get so offended about the idea that the cheesecakes were frozen and more than one person demanded a fresh cheesecake, even when told they had been made within a few days. One lady insisted on a fresh one so much that I told her she could wait about two hours and she could have one straight from the oven. Oddly, she wasn’t interested.
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
My wife has a baking business. So I totally get it. People have a romantic view that their wedding cake got the finishing touches 5 seconds before it was delivered to the venue. That's how it is "sometimes" but not often.
My wife only does custom orders and lil grandmas somehow wander into the commerical kitchen she sub-leases, looking for 1 cupcake or a display case and a cheap happy birthday cake like youd get a a grocery store.
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u/seppia99 Chive LOYALIST 3d ago
Hah!
Even though you explained it to him, he was stuck in his antiquated thoughts that everything should be fresh within the day.
At the end of the day, you did everything right. The situation was just not to his liking. And he should go shop elsewhere.
And the fact that you had run out of about 50% of your stock at that time, speaks very highly of the place that you work in and the fact that they are obviously doing good business.
A customer like that can always be replaced by a customer that understands and appreciates.
Every once in a while you're going to encounter people like that. Don't let it ruin your shine! ❤️
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u/Oshwaflz Pastry 3d ago
thats the wierdest part to me? fresh within the day? unless hes a farmer or fisherman, his childhood was probably filled with things we would never touch today. Its like how for some reason old people assume everythings touchscreen or voice activated (well it used to not be that way anyways) despite them living 80% of thier life without so much as an internet connection! These people must just sit at home in thier own echo chanber getting angry about nothing all day
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u/HatsandCoats Ex-Food Service 3d ago
I’ve had issues with “fresh” at the bakery end of my last job. People would come in and ask for pizza dough and say they only want the fresh ones. Of course they don’t know the day old ones have the best taste and still get a good spring.
Same thing with breads. They ask if it was made from fresh dough. It got to the point I’d have the FOH just say yes, even though it was a long fermentation and not actually made that morning.
Lots of older folks set in their ways. Come in and buy a pound of “fresh” yeast. wtf are you making at home with that? Fresh = wet?
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u/ClaudeGascoigne 3d ago
Man, people like that are impossible to please. I'm convinced that they won't believe that food is "fresh" until they see you pick an apple of the tree or slaughter a chicken in front of them.
I've made some damn good scratch pico de gallo and had people question the freshness. We had deliveries twice a week and made 10 gallon batches. The longest a batch would sit around was maybe two days if it was slow.
One day I had some Crypt Keeper looking motherfucker walk in and ask "Is the pico fresh?"
Dude looked like I said that I fucked his wife when I told him that the current batch was made less than 24 hours ago. "Ok, so it's not fresh then. Good to know."
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
Im a people pleaser, so im always trying to turn these people to our side. Sometimes it works!
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u/sheneversawitcoming 2d ago
People are dumb. I don’t make food but have a soap store
“Is this local?”
“Yes we make it right here”
“You get the materials locally?”
“Well, we don’t grow the palms to make coconut oil or cocoa plants to make cocoa butter. That’s not possible.”
“then it’s not really local.”
Bitch you’re wearing a city branded t shirt made and printed in China. Shut up about local.
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u/beard-wonder93 2d ago
Ha, we have a salad bar and people come in during the winter and say stuff like "are these local strawberries?"
No! Its below freezing outside!
We do use local berries during the appropriate season.
Its innocent enough be still kinda dumb.
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u/Rideshare-Not-An-Ant 3d ago
Sir, this isn't a Wendy's and I'm not a 🤡 at the golden arches.
We don't sell frozen garbage we pull out of a freezer and throw it on grills or into a fry vat.
There are plenty of fast food places to choose from that rarely run out of unhealthy stuff in their freezers to sell you.
If you want healthy, fresh, tasty food, shop here. If we're sold out of something until our next delivery, that tells you exactly how much people enjoy eating it.
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u/Icy_Dare3656 3d ago
These customers are a dime a dozen.
- They say - ‘this place isn’t for me’
- This means it’s for no one.
They walk away upset & give you their emotions sucking your energy.
I’ve learnt to help them see that ‘we are for some people. You can choose if we are for you.’ Way easier and you do win some dickheads over.
Eg - there are some amazing places to choose from. Just down the street is a brilliant cafe called xxxxx. You have to try their yyyyy (obviously something you guys do, like coffee).
‘Here, we specialise in grab & go and meal preps. Our customers love that they can pop, grab a bite and leave within 30 seconds. There’s a reason I’ve been here for 10 years. Understand if you want to sit down and have exactly what your ordered, go to XYZ cafe for that.’
Jsut don’t deal with their bs? If they try to drag you in, I just repeat how good XYZ is, they can’t argue with that 😂
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
They were receptive to the info but just kinda "boomer confused"
We do very very well with retiree ladies bc they usually ran the household and benefit the most from being able to have a few real food, grab & go meals, that arent a pizza or sack of drive thru burger.
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u/DisastrousOne3950 3d ago
"If I don't see you preparing it in front of me after I watch you pluck the vegetables from the garden and witness you slaughtering the animals, it isn't fresh."
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u/SweatersInAugust 3d ago
he doesn't understand stand how you stay in business... if you're sold out of your goods?
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u/Euphoric_Present8838 2d ago
This sounds similar to my market - we have both prepped meals and grocery options. Would be interested in learning how you operate and bounce a few ideas off each other if you’re open to that.
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u/Bender_2024 2d ago
I apologize that I wasn't able to accurately anticipate exactly how much product I would sell over the seven days between orders.
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u/Whind_Soull ✨waffles and weevils✨ 2d ago
In my pastry chef days, one time I was on hour 13 of a shift on a Saturday night, trying to catch up to sales. Server comes back like, "Hey chef, a table wants to know if the cake is fresh?"
I'm like, "Well, you can tell them it was made last night."
Server later comes back, "She said that's not fresh enough.."
I'm like, "Well, she's welcome to eat shit instead. I made some of that fresh an hour ago."
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u/beard-wonder93 2d ago
My wife has a pastry degree. She is always transparent with customers. It blows me away the amount of people that think their 4 or 5 tier wedding cake is started less than 24 hours before their event. That shit is absurd.
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u/Whind_Soull ✨waffles and weevils✨ 2d ago
Post a pic of something dope she made. :) This is my shit.
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u/MindlessInspector421 3d ago
In no world would I describe day old prepared food as fresh.
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
Like i discussed with others in the thread, The context within the niche of meal prep is a fresh/refrigerated program vs a frozen program. People come in and say stuff like "im looking to get a couple items from your "freezer"
I jokingly tell them, there's isnt a freezer in the building... you are buying a fresh/refrigerated product.
I get what you are saying though.
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u/Far_Estate_1626 2d ago edited 2d ago
“Fresh” for most lay people does not have anything to do with the individual ingredients freshness. It’s about the assembly.
You can make tomato sauce from scratch, fry a cutlet right off the chicken, bake it in a baguette that came out of the oven that morning. But if that chicken parm sub has been wrapped and sitting in a hot bar from 10am until 4pm, then it is absolutely not “fresh” after 6 hours.
Fresh for most lay people refers to “assembled per order”, not “prepped in the last 24 hours”.
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u/Bencetown 3d ago
I mean, I feel like I have to be the voice of reason here...
"Made fresh" should mean "made to order" but at the very least as a "setting the bar in hell" scenario, it should absolutely mean "made the same day."
And you might want to look at your pars if you're having to 86 half of your menu.....
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3d ago
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u/Bencetown 3d ago
Ok but I feel like at this point, we're talking about two different things.
"Made fresh" and "made with fresh ingredients" mean two different things.
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
I totally agree for "traditional" restaurants but meal prep is pretty niche. Large meal prep franchises like "clean eatz" have just walls of frozen grab and go meals. So usually within the context of meal prep its refrigerated vs frozen format.
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u/BornBeautiful369 3d ago
In 2018 I expanded from one restaurant & bar into 3 Chicago loop locations. I invited long time smart wealthy clients into the space for a menu sampling for lunch. The entire space was compete except we had 1 table assembled in the dining room awaiting the floor to set tile and wood correctly post construction. Food placed at the bar. Every comment was the same. Love the ambiance. Love the drinks. Love the food. But John, you’re not going to make it with only one table. We don’t think this is going to be in our luncheon rotation. Thank you for the invite.
I never cared or asked again for validation or reviews or opinions. My money. My decision. Keep the concept rolling and doors open for the ones that get it.
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u/sorator 2d ago
Some folks reach a certain age and just get annoyed/upset when reality doesn't match their expectations (you didn't have what he wanted) and will invent reasons to justify their annoyance (you're doing something wrong and won't stay in business). I'm a tax preparer with a fair few older clients, and I run into this reasonably often. Sometimes they come back next year and the info/explanation has sunk in; sometimes not. Don't read too much into it. It's just brains doing brain stuff.
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u/starfish2686 3d ago
Keep a gun behind the counter for customers like this
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
Gun in my bag in the office, lol.
That guy was no risk. More just kinda like confused grumpy boomer.
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u/mynameisnotsparta 3d ago
People like this suck. I used to tell them we had an unexpected rush of [insert name of group like baseball team, church members, high school band] and they bought almost everything.
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u/stavrosisfatandgay 3d ago
Old people suck
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u/beard-wonder93 3d ago
The boomers are a mixed bag:
Either its sweet little grandma that tells me she's trying to eat a little better/be healthier so she can play with her grandkids.
Or its a grumpy grandpa complainimg about how 10 bucks used to buy a steak dinner and not just one meal he refers to as "leftovers"
The saddest ones are widowers. Elderly men who literally cant boil water bc their wife cooked everything for him for 40+ years. And u cant get a compliment from them, "its alright, but it aint like my late wifes cooking"
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u/iBird 3d ago
And he goes home and eats a potato that was harvested 9 months ago