By Justin Grona, Culinary Director, East, Aramark Workplace Hospitality
It is easy for a chef to feel like the job ends when the plate leaves the pass. I see it differently. What we are really doing is delivering an experience, and yes, the food is at the center of it, but great food still has to do one thing: meet the moment the guest is in. That is what I ask my chefs to think about, and it starts with a simple question, what makes sense today, right here?
Start with the weather and the calendar. If it is a hundred degrees outside, a heavy chicken pot pie is not what people want, no matter what the calendar says about fall. When it is warm, people want lighter, more vibrant food, burrata with grilled nectarines and a little citrus hot honey. When it turns cold, a good braise hits the spot, cider-braised beets with a crispy goat cheese fritter. And when pumpkin spice is on every menu in October, there is nothing wrong with running a pumpkin muffin in September as an entryway into that flavor, because guess what, people are already reaching for it.
It has to meet the region too. Our café food has gone global, but where you are still matters. Grits in the South. Pork roll or Taylor ham, depending on which side of New Jersey you’re on. Pork tenderloin in Indiana. Those are the foods that mean home to the people we serve, and they belong on the menu.
A lot of what people want is shaped before they ever walk through our doors. They come in influenced by what they saw the night before, on their phones, in the places they eat on the weekend. Their expectations are set out there, not in here. So I want us paying attention and bringing it in, through pop-ups, limited runs, and stations that can move on a trend while it is still a trend. When people see what is exciting them right now showing up in their own café, that is what gives them a reason to come down.
We are a big organization, and a lot of what we do well comes from scale and consistency. But being built for scale does not mean the food has to be the same everywhere. Across the East, I am pushing my chefs to keep their eyes on the guest, to notice what people actually want right now and give it to them. Being big does not mean losing sight of the person standing in front of you. That, to me, is what makes a café a place people want to be, not just a place they have to go.
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Justin Grona is Culinary Director, East, for Aramark Workplace Hospitality, leading culinary strategy across the East region.
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