A Conversation Between a Chef and his Nutritionist Daughter

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Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

If you’re reading this, you likely know that I, the author of this blog, am the daughter of Chef Shannon McKinney. I’m a self proclaimed foodie and honestly, a little bit of a food snob. I’m also a nutritionist. But because of my foodie nature and upbringing, I look at food and health and wellness a bit differently than many others in the space. I think that the combination of expertise in nutrition and a deep love of the restaurant industry allows for a really unique approach to food in that while I believe and teach that food IS fuel (meant to help our body function the best it possibly can), I ALSO believe that food has much deeper meaning. It tells a story. It teaches history. It’s an art form. It’s a sign of respect and of love and caring. It promotes connection and bonding.

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Restaurant Do’s & Don’ts

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Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

From a restaurant’s perspective, the goal is to provide every guest with a great dining experience. Some restaurants may be better at providing that than others, but that is the heart of running a restaurant. A great server will provide high quality service no matter what but that doesn’t mean they aren’t bothered by certain customer behaviors. I can’t speak for every server, everywhere but in my experience, the following five actions are enough to make your waiter/waitress clench their fists and force their smile.

So what should you do, or STOP doing, to make your server’s life a little easier and your experience that much better?

  1. Have Some Patience: Obviously slow service is frustrating but there are certain times when a little more patience and understanding is required than others. For example, if you are the only table in the restaurant and your server takes forever to ask for your drink order, by all means, be frustrated. However, if it’s a crazy busy night and you see your server helping a ton of tables, please don’t wave your hands at them and definitely do NOT snap your fingers to get their attention (somebody did this to me once and it was the most disrespectful way to get my attention – especially since I was in the middle of pouring wine at the next table). Be aware of your surroundings. I promise, your waiter/waitress has you on their radar and is working really hard to take care of everybody at each of their tables.
  2. Don’t Fake It: News flash – you don’t need to be a wine expert to enjoy dining at a high end restaurant. It’s really easy to tell when somebody is faking it and trying to appear more knowledgeable about certain ingredients and especially wine. If you don’t know what something is, just ask. When it comes to wine, explain to your server what kinds of flavors you like and let them make a recommendation.
  3. Don’t Ask What They Do: I could talk about this for days. Does anybody walk into your place of work and ask what you do “for real?” Of course not because that’s super rude! Many servers do MUCH more than “get by” on their income from the restaurant they work in. But no matter what their income may be, it’s incredibly disrespectful to express that you don’t think what they are doing is considered a real job. It’s a real job. A difficult, tiring, very real job.
  4. Leave When You’re Done: There are a couple of specific instances when this rule really comes into play. The first is when it’s closing time. If you’ve already paid your bill and are just sitting and chatting long after the kitchen and bar have both closed, all it leads to is a group of several staff members waiting for your conversation to end so that they can go home. A little while is fine of course but sitting for hours is a no-no. Second, if the restaurant is insanely busy and a ton of people are standing around waiting for a table and you’ve already settled the bill, consider moving to the bar.
  5. Say Thank You: This one seems like a given but you’d be surprised. It’s just common courtesy, don’t you think? A smile and a “thank you” really go a long way. Especially in times like these where your server is taking a risk to be there for you.

It’s up to your server to give you the best service possible but there are certain things you can do (or avoid) to help make that job a little easier without having any impact on your experience at all.

The Scoop on Restaurant Menu Development

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Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

A re-share from 2018

Most restaurants update their menu at least three or four times a year. Items are removed and new items added not only as a way to keep our regular’s experiencing new and exciting dishes but also in an effort to keep things aligned with the world around us. I actually get a lot of questions from readers, especially from those of you who subscribe to our newsletter, about WHY certain changes have been made and how these updates have come to be. Well, today is your lucky day because I’m gonna break it all down for you.

Menu changes stem from four primary questions:

1. Is this in season? – Obviously, not every ingredient is available FRESH all of the time. But a quality chef is only interested in working with fresh ingredients. So if a dish from the summer menu is removed, it may be because a major component of said dish is out of season. Similarly, a chef may have a great idea for a dish but if it’s not in tune with the season, it’ll have to wait.

2. What does this season feel like? – Ingredients are one thing but weight of a dish matters too. This one is pretty obvious. When are you more likely to enjoy a heavy, hearty bowl of stew? The winter or the summer? It’s clearly a winter dish. A chef will work to use “in season” ingredients in a way that compliments the season itself.

3. What do our guests want? – Customer, or as we at M&D think of it, Guest, feedback is not taken lightly. Without our guests, there would be no restaurant so of course it’s important to listen to what our guests think about the menu. It is not unusual to craft menu changes based on popular requests or recommendations. Guest experience is at the top of our priority list.

4. What are the new trends? – The food industry has exploded over the last decade in terms of how many people are intrigued by the unknown and open to trying new things. Foodies run the world (at least in our book) and it’s important to stay on top of what the new “thing” is each season. HOWEVER, not all trends are worthy of a chef’s time. At M&D, we will only participate in a food trend if that trend is of the highest quality. In other words, it needs to be worthy. While some are fabulous and game changing, like house infused liquors, others are outlandish for the sake of being outlandish. It’s important to make sure that an idea/trend answers each of these three previous questions in a positive way.

Menu changes are standard in this industry and while we sometimes have to say goodbye to a dish we love (even just temporarily), I promise it’s for good reason. All four of these questions come into play each and every time we update the menu but above all else, the quality of the ingredients comes first.

I chose to re-share this post today because in case you haven’t noticed, the world around us looks a lot different than what we would have expected even just 6 months ago. You’ll likely notice changes to our menu going forward in addition to the changes in operations that you’ve already seen and I just want you all to know that these changes are not take lightly and are not made on a whim.

The Secret Ingredient is Tabasco

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Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

Last summer, I hosted a wellness retreat in Bradenton Beach, Florida. I rented a huge beach house, partnered with a local yoga instructor and mapped out a nutrition workshop to help my guests learn more about how to fuel their body in a healthy way without depriving themselves of all things foodie. But the best part of the retreat? Well that was definitely the cooking class my dad hosted for the guests. And it was in that cooking class that I learned that Tabasco is my dad’s best friend.

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