Spring Restaurant Rush
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WORK • Tuesday Routine
25,000 lbs of beef
DANIEL TURTEL • vice president • Peter Luger Steakhouse
Neighborhood you work in: Williamsburg
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Tuesday morning is a scramble to source beef. We’re old-school — no POS systems in the restaurant — so there’s a lag in information. By EOD Monday we have all the figures from the prior week and weekend. Tuesdays, we’re reconciling inventory against expected usage over the next few weeks. As we dry-age everything in house (each of our four locations has its own dry-aging box), we can’t simply buy beef when needed — it needs to be carefully planned ahead to ensure proper aging.
Once we figure out our buying needs, we need to speak with all the purveyors to distribute our quota. It sounds easy, but there are constant curveballs — meatpackers are short, product doesn’t come in, prices fluctuate, the quality isn’t there. At our New York locations alone, we’re regularly sourcing about 25,000 lbs. of beef per week, and our vendors tend to be about as old-school as we are.
What’s on the agenda for today?
We’ve got a couple interesting things going on right now. Our Las Vegas location is just over six months old, and our Tokyo location turns three this year, so early in the week is a good time to catch up on recent doings in these spots — what’s going right, what could be tweaked. We’re also finishing up a redevelopment of the cast iron building cater-cornered from Peter Luger Brooklyn, where Sol Forman’s original metalworking factory was, before he purchased the Steak House in 1950. These will be retail spaces, not tied to our steakhouse. Today we’re walking through some punch-list items as we get the ground floor spaces ready to open.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
A friend’s birthday dinner at Jora in LIC tonight (their aji de gallina is best in New York), trying Penny in the East Village later this week, and then I have a group res at Tomiño Taberna Gallega in Nolita this weekend — an old favorite.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
A first edition of Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
I’m not a big shopper, so if I have to recommend something to an out-of-towner, it’ll usually be an experience. Russian & Turkish Baths in East Village followed by Soothr or Sushi Kai is a Sunday afternoon/evening that hits every time.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Spring Restaurant Rush, 2024
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