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> Horseshoe Casino and Hotel |
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| Chef's Showcase |
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| Where Fantastic Food Is A Sure Bet
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Vice President of Food and Beverage: Mark Sicilia
Casino owner/operator: Jack Binion
Open since: February 13, 1995
Nearest big city: Memphis, 12 miles to the north
Restaurants on-site: Five total: Village Square Buffet, Jack Binion's Steakhouse, Café Sonoma, Yasmin's Asian Restaurant, and The Snack Bar
Number of F&B employees: 850
Number of employee meals served monthly: 45,000
Number of meals served daily: 7000
Bottles of wine sold monthly: 3,600
Value of wine inventory in cellar: $0.5 million
Check averages: Range from $7.65 to $38.50
Buffet features: 24-hour availability with themed stations including The French Market salad bar, Rio Grande, Home Cookin', and China Town.
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What role does the food play in attracting gaming customers? - Questions & Answers
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In order to distinguish the Horseshoe from the other nearby casinos, what sort of research did you do before opening?
I came to Mississippi from the Northeast and was unfamiliar with the Southern market, so we decided that rather than take my experience and try to educate customers we'd let the customers' dining experience educate us. I started by eating at virtually every local restaurant, from the popular chains to the mom-and-pops. We knew it was important to get a handle on the tastes of our guests in order to meet and exceed their expectations.
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How did that research translate into dining concepts within the casino?
Instead of trying to duplicate an Atlantic City or Las Vegas experience, we basically copied the format of some of the favorite local eateries. That meant a lot of home-style cooking as well as an authentic Asian restaurant.
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What percentage of the food at Horseshoe is prepared from scratch?
Just about everything has always been made from scratch here - about 90% of our product.
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What are some of the advantages of that commitment?
It allows us to source and control the best quality, for one thing. And perhaps most importantly, it makes it virtually impossible for our competitors to copy what we do, because we're not using product available on the open market.
For example, if another operator comes in and tries our smoked salmon and decides he wants to serve it over at his place, well he can't, because we have our own smokehouse. Even the few products that we don't prepare in house like say meatballs - and we go through a lot of meatballs - can't be duplicated because it's my recipe made especially for us on a proprietary basis.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good food products on the market, but I believe customers can recognize them when they go from place to place.
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Operationally, how do you make all-scratch work?
Each restaurant has its own satellite kitchen, supported by our central kitchen. And we built it rather large with future expansion in mind, which we've been doing over the years. There we have a full line bakery with 16 employees, for example. In the butcher shop alone, I have seven people cutting, curing, smoking and portioning our meat, poultry and seafood. For our steaks, we buy prime beef, subprimals from Chicago, and hand-cut everything.
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How do you assure the quality of the raw ingredients?
I try to travel to vendors as much as possible to tour their facilities and see where their product comes from.
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How often do menus and menu items change?
We try to change the fine dining menus at least once and in some cases twice a year. On the buffet we have a weekly rotation program where 20% of the products change each week in an eight-week cycle. That works out to two-to-three menu items on each buffet station. Then we revamp the total offerings every year.
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Is it a challenge to find and train employees who can handle these food preparation skills?
I have to admit it's one of our biggest challenges, but we're doing it. The labor pool isn't as experienced here as in some other parts of the country because there are fewer large operations. And let's face it, recent culinary school graduates want to go work in New York City.
That said, we have had to develop excellent recruitment and training programs. And I think it's very important that once employees are here, we do everything we can to show them how valuable they are to the operation. After all, most of them have direct contact with our customers.
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What sort of things do you do for employees?
The biggest thing is meals. We have a 155-seat employee dining room. Everyone gets a free meal for every eight-hour shift. They swipe their cards through a turnstile to enter. Since the dealers take more frequent breaks, we set up snacks in front of the dining room so they can still eat a bite without having to use up their shift meal.
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What do you count as your biggest success?
I think we've been able to produce and serve food of the quality that would rival any casino in Vegas. Without sounding too bold, I think we have the best food program of the properties in our area, and that was by design. And we're doing it with good numbers. You know that most casinos are budgeted to lose money on food. But this year, we lost about $1 million less than we were budgeted for, and that will have a nice impact on our bottom line.
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