Amid tiny kitchens and large portions, The Queen Vic and Granville Moore's find ways to cut waste
The Queen Vic, a British pub popular with soccer, ahem, football fans, and its sister restaurant, Granville Moore’s, a Belgian Tavern known for moules frites and Belgian beers, are both located on Washington D.C.’s hip H Street corridor. Roneeka Bhagotra and Ryan Gordon own both restaurants, where tight kitchen space and consumer expectations of large portions have made reducing food waste a tricky balancing act. With recent Food Waste Innovation Grant funding from the D.C. Department of Small and Local Business Development, they’ve been able to implement composting, donate surplus meals, and tweak their menus and kitchen practices to cut down on waste. RescueDish’s Rachael Jackson spoke to Roneeka about topics ranging from how covid impacted waste to the etiquette of bringing your own container for leftovers.
What are your biggest hurdles in terms of reducing your food waste?
Pre-covid we had a pretty good handle on what days we would be busy so ordering was easy and accurate, but since then it has become much harder to judge what business will look like, often resulting in over-ordering and subsequently more food waste.
Another hurdle is that using fresh ingredients is incredibly important to us, so we prefer not to freeze any product which means that we only have a small window to use it.
Do you have different food waste challenges at each restaurant?
At The Queen Vic, we are known for our huge portions which means that if the guests choose not to box their leftovers and take them home, there is a lot of food wastage on the plate. The main food waste at Granville Moore's is the complimentary bread we offer.
How is the Food Waste Innovation Grant helping you reduce your waste?
It allowed us to begin a composting program, which was something that we hadn't thought was possible before the grant.
The grant has also educated us on different techniques to reduce food waste, like re-organizing storage, then educating our staff on how to stock and store products to make it easier to see what needs to be used first; and using photos as a reference and specific sized plates and serving spoons to ensure consistency and portion control.
Ryan Gordon, chef and co-owner at The Queen Vic, prepares a vegan curry from ingredients that might have otherwise gone to waste in a cooking demo for a Food Rescue US fundraiser. In addition to recently making waste-reducing adjustments at his restaurants, Gordon is on the organization’s DC advisory council. (Photo courtesy of Food Rescue US).
Was composting easier or harder than you expected?
Composting was much easier than expected. We did expect a learning curve while the team got used to it, but it was quicker than we anticipated and now seems like it's second nature. Having to separate the waste made it easier to actually see how much we were wasting each day which was quite shocking to many members of staff, so it has now become a challenge to see how light the composting bags are after each shift.
Is there some food you can donate rather than compost?
At Granville Moore's, if we have a significant quantity of mussels and/or bread left over after the weekend, we will donate it to Food Rescue.
Granville Moore’s is known for Belgian beers and moules frites (mussels and fries). The restaurant recently started donating extra meals to Food Rescue US.
How do you use your rotating menu to keep waste low?
At The Queen Vic the rotating menu definitely allows us to reduce food waste.
For example, we serve a traditional British Sunday Roast on Sundays, for which we order quite a bit of beef or lamb. We only offer that dish on Sundays, so if we don't sell out of it we will use whatever is left over to create a new special, such as beef stroganoff or lamb curry, to serve on Monday.
How do you manage portion sizes so customers aren't disappointed, but waste is still minimized?
That is something that we are still working on at The Queen Vic. We are known for our huge portions so finding that balance between making sure guests get what they are expecting and managing the portion size has been tricky.
While we always encourage guests to take their leftovers home, we have very loyal and regular guests so adjusting portion size on our regular menu significantly is not an option because it will be so noticeable and those portion sizes are expected. However, we are committed to being more mindful of portion sizes when we create specials for the daily specials board.
A heaping St. Patrick’s Day plate at The Queen Vic. The restaurant encourages guests to take leftovers, and even to bring their own containers.
That does sound like a very difficult balance to strike. In addition to the specials board, I'm curious what you’ve tried so far and if it has or hasn’t worked? Have you found any particularly effective ways to nudge guests to take home leftovers?
We used to offer a late night menu that was designed to use products that would otherwise be wasted, for example we would bake pasties (British versions of empanadas) using meats and veggies for the filling that we wouldn't be able to use the next day.
However our neighborhood doesn't have the later crowd that it did pre-covid and we don't have the same demand for those late night snacks, so it doesn't make sense for us to to start that program again until late night business picks up again.
How does having small kitchens impact your ability to manage waste?
The main challenge of having such small kitchens is trying to implement new systems such as composting. Adding one extra container for food scraps meant rearranging a whole section of the kitchen because space is so tight.
Tell me about your efforts to source local and seasonal food.
We have always partnered with and have strong relationships with local co-ops and farms in the area.
We invested in a local farm, helped them build greenhouses so they could grow products that we specifically needed and we took our regulars and staff on camping trips to the farm to learn about the process.
During covid we obviously had to make some changes due to the lack of supply and unfortunately many of those farms were not able to survive.
Are there ways diners could make it easier for you to reduce your waste?
We love it when our guests bring in their own Tupperware - it means that they'll be taking any leftover food home with them for later and is so much better for the environment.
As someone who usually has a clean to-go container in my bag, I’m so glad to hear this! I never know what response to expect from the restaurant--some servers even come running with takeout boxes! Do you do anything to encourage people to bring their own containers? Any etiquette tips for those of us who BYOC?
I would suggest just letting your servers know that you've brought your own container so they don't need to waste their own boxes. It's a win-win situation - one less step for the server, saves a few cents for the business, and makes everyone involved feel a little smug knowing that they're helping to save the environment.
What’s your favorite item on the menu right now?
The Full English Breakfast is always a big hit. It's incredibly labor intensive because we create each component of it ourselves, curing the bacon, stuffing the sausages and even baking the bread to make it as close to the original British version as possible. Unfortunately, during covid we had to take it off the menu because we simply didn't have the staff, the time, or even the supplies to prepare all those components. So being able to offer it on our brunch menu again has made us, and our guests, very very happy.
The English Breakfast at The Queen Vic is back after a pandemic hiatus.
This conversation took place over email and has been lightly edited and condensed.