Tim Carl, Local Tastes: Napa Valley restaurants will remain ... - Napa Valley Register

In the early 1990s, when I cooked under the tutelage of Chef Gary Danko, he had a saying. Anyone who complained about how hot the kitchen was or how impossible a particular task was or that they might have been working for many hours without a break would invariably hear — in the chef’s distinctive sing-song voice — “Well, if it were easy, anybody could do it.”

I held onto Danko’s words. In the heat of an evening’s service with orders piling up, room temperatures at 120 degrees or higher and my back aching, instead of feeling overwhelmed, I instead felt energized. I was a part of a high-performance team that was capable of meeting unrelenting high expectations and conditions to prepare, cook and present food in a manner that reflected our skill and commitment to consistency at the highest standards.

Over the years, before I transitioned to a career outside of the food industry, I often found such an ethos woven into the very fabric of many restaurants. Within these culinary temples was a deep sense of pride, not only for the experience provided for the patrons by the team, but also for each individual’s commitment to the art of hospitality as a specialized and valued craft.

This commitment remains palpable in the industry today. However, unlike in the past, to persist within the restaurant industry today has become so extremely challenging that survival is not just a function of one’s willingness to work hard under excruciating pressure and conditions. Today, those who make it in the industry — especially the hyper-competitive Napa Valley culinary landscape — are talented survival magicians who boggle my mind.

Below I call out a few hurdles that will likely make 2023 even more challenging for those in the restaurant industry.

In 1889 two brothers, Ándre and Édouard Michelin, started the Michelin tire company in France. At the time, only about 2,200 cars existed in the Gallic country, where roads were few and gasoline was purchased not at stations but by the liter at select pharmacies. Entrepreneurs at heart, the brothers started the Michelin Guide to encourage car-owners to hit the roads in search of fine hotels and restaurants with the hope that by doing so they might increase tire sales.

Since then, the Michelin Guide has played a significant role in helping illuminate some of the world’s finest restaurants. Initially limited only to France, the guide now covers dozens of countries and since 2007 has included Bay Area/Napa Valley eateries. The result has been that a few restaurants have been paid close attention, such as the French Laundry with a consistent three-star rating, the highest rating the guide gives.

When the Bay Area was first included, the guide did not take money from the locations it served and therefore provided an objective tool — albeit biased toward French cuisine — for assessing quality. However, in the past few years, the Michelin Guide has expanded rapidly into new locations, and in what amounts to a pay-to-play business model, Michelin now often is paid by local tourism boards to cover their markets.

In 2019 it was reported that California’s tourism bureau paid $600,000 to include up to 90 restaurants statewide instead of the Bay Area only. Three years earlier Eater broke a story that Michelin had received nearly $1.8 million for covering Seoul, South Korea. And although the details have not been disclosed, The Tampa Bay Times reported that a deal between Visit Florida and the Michelin Guide likely led to Florida’s recent inclusion.

Beyond the concerns that ratings are now being influenced by pay-to-play agreements, the utter complexity and difficulty of trying to understand Michelin’s ratings are confusing and unwieldy.

OK, we get that three stars is super good, but then there are the L’assiette ratings (the plate symbol representing “simply serves good food”), Bib Gourmand (an image of the Michelin Man licking his lips and signifying “friendly establishments that serve good food at moderate prices”), one star (“high-quality cooking worth a stop”), two stars (“excellent food worth a detour”), coins (a good deal) and the new green cloverleaf that has something to do with being “green.”

Whereas the Michelin Guide used to be a draw for the Napa Valley, now, due to its loss of credibility, confusing nomenclature and diffusion, it plays a significantly reduced role in generating culinary tourism to the region.

Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND), a Los Angeles–based producer of plant-based meat, issued its initial public offering (IPO) in May 2019. Transitioning from a private company to a publicly held one was hailed by Wall Street as the future of food with a stock price that shot skyward to a peak of nearly $250 per share in July of that year. However, as of Dec. 20, the share price of BYND has fallen to $13.29.

So what happened? First off, just to be perfectly clear, there will continue to be more/better/higher-quality plant-based alternatives coming to market for the foreseeable future. A 2021 Gallup Poll found that nearly one in four Americans (23%) reported eating less meat than they had previously.

That said, in the same poll, 72% said they were eating the same amount and 5% reported eating more meat. Gallup also reported that only 5% of Americans identify as vegetarian (an actual decrease from when the survey was first taken in 1999, when 6% of Americans identified as vegetarian), and the rates of veganism had only grown from 2% in 2012 to 3% by 2017.

Nevertheless, according to Brand Essence Research, the plant-based food market was valued at over $40 billion globally in 2021 and is expected to reach nearly $100 billion by 2028. However, this is a drop in the bucket when it comes to total spending. Although it is difficult to determine exactly how much total money is spent for food each year, according to the U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the total value of global food production was estimated to be around $7.9 trillion in 2019.

Meat is not going away anytime soon, but alternatives will continue to be available, with the quality and diversity of options expanding, albeit more slowly than many animal-rights or climate activists might prefer. The challenge for restaurateurs is that they are increasingly pressured to have a wide array of protein alternatives — meat and non-meat — which can be costly and cumbersome.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Producer Price Index, the price of vegetables rose 38% on a monthly basis in November and has surged more than 80% when compared to November 2021. Part of this is because the price of water has increased for farmers because of rising temperatures and droughts that are plaguing the western region of the United States.

Increased costs are also due to a tightening supply of fertilizer. Synthetic fertilizer is made with a combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen is made using anhydrous ammonia, while potassium is made from potash and phosphorus from ammonium phosphates. An energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process converts ammonia to nitrogen, and Russia is a major supplier of the gas used to fuel that process. Additionally, Russia and its ally, Belarus, control nearly half of the global potash exports. Between the disruptions of the unprovoked invasion of Russia on Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, expect fertilizer supplies to shrink.

The result is that prices for produce will continue to increase in 2023.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2021, the annual national turnover rate within the restaurant and accommodations sector was 86.3%, compared to 47.2% in the total U.S. private sector. Although there are no such detailed numbers for the Napa Valley, in 2017 Eater reported that a local study showed that the Bay Area turnover for cooks was as high as 120%. Today I suspect that number is much higher for the Napa Valley.

And the problem is not just turnover. At the moment, the unemployment rate in the Napa Valley is around 2%. Talk with any restaurateur in the region and you’ll learn of the Sisyphean struggle to hire and retain staff. Listen closely and you are bound to hear the most amazing tales. Like the one where a dishwasher who was making $20 an hour quit mid-shift because he’d received a text from a nearby eatery offering him $25 an hour. Or when a staff member didn’t show up for more than a week but then returned without explanation and the owner was forced to bite her lip and welcome them back because they were so short-staffed.

Why is this? Because there is excessive demand for anyone with experience in the food and hospitality industry. It’s also because the cost of living in the Napa Valley is high and workers are often working multiple jobs to make ends meet. So the problems really are that supply and demand are out of whack, and until they come into balance (either by lowering demand or increasing supply) I don’t expect things to be any easier for either employees or employers anytime soon.

Even with all the harrowing news and predictions, the Napa Valley remains one of the world’s food meccas. Our access to high-quality produce, exceptional wine and a culture of hospitality will continue to make it a go-to location for those seeking quality restaurants.

And as global tourism likely slows in 2023 due to a global recession, regional travel and locals venturing out after the long, dark days of our two-plus-year pandemic “winter” might just find a new favorite eatery or turn to one of the old-guard staples. In a recent OpenTable users’ poll, Napa Valley restaurants Bistro Don Giovanni and Bistro Jeanty were listed as two of the top 100 most beloved restaurants in America.

It’s easy to get bogged down in a world that seems hell-bent on remaining in a state of near chaos — lurching from one traumatic event to another — but heading out to dine and commune with others is often a healing, comforting and important grounding experience. May we all find time to commune around the table as we weather these storms together.