/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>5633745

If you're that desperate, just drive the 30 miles and go to Moe's. Order your burrito, and make a mental list of what they have. Take some sneaky pics if you can. Take a menu with you. Flat out copy their ingredients and burritos if you want. Make sure you've got some decent advertising too.

I guess just make sure that you cater your meals and ingredients to your clientele, e.g. you most likely don't need tofu burritos if you're set up in Mobile or some other shit hole.

ffs, I hope your trolling. It's a god damn burrito. Fill it up and roll it.

>>5633745

All the big chains (chipotle, moes, freebirds, etc.) do the same thing:
Ingredients are cooked in the back which may or may not be in view of the customer. The ingredients are then transferred to a steam table to keep them warm, usually in view of the customer. The tortillas are steamed to make them pliable (there is a special appliance for this), then the toppings are placed on top and the burrito is rolled. Aside from the tortilla steamer everything is normal restaurant stuff: keep the line organized so it follows your workflow: steam tortilla first, then rice/beans, then meat or veggie toppings, condiments last. Buy scoops/spoons for each ingredient that are sized to deliver the proper amount each time.

Freshness and quality of ingredients is your friend. Years ago you could get away with pretty shitty ingredients but these days the competition is a lot higher. I remember freebirds was shit quality 10 years ago but now they're much much better.

Pick up a couple of these at your nearest Home Depot

Used to work at a mom & pop burrito joint. Here's the diddly on the main ingredients you should have available:
>black beans
>pinto beans
>refried beans
>ground beef
>shredded chicken
>steak
>queso sauce
>shredded cheese
>sour cream
>guacamole
>pico de gallo
>red salsa/green salsa
>rice
>cilantro
>lettuce
>tortillas
>variety of other sauces to use

Equipment:
>grill
>steam table
>cold table
>fryer (for chips and chimicangas)

Those are the basics. Using those ingredients you could make a lot of different items.

Tytytyty unfortunately my op sucked and I didn't get my situation across well. I've been lurking chipotle and moe's for a while and know what ingredients they use and the basics. Where I'm lacking is in preparation of the meat, seasonings, finding and making the perfect tortilla, and queso. I'll be able to keep everything fresh because most of it is sold at my restaurant already anyway but guac might be a problem. It's expensive and because of my demographic I don't expect the burritos to be a main selling point. Are there any store baught guacs that aren't dog shit and can store well or should I just skip it entirely if I can't get it fresh? Thx

>>5633871
Can you not buy avocados in your area? Guac is incredibly simple to make.

lard

As will all retail stores you have a number of factors to deal with, such as location, appearance, signage, access to deal with.
Those tend to be expensive or and difficult to change, and would only be one part of the formula.

As you are implying the other part is your product the menu. I will tell you right away that personally I would only eat a plain burrito. Which I'd call seasoned meat, cheese and a warping. I would be willing to accept a filler the replace some of the meat in the form of a bean paste so long as it wasn't overpowering.

Yeah that's not a real authentic burrito, but I don't care. That's what I cook myself.
Does your menu offer a plain burrito?

Take it one step further is their such a thing as a burrito dip? That might be an interesting change to the offerings.

>>5633937
>Does your menu offer a plain burrito?

#1) No sane restaurant would ever offer that plain of a burrito as a normal menu item. I'm not knocking your personal tastes, but the idea is to cater to the average customer, not someone with such extremes.

#2) You can always get a plain burrito even if it's not on the menu. Just say: I want the chicken burrito (or whatever), but leave out the rice and beans please.

>>5633745
If you use rice in them, use stock/broth instead of water to cook the rice, it'll give the rice a wonderful, rich, umami flavor.

>>5634042
>umami

>>5633966
>You can always get a plain burrito even if it's not on the menu. Just say: I want the chicken burrito (or whatever), but leave out the rice and beans please.

Hmmm. I've only ever been one place that put rice in a burrito. And while their burritos were popular because they would fill you up, they weren't very good burritos.

On the other hand, all I've been to will put refried beans in a burrito if it is a bean burrito.

My usual burrito consists of refried beans, sauce, chopped onions, and some salt on a flour tortilla. No cheese because cheese turns me into a puking machine.

It is very rare for me to eat any other kind of burrito.

>>5633871
Store bought pre made guac is shit. If I went to a place that claimed to do a mexican dish and they didn't have guac or avocado I would not order or return. It is literally the most important part of the meal IMO. There are a few tricks to keep guac/avocado from going bad as fast, mainly keeping air from touching it, if you can put it in something similar to a caulk gun that would work well, like taco bell does, or maybe one of those pastry icing bags. Fresh guac is easy to make, its hard to make some that isn't decent as long as the avocados are ripe. Or cop out and only offer avocado, cut it in half, use a spoon to scoop it out as you need it and put cling wrap over it and store out of sight in a fridge. Don't plan on making burritos without this key ingredient, it would be a joke, I'd drive the extra 30 miles to get a decent burrito if I wanted one just sayin.

>>5634083

The kind of places that OP listed serve "mission style" burritos. Places like Chipotle and Moe's use rice.

>>5633871
Where do you live? Guac is essential to a burrito, not to sound pretentious, but I literally don't think I've ever ordered one without it.

Also, for meat prep., look online for crappy small home recipe websites. The best marinaids and rubs you'll find for the beef and chicken will be found there. Carne asada is usually flank steak marinated overnight and/or a rub and allowed to sit for a awhile (the big mexican groceries out here in cali literally make it a day ahead and stack it up the flaps). Carnitas can be made in a slow cooker unless you're willing to go through the effort of cooking them in pig fat.

Few if anyone will notice it, but homemade chili powder is the shit (alton brown did this on i think his chile episode).

Pic related, Mi Pueblo's meats

>>5634042
Who the fuck uses plain rice in the burritos?

>>5633745
Are you advertising?
Advertising is vital for small businesses

Hire some kids to place fliers on cars
Make sure they place fliers were there isn't a ban on soliciting and make sure they take a pic of the parking lot with the fliers on the windshields(or you can just do it with them)

>>5633759
>If you're that desperate, just drive the 30 miles and go to Moe's. Order your burrito, and make a mental list of what they have. Take some sneaky pics if you can. Take a menu with you. Flat out copy their ingredients and burritos if you want. Make sure you've got some decent advertising too.

>driving 30 miles and doing all that work
>not just going to their website

SHIGGERY FUCKING DIGGERY

I don't think burritos are a great fit if you're serving other stuff because those burrito places have their entire setup oriented around efficiently putting together burritos. you won't, and it'll be a pain to have all that shit in the kitchen, and you won't go through it very quickly so it won't be fresh.

you could make 'carnitas' out of slow-cooked shredded pork and some sauce, which is good because you can also use that shredded pork to make pulled pork - just mix it with a different sauce. carnitas served on corn tortillas (the small ones) with pickled onions on top - authentic-enough tacos, serve them as one of your appetizers / push them during happy hour, collect money.

if you have another dish that is using chicken, and you can shred that chicken, then mixing that with mole sauce gives you a topping for mole chicken tacos. more easy money.

fish cooks very quickly so you could even serve fish tacos. bam, that's three things for your appies and/or happy hour menu, and they will sell better than boring dopey burritos.

>>5634795

forgot to mention that obviously the pulled pork goes into another menu item - I would suggest pulled pork sliders, you just need good buns, slivered onion, and butter pickles. think mcrib.

>>5634795

pic related

as an alternative to fish or chicken mole tacos, you could also do carne asada if you have steak on the menu. just grill up a small steak, coat it with adobo or whatever, and slice it thinly.

>>5633871
listen man, you sure you run a restuarant? because it seems like you aren't much of a chef if you don't know how to experiment at home and in the work pantry to try out something new. my old boss used to do this all the time, introduced new menu items like waffles, crab dip, etc.

Just work on a not busy day, look up some recipies, and throw the results at your crew. they'll love the free snack and you'll get feedback.

>>5634795
>I don't think burritos are a great fit if you're serving other stuff because those burrito places have their entire setup oriented around efficiently putting together burritos. you won't, and it'll be a pain to have all that shit in the kitchen, and you won't go through it very quickly so it won't be fresh.

That is a good point.

One big plus for Mexican restaurants is that they use much of the same ingredients for everything.

In the small town near the remote community in which I live, any restaurant that offers a wide variety of meals usually end up with frozen dinners that all they do is microwave. You could make the same at home in the same time for 1/4 the price. The exception is Mexican food because you basically create whatever you serve out of a limited number of ingredients common to a great many dishes.

If I were going to open a restaurant around here, I would likely limit the menu to about 4 or 5 items and offer 2 to 4 daily specials that would change day to day. Probably one beef, one chicken or other poultry, and maybe a hamburger of the day.

I don't know how well that would work out, but I have seen reviews of small town restaurants in other parts of the state that were not too different from that.

>>5634980

On the other hand, if you had daily specials, it wouldn't hurt to have Mexican specials once or twice a week.

Just out of curiousity, how many entrees are on your menu and what kind? Do you sell enough of them to do them fresh or do you just buy them frozen and microwave them?

>>5633766
Not everyone lives in Mexifornia

>>5633871
>I don't expect the burritos to be a main selling point.
Then why all the effort OP? Why not do something that will be a strong seller?

BTW what style is your restaurant? Is it like a sit down or do people cue up to get their food then sit?

>>5634812
taco que cierra no ese taco

Put some crushed Nachos on them for some crunchyness.

Chicharron burritos and chile relleno burritos are a huge hit in my area mind you chille rellenos do take time to make. If you have a local carneceria maybe you can buy meats such as legua, pastor, carnitas, asada. Good luck with your business!

>>5633745
learn how to make carne asada, carne guisada, barbacoa and al pastor. I live in Texas, and carne guisada is delicous. the normal toppings are sour cream, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, avocado. they also have a house made salsa. I think they use the steam well method for most of their food. large kettles (assuming you otherwise have normal restaurant equipment including steamwells) should work for just about all the big cooking things you need. as far as ingredients go, fresh is key, do some research on recipes, and go off of those (you can easily purchase bulk herbs for cheap and make your own mix) and before you commit, do a test run at home with the ingredients and youtube how to wrap burritos if you need to learn. then when you get set up, check your taste and temperatures of of each pan you rotate out (normal hold times with hot pans at proper temps are 4 hours)

Breakfast burritos, cook the bacon first then cook the eggs and veggies in the bacon grease

>>5633745
Cilantro and Lime for green rice, because it's fucking awesome. Also, try getting a food cart and travelling to events in the wider area.

>Go to Moe's their website
>Checking out their menu
>Olives

Fucking dogshit.

This place is fucking garbage.

>>5638130

You're a faggot, black olives are delicious on a burrito.

>>5633745
instead of guac just do half a scooped avocado per buritto. La Bamba.s a sucessful and surprisingly authentic midwest chain does it this way. Its like a doller extra for avocado.

>>5633745
if you own a failing restaurant, are one... unable to create your own tasty burrito and two...think 4chan is the place to find your imaginary "burrito specialist"...then I'm sorry but your restaurant is already doomed.

>>5633745
one key to good burritos is to steam the tortilla first, it makes it much more pliable and easier to roll and helps it stick and create a seal

other than that its pretty easy just have a bunch of options that are made/cut fresh every day.

ive never had a chipotle or moes but we have a local one this is similar and does a ton of business but their quality is top notch

>>5633871
can you post your main dinner items? Both currently and what you want to switch to?

I feel like we'll have a better idea once we see that.

Also there are so many fucking chipotle copycat recipes on google it's ridiculous. If you can't find them, you're doomed.

>>5634083
>their burritos were popular
gonna stop you right fucking there. Because that's literally all that matters to a restaurant. Not your spergy opinion on what makes a good burrito.

>>5638519
my restaurant isn't failing, it isn't making as much as i expected it to and i'm just trying to optimize. don't see anything wrong with asking here, you never know where you'll get a good idea. plenty of good advice here already