Mise en Place
Mise en place, French for “everything in its place,” is the term chefs use to describe the preparations—from chopping and measuring, to sauce making and cleaning—for a dish. Any cook worth her salt cellar does her “mise” before the doors even open. My whole life I’ve been obsessed with organization, so I’ve found the idea of mise en place applies to all kinds of situations. Here’s how I prepared to find a home for Pâtisserie Mélanie, with the help of my husband and business partner, Axel Schwarz. It’s a long piece, but that’s because I wanted to be thorough, giving you all the details you might need to have the confidence to launch your own brick-and-mortar business.
Use what you have
Chefs often deal with limitations. Budgets don’t always allow for the choicest cuts of meat. Purveyors forget to bring the right ingredients. So chefs have to improvise, to make do with what they have. When we first started getting serious about starting our business, we didn’t want to sign a lease and invest in a big commercial operation right away. We wanted to grow our brand thoughtfully, until we were ready to take the next step.
We were able to do that by building out the live-work space we owned (part of our mixed-use condo in Hillcrest) into a small boutique. With a direct entrance onto the street, separate from the entrance to our residence, we made plans to operate under the newly passed California Cottage Food Law. Once permitted by the health department, I would be able to bake items in our home kitchen and sell directly to the public. Hoping to keep the renovation budget small, Axel and I did most of the work ourselves—from the interior design and painting to the branding and web design. Not being a trained interior or web designer, I was nervous about making my vision public. But after we opened, the feedback we began receiving from customers frequently mentioned how “strong” our brand is and how “cute” our shop is. Another sign of our success was an article written by Michele Parente, the Union-Tribune’s long-time food writer, who called our self-styled boutique “a shimmering gem.”
The lesson is: Use what you have—apply your talents to tackle obstacles. Our permit, which only allows me to make things that are shelf-stable, had a positive side. I had to get creative, researching regional French pastries like kouign-amanns and cannelés, which are now some of our best sellers!
But our shop is hard to find, and I can only bake so much in one regular oven. Plus, those permit limitations mean we can’t create the kind of experience I’ve always wanted for our guests: a place where people can sit and enjoy a coffee and pastry, or traditional French food, and feel like they are in Paris for a little while. We knew our current spot wouldn’t be our forever location, but it’s allowed us to build our brand and our customer base while looking for the space we really wanted.
Plan for success
The most important part in our mise was to start looking for a location. Right after we opened the first version of Pâtisserie Mélanie, Axel went on BizBuySell.com and BizBen.com (businesses for sale) and Loopnet.com (spaces for lease). He looked at properties with our criteria for square footage, neighborhood, rent, lease terms, and more, then set up email alerts for new listings with those criteria. Every once in a while he’d share a listing with me, and we’d talk about what we liked and what we didn’t. These discussions helped shape our ideas of what we were looking for. It felt a little like house shopping to me, as I imagined rolling out croissant dough in one space or another. It took eighteen months before we submitted our first offer (Letter of Intent), so even if you’re not ready to open a business, start looking at available spaces as soon as you can. You’ll educate yourself about the market for properties, so that when you find the one you want, you’ll be ready to act.
Build a team
Since I first started talking about opening a pâtisserie of my own in 2010, Axel and I have been fortunate to receive help from so many different people. Some were people to whom we reached out: brokers willing to give us guidance, or friends in this industry. But other times it’s been serendipity. A chance conversation with a customer led us to a business that wasn’t even on the market. We didn’t buy it, but the owners were really helpful, giving us an idea of costs of things like labor and utilities, and how much we could expect to make on pastries, coffee and other food. Befriending the owner of the new restaurant down the street led to lots of great advice about how to run a successful operation. Sending pastries over to the staff at our neighborhood coffee shop has led to several conversations and offers of help for setting up an efficient coffee station.
Family and friends were of course helpful, but in more ways than we expected. My cousin designed our packaging labels. My mother-in-law’s contractor became ours. An old neighbor and friend is now our architect. Help came from my years as a high school teacher as well. One former student who’s now a well-known chef in San Diego sat down with us one day and answered all our questions about running a commercial kitchen. Another former student helped us with graphic design of our logo. And a boy I coached in tennis is now the man who does all our photography.
A chef can’t prepare and cook meals for her whole restaurant by herself, and we couldn’t have done this without the help of our “team,” which included everyone from close friends and family to perfect strangers. You never know what a chance interaction will lead to, so I’ve learned to value them, to listen to what people have to say. An introvert by nature, I have always felt more comfortable behind the scenes, rolling out croissants and tart shells, instead of interacting with customers. There have been many customer conversations that began as small talk and became something else—from a lead on a vendor to an inside tip that a retail space was soon to become available. Some of these casual conversations have even become deep friendships. Part of forming my “team” was re-forming myself. A lifelong perfectionist and list-maker, I began to be more open to the possibility of chance and serendipity.
Get the word out
One of the best things we did as a new business was hire a PR team that was recommended by our friend the restaurant owner. We were fortunate to get some good early press, and we still have people come in saying they heard about us from those first few articles. But to survive in this business, you need a steady flow of new customers on top of a solid base of returning customers. Plus, even your returning customers want to know what’s going on with you, whether it’s a special event or a new item on the menu. Traditional media outlets like newspapers and magazines still have a lot of influence, but social media still reaches people the old guard media doesn’t. Having a PR team with connections to local food writers, and who manages our social media accounts, means I don’t have to try to figure out what picture to post every morning as I’m rolling out croissants. It also means that, as we start to transition to our new location, we have thousands of people who will know about it.
Find a permanent location
The first place we put a bid on, we found out about through a friend. He knew the property manager, and wanted us to see it. But this was right after we opened. Our mise en place wasn’t done. We liked the space, but didn’t feel ready. A year later, the same space went back on the market, we were ready. So we sent a letter of intent. Then we waited. And waited. We checked in with our friend, who checked in with his. No response. We reached out. Nothing. At a certain point, we had to assume that the silence meant no.
Now, we could have been distraught. We liked the place, so we started imagining the interior, seeing guests sitting in the large windows and outside on a deep sidewalk patio. But one of the things we learned early on is not to fall in love with a place. There is no such thing as the perfect space for your business.
So we kept searching, my husband combing through five, ten, sometimes fifteen different listings a day. Places that stayed on the list for months, places that appeared once and then were gone. So many spaces, but almost none of them felt right for us. Most of them we didn’t even click on, but all that information was useful. We saw lease rates, how much people were selling restaurants for, which establishments were going out of business, and which neighborhoods or locations were popular or not. None of this was exciting at all, and I’m glad my husband was willing to filter and analyze the listings, giving me updates periodically. It was a tedious, tedious task, but it was ultimately very helpful in bringing us to the central decision for determining our permanent location for Pâtisserie Mélanie: should we buy an existing restaurant and convert it, or sign a lease for an empty space and build it out on our own?
Taking over a location that already had equipment and permits seemed much easier, and some people in the industry advised us not to attempt a build out. But even restaurants that had closed were expensive, and it would cost even more to renovate, especially since a restaurant kitchen is configured differently than one for a bakery. Taking over an empty space might mean free rent and even money for tenant improvements while we built the place out, and the lovely thought that I could design it exactly how I wanted. But so many variables—from construction costs, to the permitting process, and to inspections—could make it a nightmare. No matter how well prepared we were, either decision came with benefits and risks.
Negotiate the lease
All this work, the relationships, the research, was in many ways our mise en place. We prepared ourselves with knowledge and surrounded ourselves with the right people so we’d be ready. When our new location appeared in my husband’s inbox and he showed it to me right away, we approached with a combination of excitement and caution. We knew the location and there were several bonnes adresses within a few blocks of it. It was a great fit for us, but we also knew not to get our hopes up. Because here’s the thing: from the beginning, everyone wanted the deal to happen. The broker representing the owner couldn’t have been nicer or more enthusiastic. The owner was eager to have us in there. Our lawyer (another friend) was reasonable while still advocating for us. Yet even with all that going for us, the negotiations took five months.
Seemingly small details in the lease could have huge consequences if something went wrong, and while we felt comfortable making some decisions about lease terms on our own with only the occasional advice from our attorney, general contractor, or architect (all friends of ours), toward the end our lawyer had to take over.
And just when it seemed like the negotiations would never end (or, even worse, end with us not signing), we got a call from the broker. We had reached the end of the road, and it was time to either make the deal or turn back and start again. You know you’re ready to sign when everyone is just sick of discussing any detail, and that’s exactly where we were. The broker drew up the lease, Axel and I took one last look, one huge gulp, and signed.
Et Voila!
After nearly two years of hard work and preparation, two years of mise en place, we had the space we wanted. We were very excited, but then we realized we were just at the beginning. An empty rectangle, like a blank canvas or unmarked page, is full of excitement and possibilities. But it’s also a daunting challenge to take everything that’s in our heads, every variable of our corner space in this old building in our little corner of the world, and turn it into something I’ve been thinking about for a decade. All I know is this: we couldn’t have gotten to where we are without putting in the work and developing so many relationships we now cherish.