Starting back on November 13, 2008, Rosen Hotel was interested in seeing some options to add a hot food menu to their Lite Bite Store in their International Drive Hotel Location in Orlando. Craig Hodges, with Bill Murray from Edward Don, setup a live demo to show how the MerryChef 402s can support their needs with out having to make any additions to their current store. The menu they were looking at adding covered pizzas, fish and chips, chicken wings, cheese sticks, and potato skins. Knowing this we had a planned menu to provide for them upon arrival. I presented the menu items, while demonstrating the speed and efficiency of the MerryChef, and Craig and Bill added support to any questions that arose. They were quite impressed and really saw a connection between the operation they were looking to expand and our equipment that could make that happen. Their Corporate Chef, Chef Jorge, also attended our demonstration and loved the oven and it’s potential for all seven of their stores.

Within one week of our demonstration, Carolina Castellanos contacted me with a list of items she was going to be using from Sysco and Hackney’s. I scheduled a date to go see her store and pick up the items from her. They included mozzarella stuffed bread sticks, two styles of chicken wings, chicken tenders, Jamaican meat patties, potato wedges, and French fries. All from frozen. On December 19, 2008 I spent the morning testing these products in our Orlando Test Kitchen. By about 1:00 pm Carolina and her colleague, Sandi Thomas, came over to inspect the food I had been testing for them. They we’re very happy with 80% of the products we had tested. Scratches were French fries, two styles, one brand of chicken tenders, and one brand of chicken wings. The timings for the remaining menu items were all 3:00 minutes or less.
With Carolina and Sandi’s approval we set a date to transport the MerryChef to their location and we included the Versa Drawer because they didn’t have any available freezer space. The next day I went over to train their staff on the cleaning and operating instructions for the oven. The Lite Bite staff was very involved and excited about the new oven. We covered how and when to clean the MerryChef. We went over the correct way to cook the items we had tested for their menu, and they were able to try all the new items we would be selling. Albert Gallof and Jeanie Stanisch, Rosen Hotel Managers, were in attendance and were excited about the ovens abilities as well.
With in a few weeks of our training session I returned to help with a few more items that Carolina wanted to add to the menu. Amoung them were frozen pizzas, and breaded fish fillets. We tested the pizzas with great success and have decided to add them to the menu as of now. We also added a few combo programs to the MerryChef, which gave customers a few options of combining menu items at a reduced price. For example, a combo of four chicken wings and five potato wedges were one item. We have one for the chicken tenders and bread sticks as well. The sample of fish fillets we were testing did not meet our standards, and a second option is being pursued.

At this time we are waiting to hear back from Rosen and Edward Don about the pricing and sale of the MerryChef. We also suggested an under counter freezer because the features of the Versa Drawer did not suit Rosen’s needs. They are only cooking with frozen product. I have been in touch with Carolina and she is seeing progress in her sales and we will be adding more menu items over the next week or so.

This was one of my first experiences really working one-on-one to create a menu from scratch and help with the pricing and implementation from start to finish. They would not have made it this far with out the support on training, and programming the new items as we progressed through our testing. Carolina and Sandi know how to program the MerryChef themselves, but don’t have the experience to create programs with out help and direction. Needless to say, they have been very appreciative with all the help and support we have given since our first meeting in November. I believe that opened the door for this project, and see this helping many more clients to come in the future.

Sincerely,
Ryan Barlow
FER Corporate Chef