Connection

34 santÉ may. 2009 Photograph (top left) © Caryn B. Davis Photography, www.cbdphotography.com;
Photographs (bottom Left & top Right) courtesy of restaurant du village

By Ashley Brenon
M ichel & Cynthia Keller understand
French cuisine. Michel was raised
in an apartment above the generations-old family
bakery in Alsace. This year he celebrates 50 years
in the kitchen. Cynthia became enraptured with
French cooking in culinary school. She speaks
French and often slips French words unconsciously
into English conversations. Both worked in French
restaurants in Manhattan. Combined, their resume
includes such establishments as Le Cirque, Elysée
Pastry, and La Prunelle. Despite their experience,
the Kellers’ business approach differs drastically
from the approaches of the French restaurants that
employed them in the city.
After they were married in 1987, they began
to look for a restaurant that they could operate
according to their own vision. “We wanted it to
be more like the restaurants we had visited in our
travels in France: family-run restaurants, male and
female servers, warm, accommodating service. Not
that sort of over-the-top, tuxedoed, somewhat stiff
French service of the 1970s and ’80s,” Cynthia says.
Together they have owned Restaurant du Village
in Chester, Connecticut, for nearly 20 years. Over
that span they have completed a $100,000 renovation
and eliminated the dress code. More importantly,
they have created a restaurant whose old-world
charm has garnered a loyal following. Their success,
: : restaurant profile ::
Restaurant du Village
59 Main Street
Chester, Connecticut 06412
860-526-5301
www.restaurantduvillage.com
they will tell you, has little to do with crunching
numbers. Instead, it’s all about spending time in the
kitchen and making positive connections with the
staff. “And yes,” Cynthia adds, “it’s really nice that
the numbers work.”
Hands On
Cynthia believes in managing food costs with
a hands-on approach. “Having someone in the
kitchen who cares, whose salary directly relates
to what is being used, to what’s being bought, to
what’s being sold, to what’s being trimmed away
or wasted,” is how she puts it. In fact, she claims
that choosing to spend more time cooking and
less time managing is one of the best business
decisions she has made in recent years. She buys
small quantities of local and seasonal ingredients
frequently. Nearly every day fresh product is
delivered to the restaurant. The practice preserves
freshness and keeps costs in check.
Once the product is in the kitchen, Cynthia trains
the staff continually to prevent food waste. She re-
calls that one trainee “was mincing shallots for me
for the line, and he had a third of each shallot to-
ward the root end in his compost bucket.” She re-
counts her instruction to him: “Shallots are small.
They’re very expensive. . . . Continue mincing until
you have about that much left.” She uses her fingers
m a y. 2 0 0 9 santÉ 35
 “ It’s about guiding the guest
toward what they want rather
than having a sales quota.”
to indicate the smallness of what should
remain. Michel agrees. According to
him, staff are tricked by the abundance
they see in the pantry or the walk-in. “If
you need something, it is easy to get, but
there is still a cost behind it,” he says. The
staff is trained to put parsley stems in the
stockpot. Lesser cuts of meat are used to
make charcuterie, something the restau-
rant has done routinely for several years.
What little waste remains is used to feed
the family chickens. “Your garbage can is
. . . your enemy,” Michel says.
Like Family
On the rare occasion when Cynthia over-
buys, she uses the extra product for staff
meal. In fact, staff meal is another cor-
nerstone of the restaurant’s successful
management strategy. “We all sit down
. . . Michel and I sit right there along with
everybody. It is not a staff meeting. It is a
family meal,” Cynthia says. They have a big
salad, a protein (“I try to keep the protein
between $1.50 and $2 a head, so we eat a
lot of chicken legs and hamburger,” Cyn-
thia says), a starch, vegetables, and bread.
“We sit there for about a half hour and all
just enjoy dinner and talk about life.” As
a result, the whole restaurant staff—front
of the house and back—enjoys a family-
like bond. “There’s just this very strong
friendship, a great sense of respect that
exists,” Cynthia comments.
The staff meal gives the Kellers the
freedom to be open with the staff about
financial matters, another key to the
couple’s management strategy. When
times are good, they share that infor-
mation. Cynthia adds, “And when times
aren’t good [we say], ‘Gee, I am really
worried.’” The openness is a sign of re-
spect and a signal that the couple views
the staff as part of the team. “Yesterday’s
36 santÉ may. 2009
—Cynthia Keller
conversation was [that] my
backbar bottle chiller chose
Sunday night to go into a death spiral. A
new one costs $1,600.” Discussing chal-
lenges gives everyone a stake in how well
the restaurant operates financially.
Back for More
The deeply personal management style
inspires loyalty. Many of the staff have
worked at the restaurant for five years
or more. Christine Bastian, the head
server, who is originally from France’s
Languedoc-Roussillon region, worked
for the previous owners and has been
with the restaurant the entire time the
Kellers have owned it. Bastian is unfail-
ingly meticulous. (She attributes this
quality to her mother, who worked in a
shop that sold china and silver. From her,
Bastian learned to set a table with impec-
cable detail, right down to the seams in
the napkins.) “I am from France, and I
try to make the client feel like they are in
France,” she says. She greets the guests in
French and provides special insight into
the wines from the region where she was
raised. One wine in particular from one
of the region’s family vineyards, Mas de
Daumas Gassac, sells very well at $65 a
bottle.
As Bastian serves and trains other serv-
ers, she is focused on repeat business and
positive word of mouth. “I want people to
come back [and] to talk about it the next
day,” she says. Servers are taught to read
guests’ signals to determine how much
personality and information they would
like. Some guests want to be left alone,
while others hope for a bit of entertain-
ment. Some know exactly what they want
before they arrive, while others hope to
be presented with something new and
interesting.
Co-Owner, Executive Chef, & General
Manager Cynthia Keller
Co-Owner & Pastry Chef Michel Keller
Chef de Cuisine Elizabeth Taran
Employees 13
Seats 50
Food Style Market-driven, regional French
Average Dinner Check $135 (for 2
guests)
Average Number of Dinner Covers 50
Gross Annual Restaurant Revenue
$650,000
Wine List Focus French
Wines on List 55–60
Wines by the Glass 12
Wine Cellar 600 bottles
Average Bottle Price $55
Cases Sold per Month 30–40
“It’s about guiding the guest toward
what they want rather than having a sales
quota,” Cynthia notes. “We don’t have
contests [like] who serves the most bot-
tles of wine or who has the highest check
average or any of that nonsense.” Incen-
tives to work together, to sell well, and
to provide the best service come at the
end of the night when the tips from each
table are combined and divided among
the servers. “It’s in everybody’s interest
to sell as well as they can and to provide
the best service,” Cynthia asserts, and she
concludes, “The goal is not to make more
money. The goal is to provide great food,
great service, and great ambience—and
[to believe] that the monetary reward
[will] come.”
Photograph courtesy of restaurant du village