DIRE STEAKS: AREA RESTAURANT SUFFERS FROM WEAK ECONOMY

By Jenny Speer

BACK BAY – Brian Deschler walked through the bar at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Winebar on a recent Saturday night with his head held low.

“What happened in here tonight?” said Deschler, 26, Fleming’s’ wine manager, speaking to no one in particular. His answer was in the response he received: nothing.

Fleming’s is among several restaurants that are suffering from the dwindling economy as many people are unwilling to spend the restaurant’s average of $75 per person for dinner.

“We all know it’s bad right now,” he said. “But as soon as [management] starts talking about how bad it really is, the whole system is going to fall apart. We see things from a perspective that 99 percent of the serving staff won’t understand."

Fleming’s is a part of the OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC, group, which has been putting pressure on management to cut costs and assuage the concerns of worried employees. Labor is the primary cost that is constantly monitored, Deschler said, which means many employees – especially those paid hourly, such as line cooks and hostesses – have had their hours scaled back.

“Being corporate means we have to manage from paper, not from the heart,” said Jason Carron, 32, Fleming’s Boston’s chef partner. “Walk-in business is slow, so we use the best people possible when the business is there, but it’s a tough situation for everyone.”

The nation's restaurant industry employs 13.1 million people – 9 percent of the workforce, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2008 forecast report. Fleming’s employs 100 of those people, many who are nervous that the usually busy holiday season will not be as bountiful as past years. Sales in October of this year were lower than those of July – the slowest month of the year for restaurants – of last year.

“I haven’t been to work in a week, and I’m a little scared to go back,” said Matt Aylward, 22, a server. “I’ve saved on gas and parking, but there’s nothing coming in.” Aylward said that coming to work from his home in Hudson, N.H., usually costs $40 between gas, tolls and parking.
Many employees, though grateful to be employed at all, have started exploring other options.

“It’s not like I’m running for the hills,” said Kelly McCabe, 35, a bartender who recently put together her resume. “I have it pretty good here and I’m not planning on leaving, but it would be nice to get something else part time; catering or something.”

Despite pressures from above and below, the management team at Fleming’s has developed several marketing strategies to attract customers, including an opportunity for military families to contact soldiers in Iraq via the restaurant’s video conferencing system on Veteran’s Day.

“We do a lot of competitive and market analysis,” said Terrilynn Haak, 33, Fleming’s private dining director. “There’s still money around, you just have to know where to find it and how to get it. I’m not going to go to Fidelity, who just laid off 4000 people, and say, ‘Hey, why don’t you have a really expensive holiday party here?’”

Regardless of new marketing techniques, management insists that maintaining the reputation Fleming’s has developed over the past eight years will keep people coming.

“Every time we wait on someone or serve someone anything, it needs to be a home run,” said Rick Reardon, 43, a bartender and bar manager. “We need to make sure they’re going to come back.”

Though she admits business is bleak now, Haak is confident that sticking to the basic principles of hospitality and service will bring Fleming’s out of financial turmoil.

“We’re in a bump right now that we’ll get over,” she said. “We just need to stay true to our brand.”