Plus a nicely presented food picture book is a nicer experience than a 'bland' list of items.
(for the food geeks: talk of bastardization of food! This Texas creation has almost zero resemblance to the original, which is just a flaky fruit tart)
I grew up in Houston and had "kolaches" everywhere. It wasn't until Tom and I started working on this business that I even learned the word klobasnek/klobasniky.
I feel we're fighting an uphill battle already with kolache vs kolace vs kolacky vs kolach, etc
Additionally the polish vs the czech versions are slightly different. Here in Chicago, the Polish kolaczki is often quite flaky with a drier dough and more like a dough square folded in over a fruit filling.
In Texas a true/traditional Czech kolache is often a soft, pillowy sweet ROUND pastry with the fruit filling.
However, despite all that, in Texas, especially in Houston, "kolache" is often just used as a catchall, even if not super accurate. But there are 50 "kolache" shops in Houston and no "klobasnek" shops.
We did debate it for a while, but we opted for just going with the grain rather than trying to be more correct.
Admittedly, there's a little bit of cowardice in that, but we decided there were enough challenges ahead, so we didn't want to add that extra journey.
If the business fails, is it because Chicagoans don't want their breakfast delivered as a subscription service, or do they simply not like kolaches?
We'll ultimately try multiple channels. Actually our first channel we're trying is wholesaling to coffee shops.
We are really treating it a bit more like a startup in the sense that we have opinions, are testing them, but will iterate and are open to changing course based on the feedback we receive from the market.
There are a few reasons why the initial thesis is to stay away from Door Dash/Grubhub.
(A) cost - since we're not at scale, our unit costs are... not great. With the Door Dash cut, we'll almost certainly be in negative unit cost territory.
(B) Door Dash / GrubHub are an on demand business. A customer goes online, picks an option, then we fulfill it within X minutes. Subscription and wholesale allow us to BATCH our output (and therefore labor and facility inputs). This makes cost management way easier for us up front.
So right now, we can get off the ground just hiring people 2 days a week, but that wouldn't work with the normal Door Dash model.
Once we have our basic costs covered by the predictable orders, it'll be a lot easier for us to add on demand options and it won't add incremental labor costs.
Tock To Go is probably an early option for us though due to allowing low costs and future pickup ordering (Hi Nick Kokonas, I love you!)
I chuckled, then got very sad at this.
FWIW, if we can/do get to the stage where we are really able to do delivery subscriptions (that's definitely a goal), then we probably will use that language.
It's not that I think it's a good choice or even descriptive (Isn't really ANY food you buy basically X as a service? Yet bagel shops aren't calling themselves "bagel as a service" because... well... it's insane.)
But it probably will get people's attention in a hyperlocal social media ad, so it has utility to us as a business strategy.
I know it probably sucks a little bit, but our goal is to accrue many small advantages to drive a higher total probability of success.
:sob:
