Same Quality, Different Space

In Venice, CA, Hans Rockenwagner built a reputation around fine dining. At his eponymously-named restaurant, the James Beard winner — classically trained and sporting a resume that includes Le Perroquet in Chicago — was lauded for his “intelligent” cooking and the “ability to seamlessly meld the classic with the new.” His praises have been sung everywhere from the LA Times to Gourmet and Saveur and the PBS series, “Great Chefs-Great Cities.”

SQUARE DEAL: L.A. Chef Hans Rockenwagner ditched his upscale restaurant in favor of a casual, threedaypart bakery concept.

Rockenwagner says that the shifting of the marketplace to a more casual orientation — not to mention the difficulty of maintaining a fine dining operation — gave him the impetus to downscale. After closing his fine dining restaurant, Rockenwagner took a year off, but not before leasing space on a popular street in downtown Venice, where he eventually opened a bakery. Eventually, he decided that “What was missing in this neighborhood was a place where you could go any time of the day, breakfast, lunch or dinner,” he says. He renamed the eatery 3 Square Café + Bakery and, building on the bakery business, Rockenwagner expanded the menu to cover three dayparts. Despite this more casual setting, Rockenwagner actually brought some of the same offerings he menued at his fine dining restaurant.

While Rockenwagner doesn't miss the headaches and expenses posed by fine dining, 3 Square has posed its own set of challenges. One is “staying on top of a three-daypart operation,” says Rockenwagner. Of course, margins are slimmer now that many of his price points are lower, so there's a new focus on volume. “There are no $50-dollar lobsters. You need to make money selling many of one item,” he says.

What has not changed is his basic philosophy when it comes to what's on the plate. “We wanted a more casual setting, but we're just as serious about the food as we've always been,” he says. “We still try to find the best ingredients for what we make, but instead of serving lobster, we serve shrimp; instead of filet mignon, it's flank steak. It's not upscale, but we're conscious of how we put it out there and put our own spin on it.”

Moreover, he says there's still more room in the casual arena for chefs, “A lot of chains have similar concepts, but no room for individuality. Why not have more of that on the casual level? Quite a few chefs have come in and we're having a lot of fun with it.” Rockenwagner reports his average check is $12 for breakfast, $16 to $18 for lunch; and $30 to $35 for dinner. Many of the menu options from his fine dining Rockenwagner restaurant have carried over to 3 Square, such as the cinnamon-scented German Apple Pancakes slathered in creme fraiche and his Crab Soufflé with Lobster-Butter sauce. For these items, Rockenwagner did not even bother lowering the menu prices. “People didn't even question it. They knew the product, wanted the product, and are ordering it just as much as they did before.”

Most importantly, says Rockenwagner, the casual dining business seems impervious to economic downturns. “One of the things I find interesting is that the economy has not affected us. I don't want to say it's recession-proof, but I do not feel not as vulnerable as the high-end restaurants.”