I have been a fan of this company since I was a young boy and things haven't changed. Recently I…read morewas asked to cater a dear friends wedding and being from out of state, over a 9 hour drive, I didn't want to bring the food. Remembering this store from my last visit, I placed an order with the corporate office to see which store had the quantity I needed etc. I was thinking that they would have to pool what was needed and it would be better than depleting stores of inventory and making an ordering nightmare. The Store manage of Rouses 16, Russell Clement, called me back within a day of ordering and had already had my list and items on hand accounted for according to cost per pound, size of each item, and total weight. From prime filet of beef to whole skin on loins of fresh caught tuna to the smallest detail of pipping bags, him and his staff bent over backwards to make this as painless as possible.
We showed up an hour late with panic in our eyes. My Chef de Cuisine and I had misplaced our menu, menu list, prep times, bake times, ingredient list, hardware list etc. Being ones to work well under pressure, we sat down with a morning coffee and rewrote a new menu. Trying to keep it simple because I hadn't been here in sometime, I wasn't sure of the incidentals that they had and we needed to hurry and apply what we could to the existing proteins we had holding in cold storage from our earlier order. Russell greeted us and handed over a clip board and pen and was never more than 30 feet away. He gave us the space we needed to work and rewrite the menu but always making sure that our time was of utmost importance. When we asked for something, it was there. His staff were like that of a fine restaurant, you waited for nothing. It was as if they had several options waiting in the wings and what we needed was always one that they preplanned. Jeremy escorted me to the butcher station and showed me our lamb, goat, and filet order. I asked if he could french cut the lamb and at what price and without hesitation, he said would have it ready and at no cost. That saved my staff at least 2 hours of prep time. We also asked for the waste for stocks and that was wrapped and stored separately.
I could go on for hours about the meat section alone but the bread department,t with Heidi and the others, was amazing as well. Our order was taken, baked then cut and ready for delivery the next morning. Their calm cool and collectiveness kept us on track as the minutes ticked away of our prep time.
As I walked down the isles, I added at least 5 new menu items simply because I wasn't expecting to find the complete sections of Far east, and middle eastern items. Everything from Indian to Asian allowed me to make added changes that would cut down on prep and cooking time.
After 3 hours of shopping, we were finally done. Caviar, prime filet, tuna, lamb, goat, oysters, shrimp and crab meat, were the main ingredients with many more in the buggy, ended up just over 3500.00 dollars for a catering job for 100 people.
Russell, Heidi, Jeremy, Winnie, Antole, Ben and the rest of the staff at Rouses 16, thank you for making my job that much easier. This place has everything from an amazing selection to an incredible staff.
