I spent the last week in San Francisco, helping to put on a 500 person seafood event.
It was the largest budget event I've ever been apart of, and the second largest from a guest count perspective.
Total seafood flown in: 1,100 lbs π¦ππ¦
The guests in attendance were tech founders, owners of 9-figure product companies, and most notably, the Crown Prince of Norway (a clip of his speech at the venue, here).
I shot a vlog of the experience, which I plan to edit together next week.
Our Take: Depending on WHEN and WHERE on the internet you found yourself, there were a mix of reactions. The main three takes we saw:
"Who can 'own' a preparation?!"
Trademark nerds and experts, adding nuance and legal jargon
David Chang, boo
For this newsletter, we're not touching #3 - you can take that up with David.
A few points we hadn't seen covered that in depth:
Momofuku's Product is Actually Different
Let's just put the ingredients of the most commonly referenced "competitor", Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp up next to Momofuku for comparison.
Momofuku β¬οΈ
Lao Gan Ma β¬οΈ
Momofuku's is part-cuisine-fusion, part noma-fermentation-lab-experiment. It's got Mexican chiles in it, for goodness sake.
Anyone who's named a product before knows the right mix you have to nail: Easy to Identify + Unique
Miss on either of these, and you're either CONSTANTLY battling with the competition, or no one buys your product because they can't understand it at a glance.
I went through this myself when I thought I was being clever calling my first educational product "The Demi Skills Course". It required a 45 second explainer to bring a stranger up to speed on what my product did and who it's for. Once I pivoted to "Total Station Domination", the name finally clicked and it took off.
For the critics of this situation: what should Momofuku call this product? It's clearly not Chili Crisp, at least not in the traditional sense. And the businesses that are making that product still have the ability to both produce it and keep their product's name.
Once Momofuku lands on a name, should it be able to be trademarked?
Picture this: if you went to a Momofuku restaurant and they didn't have their product and they gave you a bowl of Lao Gan Ma or Fly by Jing instead, wouldn't you be upset, considering that they're different products made with different ingredients?
What also makes this story so unique is the language component, where "crunch" and "crisp" functions more as a descriptor than a process-focused differentiator (see: "Extra Virgin" when talking about olive oil).
That leads me into the next point:
Spicy Enforcement
Upon initially hearing this story, I kept asking myself, "is David really trying to get people to stop making this beloved condiment?"
The answer was a clear and resounding no.
It's about the name, not the product.
It's no different than if you had a tasting menu restaurant, where you called one of the dessert courses a "Snickers" bar.
Mars isn't going to tell you that you can't combine peanuts, caramel, nougat and chocolate.
But they can tell you to stop calling it a Snickers.
The podcast episode that David Chang published features commentary from the Momofuku CEO where they basically admit that their current plan is to "take the risk" with their ownership of the "Chile Crunch" trademark (which they acquired fair-and-square by purchasing the trademark and giving the original brand, Chile Colonial, βa perpetual license to continue to use the name.β)
Considering Momofuku has decided to not actively "defend" the trademark or cease others from using "chili/chile crunch", legally, they leave the door wide open for someone else (even a larger company, armed with an even bigger squad of lawyers) to swoop in and snag the trademark for themselves.
The most convincing argument I've seen is from Michelle Tew, founder of the Malaysian food brand Homiah, where she said, "if Momofuku really just wanted to protect its brand, they could likely trademark 'Momofuku Chili Crunch' v 'chili crunch'".
Side note: David Chang became the punching bag for this type of situation, when others in the space like Jing Gao have, in fact, displayed similar efforts in recent weeks:
I keep coming back to other products that don't have as rigid forms of protections in place, which just become a consumer's nightmare of a minefield to navigate.
Olive oil, chocolate, certain cheeses...they all fall victim to sleazy food companies coming in and tarnishing the reputation of the "original", which genuinely hurts the actual companies making great stuff.
To sum it up (just so none of this gets twisted or taken out of context), in our opinion, the lessons you can learn from this include:
Protecting IP is a big deal, and you should be able to do so as a business to both prevent impersonation and give consumers confidence in what they're buying
Optics and reputation matters. You can build it up over a lifetime and have it crumble to pieces with one situation. Even though David Chang is the face of this, it's actually the work of the company's executives, lawyers and branding experts, and probably should've gone through another meeting or two before going public.
Plant a flag and own it. A lot of this could've been solved (or avoided) by just calling it (and pursuing the trademark of) Momofuku Chili Crunch, period.
What do you think about this news?
"Chef, can we get weekends off?"
At the restaurant Canlis, they said yes.
The Seattle fine dining spot is experimenting with a M-F schedule this summer.
Our Take: I'll be the first to admit it - Seattle's got two qualities that align perfectly with this decision:
The tasting menu landscape is relatively sparse (when put against other cities)
We love our summers
TBH, we're most excited to see what comes from the result of this experiment.
πΈWill revenue for the year tank, or will they prove they can keep numbers under control?
This is fundamentally an experiment in pulling the demand lever, not the supply one. There are still the same number of tables per week (opposed to going down to a 4 day workweek, etc.), but the demand for a Saturday night table is usually higher than a Monday night.
πWill staff actually be happier or will their baseline just "reset"?
I don't know about you folks, but I personally enjoyed having Mondays and Tuesdays off when I was in restaurants.
Need to head to the bank at 10am? No line! Doctor's appointments are easier to schedule. The grocery store isn't as crowded. You can get great seats at the movie theatre instead of packing in like sardines on a Saturday night.
In no way am I wishing this, but I can foresee a world where staff actually feels LESS rested.
If the quality of the experience at Canlis needs to stay the same, it doesn't decrease the weekly workload. After a long week, you're now greeted with the choice of: take a normal "rest" day and experience FOMO, or get out there and enjoy Saturday.
Sure, you still get Sunday off, but a lot of restaurants already have their weekends as Sunday/Monday.
It's also interesting to see that Canlis hosts their reservations on Tock, but doesn't seem to take advantage of any dynamic or demand-influenced pricing on tables on different days of the week. Their Tock page just reads "Dinner at Canlis is $180 per person. A $100 per person deposit secures your reservation and will be fully applied to your bill."
What do you folks think of this move? We're wildly curious to hear how it goes.
Competing with yourself can be summarized as learning - because what is learning, other than improving who you were before? -Navalβ
Yes, all other recipients held their status for 2024, and there's still a white space for a 3-star spot in Florida.
π½οΈ Dish Delivery
Is Wonder getting good?
We've covered the mega-funded Wonder before on the newsletter, but their operational excellence in quality control might just be the killer ingredient to their success. From one of their R&D sessions with Chef JJ Johnson:
βThey locked me in a kitchen for two weeks and we measured the product out to the microgram.β
π§βπΎ Market Vibes
New owners, who dis?
The 4,500 sq/ft Dean & Deluca space in the Napa valley is no more, and Chef Phil Tessier and his team at Press is taking it over.
It's called "under-study", and "plans include a modern patisserie, a butcher shop focused on dry aged meat by Flannery Beef and Snake River Farms, seafood sourced from local and Japanese purveyors, and charcuterie by Tony Incontro, and an ingredient-inspired counter service area."
βFree Skill Exercises: Struggling for how to improve and the "just go faster" advice not doing it for you? Discover the structured approach to progressive overload across skills like knife skills and plating to track your progress!
βTotal Station Domination: Get the proven program for how to prepare, perform and problem solve in professional kitchens. It's lessons from Michelin training, emulsified with habits and skills you can use ASAP on your station. Get your Station Score to see where you could improve!
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