Lydia Bugatti’s career as a chef and restaurant owner began with an early love and appreciation of food and wine instilled by two grandmothers, one Italian and one Russian who grew up in Japan. The main lesson from this multi-ethnic influence is that food needs to be fresh and of high quality. This is the standard she sets for her distributors.
Bugatti’s first restaurant, established 16 years ago, is Ristorante Bugatti’s in West Linn, Ore., near Portland. She was “killing” her partner cooking food at home, she remembers, so she decided to expand her audience by opening a restaurant. She now owns four operations. In addition to the original, there are two Bugatti’s in Beaverton, and one in Oregon City. The Ristorante is fine dining, and the other Bugatti’s units are more casual. One feature on the menu of the casual concepts is a “build your own pasta” section, from which diners can select their preference of pasta and sauce as well as a choice of meat and seafood.
Iunderstand that all your menu items are made from scratch.
Yes, I was brought up on a farm. We had gardens and all kinds of fruit trees—peach and apricot, for instance—and walnut trees. I grew up understanding the importance of really fresh ingredients.
That must mean that you have a number of specialty distributors as well as a broadliner.
Yes, I use a specialist for our cheeses and dairy products. I also have a supplier for hard-to-find produce as well as meat and seafood distributors. The local Sysco house is our broadline distributor.
What do you look for in a distributor?
I’m very quality-driven, but I also want prices in line with the market. How they handle problems is also important. Problems inevitably occur, so the question is do they go ahead and fix whatever is wrong—whether it’s a refund, replacing a product or running a needed product to me—or do they play the blame game?
I also expect to keep things on my end workable for the vendors. I make sure that we meet the minimum drop size, give them a reasonable delivery schedule and sign off on deliveries quickly so that the driver can continue on his route. If there is a problem, we try not to vent on some poor hapless soul who didn’t cause the problem and may not be able to do anything about it.
Do you work directly with distributor sales reps?
I set the specifications, and my staff works directly for ordering and problem resolution. It has to be a really big problem for me to see a rep.
Does each restaurant order separately?
Each one orders separately, but we are treated as a small regional chain in terms of pricing and service.
What things do distributors do that annoy you?
Waste my time. Also, I quit one broadliner because their rep was mean-spirited. We found he was overcharging us.
What great things have your distributors done for you?
One time the maker of the mascarpone I use in tiramisu replaced a homogenization unit, and the resulting cheese wouldn’t set anymore and ran liquid on the plate. My distributor not only worked with the producer to set the unit right again, but they refunded the cost of the failed product, which was considerable.
Just in general, though, my business couldn’t go anywhere without my loyal distributors and everything they do for me. They are my white knights.
