Just the Right Twist
Chef Anthony Vidal of Hash-House-A-Go-Go explains why the popular restaurant uses CAB.
by Miranda Reiman
"Farm food" and beef seem like a natural pair, but at the popular Hash-House-A-Go-Go, it wasn't always that way.
The five-restaurant chain serves "twisted farm food," or food your mama used to make, but not the way mama made it. Want proof? The meatloaf is stuffed with red peppers, fresh spinach and mozzarella cheese. The chicken pot pie is served upside down, bursting out of its shell. Pancakes come in flavors like mango coconut, butterscotch almond and Snickers®.
"We have a big breakfast reputation, and sometimes that overwhelms the lunch and dinner menus," says Chef Anthony Vidal, who was recruited to help open the first Las Vegas location. "You will not see many restaurants known for breakfast serving the type of menu and quality that we do for lunch and dinner, so it takes a little something more. We added the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) 18-oz. ribeye, the beef tenderloin and the corned beef, and now we are known for our burgers and steaks, too."
Since then, four more Nevada locations have popped up: three in Vegas and one in Reno (www.hashhouseagogo.com/vegas).
Vidal's staff cracks open 5,000 eggs and patties up 700 pounds (lb.) of hamburger every morning. All that is enjoyed by some pretty high-profile guests. Martha Stewart, Chelsea Clinton, Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray have all enjoyed the cuisine.
A Bronx native, Vidal may not have a farm background, but he knows what kind of comfort food his customers crave.
"People don't have that much money to go out and eat, but this economy hasn't hurt us at all, because when they do go out, they want value and they want freshness," he says. A hallmark of the restaurant is the generous portions.
"We do everything from scratch. We have no heating lamps, microwaves or frozen food," Vidal says. "When you go to Hash House, we give you a lot of food. We are fresh — real butter, heavy cream — like your mom used to make."
When they stepped up beef purchases a few years ago, going with a higher-quality product, Vidal says, it "kind of put us on the map as a place to get a really good steak at a reasonable price."
"We get far fewer complaints from our guests," he says. "They are happy, and when you are happy, you love the restaurant and you come back."
He quotes a familiar statistic that if you have one bad experience you tell 10 people; if you have a good experience you tell two. Keeping that in mind, Vidal wasn't sure he wanted to tout their beef — that is, until they amped up the quality. Now it's featured on billboards.
"If we did not have good steak, it would not be on the posters. It would not be on the marquee and in our advertising," he says.
The main Vegas location has won two "Best Burger" awards and has been featured on shows like The Food Network's Man v. Food and HGTV's Inside Out.
Vidal gives credit to his staff and to those producing his raw materials.
To the ranchers and feeders, "I would tell them to keep doing what they're doing and produce more cattle. I don't mind paying for good beef, but I do have to watch my costs."
He sacrifices profit to put a reputation steak on the plate because he knows it'll draw diners and he can make that back on lower-cost items like potatoes, pancakes and beverages. Plus, there's the thrill of a satisfied diner.
"When I drop off an 18-ounce, bone-in ribeye to a customer and they pull out their camera and take a picture of it before even tasting it — that reaction right there, I wish I could show it to cattlemen," Vidal says. "If they saw that, they'd want to hit the quality mark every time."
