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LEGAL | GENERAL | CLEANING | COOKING | SERVING | DEVOTEE PATRONS | GLOSSARY
I wrote the following after eating at the ISKCON Denver Govinda’s Buffet for several months and eating and working at the ISKCON St. Louis Govinda’s Natural Foods Buffet for several more months. In St. Louis, I also helped with the cooking, did some of the purchasing for the restaurant, and did all of the treasury work for the restaurant.
Even though neither the temple, the restaurant, nor I even owned a computer at that time, by using the computers at the nearby St. Louis University Library, I was able, with great trepidation, to teach myself how to create web pages!
1. The restaurant must be registered as a profit making corporation, the same as any other restaurant chain, and may have share holders. The devotee(s) in charge of the chain must be careful to always keep a controlling interest (at least 51% of the stock).
2. All of the rules must be included in the corporate by-laws, so legal action can be taken, if necessary, to enforce them.
3. All restaurants must be “company owned,” so that personnel may be moved from one restaurant to another, as needed, and so that tight control can be maintained.
4. The name of the restaurant chain must have full legal protection, so that no one else can use it, and so that it doesn’t have to be changed later on.
5. The name of the restaurant must not give any hint that the restaurant is a prasadam, vegetarian or health food restaurant.
[Comment: The fact that the food served is vegetarian, healthful, nutritious, delicious, offered to Srila Prabhupada, karma-free, etc. will spread by word of mouth. By remaining “low key,” customers will not be embarrassed to bring friends whom they are afraid might be offended or “turned off” by an openly vegetarian or Hare Krsna restaurant.]
6. Trade secret protection must be obtained for premixed spice blends for the dal, subji, pakoras, and samosas. Once a week, the spices are freshly ground and mixed together at the restaurant chain’s headquarters. These are then immediately sent out to all of the member restaurants.
[Comment: This makes things more complicated for the headquarters, but simpler for the restaurants. This is one advantage of a chain. The headquarters takes on much of the burden. Overall, it will save time and trouble, and should help to keep those four recipes somewhat proprietary.]
7. The restaurant must be advertised as serving “delicious, nutritious” food, not as “vegetarian,” “karma-free,” “Hare Krsna,” “prasadam,” etc.
8. Customers get all they can eat of dal, basmati rice, chapatis, subji, halava, and herbal tea for US$5 .
9. Optionally, in addition to the above, customers could get all they can eat of such preparations as chutney, puris, pappadams, pakoras, samosas, sweet rice, simply wonderfuls, laddhus, luglus, lassi, or fruit juice for a total of US$10.
10. The restaurant manager shall be paid a set minimum salary or a set percentage of the gross income, whichever is higher. All other workers shall be paid by the hour.
11. The restaurant shall be open at least from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., 6 days a week.
12. The restaurant must be set up so that one person can do everything (stove & sink right behind the customer counter).
13. No self-service will be allowed.
14. Sinks for customers must be provided near the cash register, and in at least one other convenient location in addition to the ones in the toilet rooms.
15. Music must be provided by CDs only.
[Comment: CDs such as the one by Ravi Shankar and produced by George Harrison (Chants of India) is ideal (creates a transcendental atmosphere without offending anyone). A CD which chants Vedic mantras, like in the Indian movies, as “Chants of India,” sets a very nice mood for a KC restaurant. Most of the customers are not going to care one iota about KC. They just want something good and nutritious to eat. Even if they like KC, they want to be able to bring their friends who don’t, or are neutral.]
16. If finances permit, an automatic ticket dispenser that accepts paper money, as well as coins, and possibly even credit/debit cards, should be installed. This would relieve the person doing the cooking and serving from also having to handle the money, which would not only save time, but would be cleaner and safer. A time limit could be printed on the ticket and the ticket would have to be shown, not only the first time, but also each time that the customer came to get “seconds.”
[Comment: The “Metro” train stations in St. Louis, MO, USA have such machines. A ticket on the Metro costs $1.00, but you could also feed a $5.00 bill into the machine. The change, however, would be in the form of $1.00 (Susan B. Anthony) coins.]
17. Anything that the customers can see, or that is used for cooking, must be thoroughly cleaned daily.
18. All damp cleaning cloths must be rinsed before and after use, and must be hung on racks when not in use (never placed on a countertop, shelf, or sink).
19. Damp mops must be hung outside when not in use.
20. Cleaning buckets must be stored upside-down.
21. All cooking and serving utensils must, as far as possible, be stored in closed drawers and cabinets.
22. All cooking and serving utensils, including the trays that customers use, must be washed with very strong detergent. The utensils must be washed and thoroughly rinsed in water too hot to touch (pot washer must use rubber gloves).
23. One to three hours worth of each preparation must be prepared and offered before the restaurant opens.
[Comment: The cooking should always be in small quantities, with the cooking going on continuously. This may be difficult for one person to handle, so 4 or 5 hour shifts may be necessary. However, cooking for Krsna, and preaching by distributing prasadam is a pleasure, not a burden.]
24. All preparations must be made according to strict recipes and all ingredients must be carefully measured.
25. Only recipes approved by the corporate management may be used.
[Comment: Professional restaurants, especially chains, do it this way. An authoritarian disciplinarian must be in charge of the chain. All of the rules should be in the corporate by-laws, so legal action can be taken, if necessary, to enforce them. Prabhupada wanted a chain like McDonald’s. People don’t like surprises, especially if they’re bringing a friend for the first time.]
26. Everything must be cooked fresh, right in front of the customer’s eyes, but small quantities of all of the preparations must be offered before the restaurant opens.
[Comment: Just like they do on the streets in India. Then one person can cook and also serve the customers, and be the cashier. Like a bartender, or a soda jerk! Very efficient! If the cooking needs to be interrupted, the burner can simply be turned off temporarily. Srila Prabhupada’s prescription for the restaurants is that additional quantities prepared later in the day are considered already offered.]
27. No steamed vegetable, salad, brown rice, bread, buns, cookies, ice cream or any other kind of Western style food are allowed to be served.
[Comment: If they want these things, then they have to eat somewhere else! We need to concentrate on the labor-intensive items, and keep everything as simple as possible. We need to appeal to the meat eaters—not the vegans! Meat eaters like deep-fried curd and pakoras. Also, when devotees cook things for vegans or health food addicts, it’s usually not very good, because they’re not into it.] [Comment: The only practical way to serve a salad is buffet style, but this is not acceptable. The karmis contaminate everything. Someone is going to get sick!]
28. Subji must be made with lots of curd, deep-fried in ghee.
29. Rice must be made with butter or ghee impurities and salt, and cooked in whey.
30. Halava must be made with unsalted butter and 50% water plus 50% whey or milk.
31. No cooking oil is allowed; everything must be cooked in ghee.
32. Freshly ground ginger must be included in every dal & subji preparation.
33. All potatoes, all tomatoes, and all eggplants (except fresh Japanese) must be peeled before they are cooked. (If the potatoes are to be deep fried, then they don’t have to be peeled.)
34. All ingredients must be of the highest possible quality.
35. Eventually, customers should be given the choice of getting only preparations which are prepared using milk, butter and ghee from devotee farms, at a higher price, instead of slaughter house dairy “blood milk.”
[Comment: More and more, people are becoming disturbed by the horrors of the modern dairy farms (They not only kill the mother cow when she gets too old to produce milk efficiently, but they kill most of her calves as well.), so this might someday become a very popular option. It’s something that could be heavily advertised, in the future. A large chain of restaurants that was willing to pay 5 to 10 times the going rate for milk would be a real boon for the cow protection program that Srila Prabhupada so much wanted.]
36. The cook/server should wear a neat, clean, comfortable western style uniform. A female cook/server must keep her head covered.
[Comment: The reason for this is not just for chastity, but also for cleanliness.]
37. All prasadam should be served out before it is 3 hours old.
38. All preparations must be kept covered.
39. Lids should be turned upside-down when set aside while the preparation is being served.
40. No preparations should be touched by human hands once cooked.
41. Customers are served using paper plates and cups, and plastic spoons and forks.
42. The paper plates, paper cups, plastic spoons and plastic forks must be kept covered, and where the customers can’t touch them.
43. While serving seconds, the server may not touch the contaminated cup or plate even with his left hand. The plate or cup must be left on the counter where it was placed by the customer. A clean plate can be held under the serving utensil to catch the drips.
44. While serving seconds, the server must be extremely careful not to touch the contaminated plate with the serving utensil.
45. As far as possible, devotee patrons should wear western style clothing.
46. Devotees should be encouraged to eat in the restaurant, and not take their prasadam elsewhere to eat it.
[Comment: This will encourage the other customers, by making the restaurant seem “busier.” Devotees taking prasadam alone in the restaurant, will also help the customers who are doing the same thing, to feel more comfortable. It is also good for devotees to sit and take prasadam with customers that enjoy Krsna katha.]
47. All devotees must use paper plates and cups and plastic spoons and/or forks, the same as the customers. (No personal eating utensils such as metal plates are allowed. Devotees are not allowed to eat with their fingers.)
48. Devotees are not allowed to eat anything in the restaurant that isn’t also available to the customers.
Your servant,
Pratyatosa Dasa ()
Basmati Rice—unbleached, naturally white
Blood Milk—from a cow destined to be slaughtered and whose male calves are also slaughtered
Chapatis—whole wheat flat bread
Chutney—a spicy relish that serves as an accent to other dishes
Dal—lentil soup
Ghee—clarified butter
Halava—semolina pudding
Karmi—one who is engaged in karma (fruitive activity); a materialist
Laddhu—chickpea-flour fudge
Lassi—yogurt smoothie
Luglu—chickpea-flour and dried-fruit balls
Pakora (Vegetable Fritter)—spiced, batter-dipped, deep-fried vegetables
Pappadam—crispy dal wafers
Prasadam—sanctified food; food offered with devotion to Lord Krsna
Puri—deep-fried puffed bread
Samosa—small triangular deep-fried stuffed savory pastry
Subji—stir fried vegetables
Sweet Rice—creamy condensed-milk rice pudding
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