Last week I had a fellow consultant in from the US to work with us, and so I was more than happy to spend some time with him to show him around Montreal. Although it’s February and not necessarily the best time to enjoy this great city, you can always count on Montreal for some wonderful restaurants and nightlife!
One of the places I took him to was a restaurant called L’Entrecôte St-Jean, right in the heart of downtown. This place has been around for over 25 years and has always had the same menu: a striploin marinated in a mustard sauce, served with homemade fries, all prefaced by a crisp salad. You basically have only two options: you have it with or without the soup of the day and the dessert! Shouldn’t take anyone more than about 12 seconds to decide! Of course, the beef is delicious, as are the fries, soup and salad. An excellent selection of wines is available to accompany your meal, and an ambiance that leaves no doubt that you are in French Canada.
My friend agreed that this was a great business model: do one thing, but do it well. The proof was right there: 25 years in business with only one dish on the menu, and patrons are still packing the place.
The Crèperie Catherine in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec
On Sunday morning, I took him to Mont-Tremblant, Quebec – a world-class ski resort with plenty of local fare to enjoy. We ended up having breakfast at Crèperie Catherine, a tiny little restaurant that specializes in – you guessed it! – crèpes (very thin pancakes, normally stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and whatever assortment of fillings you can imagine). We happened to be sitting right next to where Catherine (yep, the Catherine!) was making the crèpes. We started talking with her and found out that she had started the place 18 years ago with her husband, François, and her sister Lorraine. Her sister was still behind the counter with her making breakfasts for the guests! They had both been working on merchant marine ships, sailing back and forth across the Great Lakes and working as cooks. Catherine loves making crèpes, so when she met François they started Crèperie Catherine and have been loving it ever since. If you are ever in the Montreal area, you owe it to yourself to head out to Mont-Tremblant and kickstart your day with one of Catherine’s crèpes!
Catherine (right) with her sister Lorraine, doing what they do best!
And again, the topic of “do one thing, but do it well” came up. Catherine said that over the years, many people had suggested that she make the place bigger and add more items to the menu. My friend and I both shook our heads and agreed with her: No! It was perfect the way it was: quaint, friendly, and delicious! Why would you want to gamble when you already had a winning formula?
Of course, this got me thinking about my own business – Adaris – and how, throughout the years, we had decided not to add too many vendors and products to our portfolio. We were, and still are, first and foremost a “Novell shop”. We also work with products, and other vendors are certainly part of our arsenal for some services (TrendMicro for AV requirements, Fortinet for UTM devices, etc), but Novell solutions are the reason we exist. This always surprises many people, since so many have migrated to Microsoft solutions and never looked back; they are often stunned to hear how many Novell customers are still out there, enjoying the reliability of the products. Not only that, but most customers have no idea that most of Novell’s solutions work natively in a Microsoft/Active Directory envrionment (think ZENworks & Vibe, for example).
Our team is small, but we have had the opportunity – and the pleasure – to work with some very large, important customers all across Canada and the US. I strongly bellieve that one of the reasons is because we choose to do one thing, but do it well.
