When the first P.F. Chang’s opened 23 years ago, the upscale Asian-cuisine restaurant emphasized fresh, high-quality dishes and cocktails. That strategy has served the company well and has put P.F. Chang’s China Bistro ahead of the current dining trend of premium, authentic ingredients.
It’s also helped the concept expand to 211 locations nationwide in 2016, with 50-plus more restaurants in international markets.
To make sure consumers understand the chain’s commitment to fresh, premium offerings, P.F. Changs’ has recently ramped up its efforts to promote those elements on the menu. It has kicked off “Farm To Wok” and “Garden To Glass” campaigns in the past year that highlight how the restaurant prepares food and mixes cocktails with all-natural and, when possible, small-batch-sourced ingredients.
“It’s something we’ve been working on for a while that really came to life this summer,” explains P.F. Chang’s beverage director Mary Melton. “We changed around the look of the menus quite a bit, and put in a lot more photos” that highlight the Garden-to-Glass concept.
Natural ingredients have always been a part of what P.F. Chang’s does, Melton notes. “We want to get our audience to see how fresh we really are—especially for being a bigger restaurant group.”
Procuring Produce
P.F. Chang’s used to buy citrus juice from suppliers, but since about five years ago it’s been procuring fresh fruit for its cocktail program. Bar staffers open their shifts every morning by squeezing and processing fruit with a Sunkist juicer.
Staff at the P.F. Chang’s in the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, for instance, might spend all morning at the juicer, Melton says. At other, less-busy locations, an hour might suffice, but “it definitely takes a bartender well into their morning just strictly juicing.”
The fresh juices will last the restaurant for the whole day, Melton explains. P.F. Chang’s does not hand-squeeze juices to order as a matter of time efficiency.
The move to fresh juices not only results in tastier cocktails, it reflects the trend toward nutritious products with interesting origins. “I think everyone is just really well educated now about what they’re putting into their bodies, and what farmers are pulling out of the ground,” Melton says.
“I’d argue that farm-fresh ingredients taste better,” she adds. What’s more, “there’s a whole additional romance to these products when guests know where or how they’re farmed or grown.”
Abuzz About Honey
One aspect of P.F. Chang’s Garden-to-Glass cocktail program is its use of honey as a sweetener. “Rather than just use simple syrup, we’ve been using honey to bring out the flavor notes and freshness in our cocktails,” Melton says.
And not just any honey. For the July menu, the chain began procuring specialty honey in small batches from sources in Florida, Texas, Arizona and Southern California. These honeys have better “stories,” Melton explains, and flavors that are more unique with character. Honey purchased in bulk often tastes like clove, she adds.
Melton has found that honey pairs well with barrel-aged tequila and Woodford Reserve bourbon. P.F. Chang’s uses orange blossom honey in drinks such as the Anejo Buzz, made with 1800 Añejo tequila, Cointreau, honey water and fresh lemon juice. The drink is shaken, and then topped with a mint sprig and lemon wheel.
The same honey complements the whiskey in the Twisted Whiskey Sour, with Woodford Reserve bourbon, Cointreau, orange juice and honey water with a dash of orange bitters. “The flavors of the orange blossom match really well with the whiskey in our Whiskey Sour, giving it a freshness, but also an almost-brooding-like quality,” Melton says.
“Honey is such a pure product,” she explains. “It helps bring out the notes of smokiness, toastiness or vanilla in spirits that rest in barrels.” And when mixing honey with tequila, Melton notes, “you can pick up the agave notes a little more easily, and the earthy notes become stronger.”
Classic Cocktails Remixed
P.F. Chang’s began in 1993 as a joint venture between Paul Fleming, who would later start the Fleming’s Prime steakhouse chain, and restaurateur Philip Chiang. The first location opened in a Scottsdale, AZ-based luxury shopping mall. The company today also includes Pei Wei Asian Diner, a fast-casual restaurant concept with 196 locations.
Melton, who joined P.F. Chang’s 12 years ago, started her beverage alcohol career as a bartender in the 1980s. From there she advanced into bar and nightclub management and then wholesaling.
One of Melton’s professional role models is “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff, the legendary bartender who popularized classic and craft beverages while working at New York’s Rainbow Room in the 1980s. Melton says she found inspiration from DeGroff’s books and industry presentations.
This shows in her cocktails, many of which are modern riffs on classic drinks. The Chang’s Mai Tai, for instance, is made with Bacardi light rum, Myers’s dark rum, orange curacao and tropical juices.
P.F. Chang’s updates its cocktail menu seasonally; most drinks are priced at about $9.50. This past summer the chain offered the Cucumber Collins, made with Belvedere vodka, honey water, cucumber, muddled Thai basil and fresh lemon juice.
“I try to make sure that our seasonal drinks go with whatever people are eating that time of year,” Melton says. “The Cucumber Collins is terrific with a summer salad. People obviously eat lighter in the summer, heavier in the winter.”
For its Moscow Mule, P.F. Chang’s adds a twist by using house-made ginger beer. The chain also offers a Monkey Mule, which eschews vodka for Monkey Shoulder whisky and adds house-made ginger beer with a touch of peach syrup.
Building On The Basics
Bartenders such as DeGroff taught Melton classic techniques such as how to stir a Manhattan and basic, must-know drink recipes like the Sidecar. She passes this knowledge along to her bartenders, setting the ground rules before introducing her cocktail twists.
“I think that when a guest sits at a bar, they have certain expectations about the bartender,” she says. “They expect the bartender to know what they should drink and why. When to stir and when to shake. What pisco is made out of and why it works well with certain ingredients.”
Knowing the rules and being able to teach them to her bar team “allows me to then incorporate the riffs into our cocktails,” Melton adds. “And that’s been the evolution of our cocktail development.”
Interesting Wines, Unexpected Beers
The wine selection at P.F. Chang’s spans an array of styles and vineyards of origin, as well as price points. There’s something to fit any budget, be that a $5 pour of white zinfandel or a $105 bottle of 2006 cabernet sauvignon from Napa Valley’s PlumpJack. Most of the wine sales are by the glass.
To help guests and servers navigate the wine selection, P.F. Chang’s 40-bottle list is broken down by reds, whites and sparkling, and then further separated by each bottle’s dominant flavor or mouthfeel. There’s fruity, floral, tangy or creamy whites; and lush, soft and tangy, rich and spicy, or powerful reds. Sparkling wine has its own category.
Melton says she aims to include something interesting with each bottle. “Nothing makes me happier than when someone says that the first time they had a certain wine was at P.F. Chang’s,” she notes.
Beer can be another point of differentiation. Like many other chain restaurants, P.F. Chang’s requires all of its locations to carry a set list of domestics and imports—the Coors Lights, Tsingtaos, Dos Equis and Budweisers of the world.
But beyond these brand-name staples, a P.F. Chang’s can fill out the rest of its beer selection with its own choices, up to 25 total brews. The average price for a beer at a P.F. Chang’s is $6.
Melton encourages locations to serve what’s local and what’s hot. This is why the three P.F. Chang’s in Boston frequently pour craft from California, she says. Beers from the opposite coastline certainly aren’t local to Beantown, which makes them new and exciting to consumers in Boston.
How does P.F. Chang’s staff in Boston know which craft beers are trending in California? That’s where training and input from the bar teams across the country comes in.
When a P.F. Chang’s updates its drink menus, its beverage staffers will email the proposed beer alterations to Melton. After a few emails back and forth to fine-tune the list and balance the beer styles, she will print the new menu and distribute it to the restaurants. Working with all 211 U.S. locations, this process takes about five weeks, she says.
Educating The Team
P.F. Chang’s also ensures that servers are up on beer styles and trends, such as California-style IPAs, sour beers, what foods they pair well with and so on. “It’s the hardest part of my job,” Melton says, “making sure that people are educated.”
To accomplish this, she’ll hold workshops in the restaurants, bringing together servers and brand managers. This is particularly important today, with so many new craft brands and styles of beer and spirits popping up every year.
Melton also educates P.F. Chang’s employees with a weekly company newspaper that covers topics such as how tequila is made. She also circulates videos among staffers to help bring everyone up to date on useful knowledge and trending topics.
It’s not easy to keep up on all the new spirit brands and expressions on the market. “I think there are 850 brands of vodka alone. When I bartended, there were only two top-shelf brands: Stoli and Absolut,” Melton recalls with a laugh. “Obviously we have an amazing amount of spirits out there for the public now.”
The wave of flavored vodkas and whiskeys that swept through the industry in recent years helped bartenders and consumers create flavorful cocktails with less preparation time. But many bar and restaurant customers now tend to prefer real and fresh flavors in drinks.
In addition to more authentic spirits, mixers and juices, Melton says, “I’m noticing more bartenders bringing out flavors with real herbs and fruits.”
Not that you can’t take shortcuts or use some commercial products. Melton has P.F. Chang’s working with mixers such as Perfect Puree. The Napa Valley-based premade mixer company produces purees from raw fruit, picked fresh from around the globe.
Melton also believes that bitters are a great way to add real flavors to drinks. “It opens up a whole new spectrum in cocktail creation,” she notes. “And there’s a lot of fun flavors out there now in bitters.”
Seeking New Spirits
With the consumer interest in new, craft and small-batch spirits, Melton puts in ample hours sampling products as potential additions to her menu. What does she look for?
With rum, for example, Melton tastes for the right level of sweetness and molasses flavors. She avoids rums that have too much heat. And when sampling tequila, she tries to pick out the earthy and salt notes.
With gin, Melton seeks herbaceousness, which is why P.F. Chang’s uses Plymouth gin, she notes. The chain’s Honey Thyme G&T, for instance, uses Plymouth gin, honey water, fresh lemon juice and Fever Tree tonic water, garnished with a sprig of thyme.
“I like gin that tastes like gin without knocking your socks off with juniper berries,” Melton says. “I like premium spirits that are made true to form and have classic flavors.”
All her hard work sampling and experimenting with craft spirits pays off when Melton’s cocktails appeal to guests. Quality cocktails and spirits are much on consumer’s minds these days.
This can be tied to craft beer’s boom, Melton believes. Both categories encourage drinkers to experiment across styles while also educating themselves along the way.
“People today want to taste what’s different and new to them,” she explains. “And they want more than just a drink. They want to hear a story and become in the know.”
At the same time, Melton does not lose sight of all the guests who simply want to order a Bud Light. “I think there’s room for both,” she says.
Kyle Swartz is associate editor at Cheers Magazine. Reach him at kswartz@epgacceleration.com
