How This Charleston Brunch Hotspot Keeps Food Costs Down

Miller’s All Day is an all-day brunch spot tucked in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina, known for its rustic charm and southern hospitality.

“Charleston is known as a hospitable city,” owner Nate Thurston says. “It creates this opportunity for restaurants, coffee shops and all these hospitality venues to provide amazing hospitality. So how I’ve presented it to our staff is, we should greet people as if they’re coming into our home.”

Thurston wants customers to experience not only a homey ambiance but also unique ingredients native to Charleston. He works with local farmers to bring in 12,000 fresh eggs every week and fishermen to supply shrimp for its renowned shrimp and grits.

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Keeping it local has become the restaurant’s claim to fame. Yelp reviewer Dave B. couldn’t leave without praising the iconic grits. “This was possibly my favorite place in Charleston to eat,” Dave says. “Yes, there was a wait, and yes, it was crowded, but once seated, we didn’t wait very long at all. And honestly, the grits alone are worth the trip. I also had a pimento biscuit, which was freaking fantastic. I would happily come here every weekend, put my name on the list and stroll around downtown for 20 to 30 minutes while waiting for them to text me to come sample some more of their goodness on a plate.”

While fresh ingredients keep customers coming back for more, Thurston acknowledged that many restaurants are experiencing the impact of inflation on local produce. He says some businesses might have to sacrifice quality to keep business running, like buying pre-cut vegetables or frozen biscuits. However, Thurston’s farm-to-table approach acts as an inflation loophole because the ingredients come straight from the supplier, eliminating the extra processing fees typically impacted by inflation.

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Although cutting costs this way is a major win, rent in a city like Charleston remains a challenge. “Charleston is not a cheap city to operate in,” Thurston says. “The rent here is very expensive. Our goal was to provide that unique breakfast and brunch experience. Our prices are lower than those of dinner restaurants [and] steakhouses, so we have to do volume to justify this business. It becomes very challenging to make everything in-house via scratch kitchen and do volume at the same time.”

With high food quality being non-negotiable, the business has had to increase prices to meet its goals and stay in business. “Over the past few years, the most important thing I realized is you have to adjust your price points to protect the performance of the business, and then you have to identify who appreciates your product and how to target that particular market,” Thurston says.

Because the restaurant industry has such thin margins, it can be beneficial for owners to be skilled in a number of jobs. For instance, when he’s down a cook or a server, Thurston’s abilities allow him to fill in and keep service moving. This habit allows him to see his business from multiple angles.

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“If [an owner fills an empty role] frequently, and you’re doing it two or three times a week, then you become a working component of the machine, and you can’t step back and assess its performance,” he says. “So I push myself to come in and make sure I’m elbow-to-elbow with the team, especially when I need to be. Maybe it’s a big weekend push, and my presence improves their morale. I can be right there beside them in the trenches, but I don’t do it so frequently that I can’t step back and look at the end product that we’re serving.”

Thurston says the best way to evaluate the end product is through the eyes of the customer, and customer feedback reveals trending pain points, providing owners with clear areas to address.

“We actually have a meeting where we print out every review from the last 10 days,” Thurston says. “We’ll have Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, and we will look at all the comments and look for trends. If one person loved the cinnamon roll, but the next week, six people didn’t, then something happened. It was overbaked. It wasn’t iced correctly. As a business owner, you have to look for trends.”

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Although Thurston believes feedback is important, he also cautions against weighing every critique heavily. “For the first time ever, I said to one of the managers, ‘The guest isn’t always right.’ We have to occasionally push back and say, ‘Sir, unfortunately, your expectations today are not reasonable for how we’re operating. We’d be happy to make a change for you, or it might be best if you go have lunch somewhere else today.'”

Customer feedback, whether positive or critical, can significantly influence a business’s evolution. Thurston recommends setting aside time to read reviews to anticipate potential problems.

“I see a trend in businesses when they stop acknowledging public feedback,” he says. “They say, ‘Oh, we’re good. Whatever we make is awesome. Doesn’t matter what they say. We’re going to be fine.’ Then, they start losing customers. Then there’s erosion, and their staff start leaving because they’re not as busy as they were. So although we don’t agree with every review, we read them every week.”

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Seven years, two locations and a food truck later, Miller’s All Day credits its success to staying true to the following principles:

• Quality is non-negotiable. If raising prices means you can sustain the product quality customers have come to love, then raising the price and increasing marketing around your commitment to quality is warranted.
• The customer isn’t always right. Set boundaries on the feasibility of customer requests. Sometimes, that means suggesting the customer patronize another business.
• Lean into local partnerships. These will not only differentiate you from your competitors but also minimize the impact of inflation on your business.
• Lead from the top and the ground. Balance keeping a high-level view of the business and the product with working out on the floor to get a well-rounded view of what’s effective, what isn’t and what your team needs to succeed.
• If many customers share the same issue, there’s a problem. Instead of letting one critical review hold more weight than another, use trend analysis to document common pain points and ensure the business remains aligned with customer expectations and its core values.

Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Thurston and Dave B., and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Pandora.

Editorial contributions by Erin Palmero and Kristi Lindahl