Masterchef Australia - Episode 10 - First Offsite Challenge

The cheftestants were split into to teams and took over two restaurants in the Kings Road area of Sydney - Ortolan on Bayswater and Concrete Blonde.   The teams were judged based on how much money they could bring in between 6 and 9 pm.

The two captains, Emma and Andy, were chosen based on being chosen to the sous chefs the day before in the immunity challenge.  Emma has the red team and is in Ortolan on Bayswater with Gary helping them.  Andy was the blue team in Concrete Blonde and George helping them.

It is strange to through them into this sort of a challenge so early on.  Prepping for a dinner service is huge, it takes hours of a lot of repetitive tasks like chopping onions.   Also, none of them are used to how you work on the line a restaurant during service.  Also, with 12 people on each team, that is actually more people that you usefully manage when you are not used to running a serious restaurant.

Both teams had to create a menu and ideally the menu should reflect the existing restaurant's style as most of the punters have an expectation of what the food they would be getting.

Andy seemed to have the blue team well organized.  Emma and the red team were a train wreck during the prep.   It was interesting to see how it all started to fall apart for the blue team though they were in no danger of losing because they got the doors opened at 6 pm and the red team was not ready for customers.

In the end the results:
Red Team  $2,232
Blue Team $2,738

Floor Plan for Concrete Blonde

At $60 per customer, this is about 37 customers for the Red Team and 47 for the Blue Team.   Given that they had 12 people working in the restaurant, this is not a lot of customers.   Concrete Blonde has table seating inside for 44 people and the it has more seating outside on the terrace and there is a long communal table.   The Blue team barely got through a full seating inside.

Ortolan has seating for 45 in the restaurant, so the Red Team was about eight people short of a full seating.