Six questions for KiX on Main restaurant co-owner
CANANDAIGUA, NY — From dishwasher to fry cook to sous chef to head chef, with dishwashing, trash emptying and various other tasks in between — yes, Alexander “Xan” Bacon has done it all in this, his 35th year in the food business.
Bacon, who co-owns KiX on Main with his wife, Kim Vakiener, knows this at-times grueling biz inside and out, from high up on the totem pole to the lowest of lows.
“If you hang around long enough in this business, you get promoted quickly because there is a lot of turnover in the restaurant business,” said Bacon, who turned 55 last week.
Bacon got his start bartending and frying up burgers and the like at places like Gates Bowl in Rochester. Through the years, he’s worked at a who’s who of local favorites over the years: Sam’s on the Corner, the Downtown Deli in Geneva, Sledgehammer’s and the Lumberyard Grill, to name a few — and is proudly happy to be part of the current restaurant scene that includes Nolan’s on Canandaigua Lake, the Green Front, The Office, Wally’s Pub, Casa de Pasta and so many other places whose owners and workers he’s friends with and on occasion has helped out in a pinch (and vice versa).
Bacon said he struggled as a student — he jokes about how he became quite adept at the card game euchre while in college — but eventually found his niche.
“I hated going to class but I found out I did like cooking,” Bacon said.
We had six questions for Bacon. Responses were edited slightly.
Q: What do you like about cooking?
Bacon: Just the excitement of it. I was big into sports and to me, it was like sports. Cooking is similar to a sport where you prepare yourself all day long and you play the game at night. If you didn’t prepare yourself well for the game, your performance wasn’t great. There’s a lot of action in cooking. It’s go time.
Q: How do you grow from cooking burgers, hot dogs and fish fries on Friday nights to becoming a chef and restaurant owner?
Bacon: You just watch. If you like it and you want to do it, pay attention. I was over the shoulder of who I was working for, watching and learning. When I was at Sam’s there were no cooking shows, there was no Food Network, there was nothing on TV. Nowadays, you can learn a lot just by being a foodie online.
Q: You’re known for chicken French. What’s the secret?
Bacon: Customers come here for chicken French. I’ve had the chicken French recipe since day one. Nothing’s ever changed with that. My father taught it to me, I’ve taught it to every person who’s ever worked under me. I’m never shy about recipes. All the customers ask me for my recipes. I have nothing to hide. I don’t keep secrets. I love to teach people how to do things at home. I want people to come out to dinner to enjoy the experience and not just to have my chicken French. They come out for the experience. They come for my employees. They come for the service. They come for the prettiness of the building.
Q: They come for the food, too. What’s your philosophy on making good food?
Bacon: It’s very important in this business to be consistent. I’m a chef, but ask anybody who’s worked for me, I really do bring the name McDonald’s into my way of cooking because even though McDonald’s isn’t the best, it’s the same no matter where you go. As a kid, they introduce that to you, and you get that taste in your mouth whether you’re in Arizona, Florida or Canandaigua, New York. It always tastes the same. That’s how I like my cooking. Whether you’re here on Monday or here on Saturday, it better taste the same. To me, it’s a lot about consistency.
Q: After 35 years, how much cooking do you do these days?
Bacon: I let the boys in the back do 75 to 90 percent of the cooking. They still have my recipes. These guys are foodies now. I was the guy who learned by trial-and-error. They learn food. They’re passionate about it. Andrew Furdock (who cooks at Kix on Main) will come up with an idea. We’ll taste it together and then we’ll make adjustments together. I’m not hands-on preparing food all the time. I approve of all the food we do, but they’re all his ideas.
Q: Kix on Main, the former Gleason pub, has been on Main Street for three years now. What did you see in it?
Bacon: I had visions of opening my own restaurant with my wife, and we were looking for something else to do. We had a new vision for it. It was more of a bar-restaurant. We wanted it more of a restaurant with a little bit of a bar, which we have now. It couldn’t be any better.
This article originally appeared on MPNnow: Six questions for KiX on Main restaurant co-owner
