Jason Vincent, chef-owner of giant, is the first to admit that his restaurant was not firing on all cylinders coming out of the pandemic. “We were declining in sales, I wasn’t checking the food, the screws were coming loose,” he says. That changed this February, when the team started kicking around the idea of a test kitchen. On a rotating basis each night, the restaurant now adds four dishes, priced a bit lower, to its regular menu to showcase new things being tried out. “When I was growing up as a cook, I landed in a lot of places where I got to be creative,” Vincent says. He wants to encourage the same kind of inventiveness: “We’re using scraps and ingredients we already have in interesting ways.”

Test kitchen offerings have included staples elsewhere that Giant had never served, like a cheeseburger, in this case made with steak scraps, and unique items like a single nacho stuffed with braised pork and a foie gras and blackberry jam Uncrustable. Chef de cuisine Mike Gaia created an olive oil cake so popular it’s now on the regular menu.

The approach has changed the mindset in the kitchen, Vincent believes: “Being positive feels a lot better than being negative, and it gets better results.” It also has been a hit with customers. Since the team makes only a few servings of each dish, diners have been coming early to ensure they can try them. “We’re getting people in on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 5, when we’re normally slow,” says Vincent, who plans to keep the tactic going indefinitely. 3209 W. Armitage Ave., Logan Square