RESTAURANT
BASICS
Hardcover, 226 pages, 6"x9"
Copyright 1992
Published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY
80.00
AUTHOR'S SUMMARY:
Restaurant Basics is the only book on customer service written
entirely from the guest's point of view (the only perspective
that really counts!) It is a summary of about 1000 pet peeves
-- little lapses in service that, while minor in themselves,
add up to cause your guests to become disenchanted and take
their business elsewhere. In today's competitive marketplace,
unless you consistently have more business than you can handle,
you can't afford to let anyone get away!
DUST JACKET COPY:
Details, details, details ... "monumentally magnificent
trivialities" as famed hotelier James Nassikas calls them, on
which the success of your business hinges. Is there a spot on
the table cloth? Is it to dark to read the menu? Is there
confusion over which guest ordered which dish?
Is the butter so hard it tears the bread? Are hot dishes
lukewarm by the time they reach the table? Minor inconveniences
such as these can ruin a guest's evening -- and your
business.
Restaurant Basics is the ultimate handbook for the
restaurateur who believes in attending to the seemingly trivial
details that can loom large in the minds of dissatisfied
diners. It asks you to take a look at your restaurant from your
guest's point of view, from the most obvious outward
appearances through every step of the dining experience. And
while Bill Marvin writes with a very light and witty touch, he
can be at least as picky as your most demanding patron.
Unlike picky guests, though, Restaurant Basics offers common
sense solutions that will help you avoid disaster and keep your
customers coming back again and again. As the author reminds
us, satisfied customers tip better and are friendlier and the
word-of-mouth advertising they provide, free of charge, can
guarantee the success of your business.
Restaurant Basics is important reading for owners, managers,
trainers and staff members. The material is sensibly organized
so that every member of your team can easily identify which are
the items most relevant to what they do.
COMMENTS FROM THE PROS:
Here is what some industry professionals are saying about
Restaurant Basics:
"I LOVE IT!! Restaurant Basics is crammed full of the
detail that is part of the everyday responsibility of every
restaurateur. It's must reading for seasoned operators as well
as beginners in this era of customer focus/service excellence.
It's real food for thought." -- Michael E.
Hurst, Owner 15th Street Fisheries, Fort Lauderdale,
FL
"It covers the world of restaurateuring from the
customer's point of view. I liked that."
-- Don Smith ("The Coach"), Professor Hilton
School of Hospitality Management, Houston, Texas
"Marvin's book is fun, easy to read and extremely
well-focused. I have used his list to establish definitive
front-of-the-house operating guidelines for clients. It has
significantly improved awareness of guest needs by managers and
table servers alike." -- Bill Main,
Co-Owner The Shore Bird, Princeton-by-the-Sea, CA
"How customers interact with the restaurant is
absolutely vital ... TO THE CUSTOMER. We can have the greatest
systems in the world and fail if we forget the key points in
this book." -- Stephen G. Miller,
President Miller Resource Group, Grafton, MA
"In our times of increased mechanization of the service
industry, Bill Marvin's book comes as a breath of fresh air. To
him service still means human attention. And guest
gratification translates not only into gaining prestige but
increasing bottom-line profits as well." --
Kenneth R. Burley, Foodservice Consultant Maryville,
TN
RESTAURANT BASICS
Why Guests Don't Come Back and What You Can Do
About It
CONTENTS
Foreword
Some observations by James Nassikas, founder of San Francisco's
legendary Stanford Court Hotel and originator of the idea of
monumental trivialities.
Introductory Ideas How did this book get
started and how is it organized? Is this the end of a project .
. . or just the beginning?
1. Momentous Minutia Why don't guests
come back and what can you do about it? What does your point
total have to do with your success?
2. Outside Oversights How can your
outward appearance present a stronger image than your
advertising? What causes guests to draw conclusions about your
restaurant before they ever enter the building? Why are you
always the last one to know?
3. Annoying Impressions How can you
drive your guests away before they even arrive? What makes
people decide they will have a good time or a bad time in your
restaurant before they get to the table? How does your seating
style set the mood for the evening?
4. Table Transgressions What are the
silent messages waiting at the table? How can your bussers play
a major role in determining if your guests will be ecstatic or
enraged?
5. Environmental Apathy What is the
environment in your restaurant and what can you do to save it?
What are the sights, sounds, smells and feels that set the
stage for the dining experience?
6. Menu Missteps How effective is your
menu as a merchandising tool? Does it make your guests want to
buy . . . or want to leave? How could your wine list make your
guests want to stay with ice water?
7. Service Stumbles How can your service
staff kill you? Let me count the ways! What really determines
the quality of guest service and what can you do about it?
8. Attitude Errors How can the demeanor
and bearing of your staff make or break the evening for your
guests? What can you do to affect the professional attitudes of
your staff? How can you help all your crew to become expert in
creating delighted guests?
9. Vacant Verbiage How can loose lips
sink your ship? What are the "dirty words" to avoid? How can
you change your reputation by changing your choice of
words?
10. Culinary Catastrophes What are the
cooks' responsibilities in creating guest gratification? What
details are you missing that could be building business for
your competition?
11. Beverage Blunders How can you
increase your luck with liquids? How can your choice of
glassware start people talking . . . or start people walking?
What are the fine points of beverage success?
12. Cleaning Calamities Is cleanliness
next to godliness . . . or next to impossible? What are the
details that can ruin your reputation? What well-intentioned
cleaning activities actually alienate your guests?
13. Restroom Repulsion What conclusions
do your guests draw about your restaurant from one trip to your
restrooms? How can your restrooms be a profit center and give
you a marketing advantage?
14. Family Fiascos What determines if
you will be a family favorite or a family failure? How do the
dining motives of adults differ from those of their children?
How can you eliminate most of the problems you have with
youngsters in your restaurant?
15. Disabled Disasters What are the
particular needs of disabled diners? What instinctive acts can
alienate blind or deaf guests? How can you become the
restaurant of choice for the handicapped?
16. Teenage Turnoffs How can you become
a magnet for teens and their tender? What can you do to better
serve the market of the future?
17. Elderly Irritations How can you make
points when your market is older and wiser than you are? How
can you capture a larger share of this rapidly growing
market?
18. Management Mistakes Could it be true
that you are your own worst enemy? How many of your guest
satisfaction problems have you created yourself and which
policies are at fault?
Closing Comments How can you use this
book to improve your service, reduce your workload and enhance
your profitability?
Helpful Homework What books and tapes
does The Doctor prescribe to help you improve your guest
gratification scores?
EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK:
...YOU WONDER HOW THESE THINGS BEGIN
Eight years ago I was doing a consulting project for a hotel in
California. The property's Food & Beverage Director shared
a little card with me. It was a wallet-sized list of 25 details
the hotel had learned were important to their guests. All their
managers carried one as a reminder to take care of the little
things. I added the card to my library and didn't think much
more about it at the time.
Five years later, on a visit to Cape Cod, I went out for
dinner with my father. The restaurant was one of his favorites,
but it was not having a good night. As the evening got worse,
we started discussing what was happening and why. We noticed
the details the restaurant staff were missing and the
opportunities to salvage the evening that were being lost. The
staff was trying hard, perhaps too hard. They just didn't
realize how they were alienating their guests. As the evening
unfolded, we agreed that if the restaurant had handled the
small points better, the entire experience would have been much
different. "You should write a book about this," my father
said. "Someday I might," said I and went on to other projects.
By the way, he never went back to that restaurant!
While assembling material for a seminar last year, I thought
of the little card I had received from the hotel. I added a few
thoughts and used it in my program. I received an enthusiastic
response from this list of 75 points, the sheer length of which
looked staggering to me at the time! Later I thought more about
it and added another 75 points to the list. When I got to 200,
I was certain I must have covered nearly all the potential
problems! As the list continued to grow, I found I had a tiger
by the tail. Having become more sensitive to what some might
consider minutia, I started to notice nuances I had overlooked
before. The list turned into a project.
As I talked about what I was doing, people both inside and
outside the industry added more observations. Everybody, it
seems, had a few pet peeves about restaurants. It also became
obvious there were many more reasons why people don't go back
to restaurants than reasons why they do! As the list nears 1000
entries, it has become the book we joked about at dinner three
years ago.
This book is about common, ordinary, simple-minded things
that can trip up even the best operation. We are not talking
about rocket science. This is not about the complexities of
food chemistry or the nuances of French Burgundies. Hopefully,
most of the items in the book are details you already have
under control. With luck, there will be a few you haven't
thought about that will give you a way to be even better at
what you do.
HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED For ease of
reference, I have divided the material into chapters by general
subject matter. This allows the kitchen staff, for example, to
identify items of interest to them without wading through 150
points that mainly concern the service staff. Because
restaurant positions are so interdependent, there was often not
a clear choice about where a particular point belonged. For
this reason, I chose to mention some points in more than one
place. I don't want anyone to miss an important detail because
they looked in the wrong chapter!
While the emphasis of this material may be toward full
service restaurants, there are specific suggestions for
cafeterias, fast feeders, caterers and most other types of
foodservice operators. Conscientious restaurateurs committed to
delighting their guests can extract numerous insights and
opportunities from this material, regardless of its focus.
My problem has been in being able to stop adding to the
list. For as much as it contains, it is still incomplete. I'm
sure you will notice points that I missed. When you do, I
encourage you to jot them down and send them along. Why share
some of your best secrets? First, your direct competitors
already know what you are doing. Most important, it is in our
collective interest to make dining out a universally positive
experience. Inept operators only educate the public to stay
home. The better the dining experience is, the more people will
dine out. The more firmly ingrained the dining out habit
becomes in the public, the more we all will all benefit.
I hope this book helps you better understand the process of
guest gratification in restaurants. Regrettably, I must also
warn you that the list is incomplete. I suspect the minutia
that affects human beings is endless, but the quest is
rewarding. While you are busy solving the problems in this
book, I will be getting the next list ready for you!
SAMPLE TEXT:
(from "Outside
Oversights") Inadequate or inconvenient
parking
How often are you in your parking lot in the midst of the rush?
Do you really know if your guests have trouble finding a place
to park? If your guests can't park easily, eventually they
won't try to park at all. After business hours, is there
available parking space in the lots of nearby businesses? If
so, make a deal with them to use the space. Don't just
commandeer it! Often a trade for meals is enough of a gesture
to maintain good neighborhood relations.
If your parking lot is a long way from the restaurant
entrance, you also have a problem, particularly in cold
climates. Inconvenient parking can discourage business and
cause your guests to get in the habit of going elsewhere. To
make it as easy as possible for your guests, you may want to
consider valet parking. Let the valet run down the block. Don't
ask your guests to do it. Consider making the valet service
complimentary. After all, you don't make a cent unless guests
come in to dine in the first place!
(from "Annoying
Impressions") Wrong or unclear
directions
Develop concise descriptions of how to get to the restaurant.
Work up a set for all major directions of approach and test
them. Post them by the phone and coach all your staff in
delivering the instructions cheerfully. An interesting exercise
is to sit (silently) in the car while an out-of-town friend
drives you to your restaurant. Make sure they have no other
directions besides what your staff told them on the
telephone.
(from "Table
Transgressions") Table tops too small for the
service Just because a table has four sides doesn't
mean it can seat four people. Determining the proper table top
size takes some planning. There must be room for the place
settings, of course. Is there room for the guests to rest their
arms? What else are you going to place on the table during the
meal and where is it going to go? You need space for shared
appetizers, wine bottles, side dishes, etc. Pizzerias tables
must be large enough for the pizza pan. Cafeterias need to
allow for trays. The additional money you may make by trying to
pick up a few extra seats with small tabletops is not worth the
points you will lose by crowding your guests.
(from "Environmental
Apathy")
Murky or smelly water in the bud vase
Fresh flowers in a vase on the table are a real delight in many
restaurants. However, if the same flower sits in the same water
for a few days, you will get a smell like low tide in Boston
Harbor! If you use fresh flowers, make changing the water part
of your nightly sidework and you'll be fine. (Your flowers will
last longer, too.)
(from "Menu
Missteps") Recitation of daily specials that goes
on...and on...and on...and on Limit verbal
presentations of daily specials to two or three items. Your
guests can't remember any more information anyway. Presenting
more choices wastes the sales person's time and makes the diner
impatient. I recommend a mini menu explaining the day's
specials that you can leave on the table after you give the
verbal presentation. This way your guests won't have to feel
uncomfortable because they can't remember what you said.
(from "Service
Stumbles") Not providing service in the order of
arrival
People become territorial. They expect that if they arrived
first, they should be served before parties arriving or seated
after them. It is not an unreasonable expectation. Your greeter
can help smooth out potential point loss by rotating parties
between stations. This assures that a server does not get two
or three new parties simultaneously. If that is not possible,
work out a means of communication so the service staff is clear
on which parties arrived first.
Refilling water or coffee after each
sip
This annoyance happens when you have only told bussers to keep
the water or coffee full. If they are eager to please, they
will do just what you told them and do it aggressively. They
must have a sense of what makes a good dining experience for
your guests and know how their job fits into it.
(from "Attitude
Errors")
Speaking a foreign language in front of the guest
Guests find this behavior insulting, no matter what the actual
content of the conversation. If your staff talks in another
language, train them never to look at the guests while they are
having a conversation. To do so will make their conversation
appear to be about your diners. You do not want to offend your
guests this way.
(from "Vacant
Verbiage") "How was everything?"
This question usually comes after the meal as the guests are
leaving. If you ask "how was everything,"the answer is
invariably "Fine." If your reason for asking is to get a
truthful answer, change the wording. Try asking if everything
was done the way they liked it. Try asking them how you did.
Better yet, ask how you could do a better job for them next
time. You'll be amazed at the suggestions you will receive.
Remember that nobody will say a word if they don't think you
really want to hear what they have to say.
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