The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - November 19, 1999

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO WHO?
Paul Brock <jpbrock@home.com> would like some suggestions on songs that could be used to acknowledge birthdays in the restaurant. Please respond directly to him with a copy to me and I will post the replies.

A note from the Doc:
Personally, I think that anyone who sings "Happy Birthday to You" in a restaurant should be shot! The only thing worse is "Happy, Happy Birthday" accompanied by raucous hand-clapping by a group of servers who could care less. Show a little originality! The traditional birthday song is what your competitors sing and your guests are immune to it. Get their attention with something short and personalized to your restaurant. Make it a song that your staff enjoys singing. It is unsettling to see people singing if their hearts aren't in it. If you do it well, they will think of your restaurant for their next special occasion.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS?
My colleague Steve Straus had an interesting quote in a recent newsletter "You must seize the opportunity of a lifetime during the lifetime of the opportunity." Along that line, I was contacted by Jim Rogers in Indianapolis. He is looking for a rather unique operator for a rather unique restaurant operation. Whether this is an opportunity for you or not remains to be seen, but you can find his information at www.restaurantdoctor.com/ehc/drugcafe.html.

STAFFING REVISITED
Finally, comes this note from John Bogue <jbogue@nemonet.com> commenting on Jonathan Pinder's observations in the EHC of October 22nd (www.restaurantdoctor.com/ehc/ehc90.html) suggesting that the question to ask is not "where do I find good staff" but "how can I make the staff I have better?" John writes

Mr. Pinder makes a good point but he misses "the" point. There are times that all of us have to hire new staff. Whether due to attrition or increased business the time comes when we have to hire new employees. All the motivation and training in the world will not make existing staff want to work double shifts 7 days a week. So the question comes back, "Where can I find good staff?"

We are a small restaurant operating in a rural area where the number of professional service staff is relatively small. We have always had to train and develop our own "good staff" from inexperienced new hires. This has presented many challenges including having to develop all of our own training programs.

There are plenty of quality server training programs available on the market today, but every one of them that we reviewed is designed to take existing servers and make them better. We needed a program that starts at the level of someone who has no foodservice experience whatsoever. It took many hours to develop our program and it certainly would have been more cost effective to buy an existing program if we could have found one.

All of this having been said, it is still difficult in today's employment market to attract applicants that we can train.

A note from the Doc:
Of course it is difficult, but maybe the problem is that it is no longer enough just to try to attract the staff you need. The good people already have a job. If you are not getting the people you want, go out there, seek the good people out wherever they are and actively recruit them. Since your competitors are probably not willing to do that much work, you should end up with better people.

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