The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - April 21, 2000

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US
I received the following note from Denise Herrera, a unit manager for a Denny's restaurant in South Carolina.

My goal is to own a restaurant and to apply all the principles and common sense rules, etc. you discuss throughout your website, without being ridiculed about being too nice to the employees. Funny though, my shift has less labor cost, less complaints, and definitely more teamwork than 1st shift. They (owners) always say sales are higher on 1st (okay they have breakfast and lunch) not to mention we are only talking anywhere from 300 to 500 dollars higher. When I want to discuss TOTAL profit they never want to discuss it because it takes twice as many employees on 1st to do the higher sales than it takes on 2nd shift..... I know you understand the rationality I am getting at. We want even get into waste etc... Anyway love your website!!!! I always print the articles which reflect on the owners and sort of leave them laying around for them to find and read. Hopefully if they don't listen to me they will take you a little more serious.

A note from the Doc:
It is an operational paradox of the restaurant business, but it seems to take a certain strength of ego and independent spirit to get into this business in the first place, but that same ego is often what keeps us from listening, learning and being as successful as we might be. Often a working definition of "wrong" is "different than the way I would have done it." Denise's note suggests that the owners of her restaurant are passing up a powerful opportunity TO WORK LESS AND MAKE MORE MONEY because their egos will not let them open up to possibilities that are right under their own roof. If nothing changes, they could also lose a superb manager. What opportunities are you missing because of ego? What did you learn from your staff today?

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
This from Mary Gillen as mentioned in Max Hitchins' weekly e-letter: If your Internet searches are eating up too much time you might want to download Copernic 2000 at http://www.copernic.com/ to access the best search engines simultaneously. It brings up great results ranked by relevance, with summaries. There is a small charge for the download but balance that against the amount of time you spend online trying to find something.

CURRENT NET HOAXES, ULs & RUMORS
By popular demand, Urban Legends has made their constantly-updated list of current Netlore more user-friendly by dividing it up into subcategories. It's now easier than ever to look up the goods on that suspicious email you've just received. Just go to http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blhoax.htm. Do your part to stop cluttering up the web with garbage. Bookmark this page and never pass any warnings along unless you have checked them out first!

GOOD STUFF
Finally, those who are regular readers of mine know how many times I mention ideas I have picked up from Randy Rayburn, owner of Sunset Grill in Nashville. In the Management Insight Series tape for May, I chat with Randy about operations, staffing, sales and the restaurant life in general. If you are not yet a subscriber, it is not too late to get on the list before this tape comes out. You can find sign-up information at www.restaurantdoctor.com/MIS.html.

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