ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - November 10, 2000

CLARIFICATION
Thom Harrison took me to task for my comments last week (www.restaurantdoctor.com/ehc/ehc144.html) Since others may have similar thoughts but just did not express them, with Thoms's permission I include the exchange here in the hopes that it will add a bit of perspective to both my comments and my purpose in offering them.

Dear Bill,
Your attitude towards servers causes one to think that you may never have been a server. Specifically, your comments about "campers" and servers attitudes towards them. Chances are that these were not one time encounters. Your follow-up research probably would have shown a history of abuse on the part of your "beloved camper."

In fact, I have been a server, a multi-unit owner and a manager (in many different styles of foodservice.) While I am sure there could have been a history with a particular "camper", that still does not justify anything other than totally responsive service to the guest or total refusal of service to begin with. In my book you give 100% or 0% but nothing in between. In any event, how to handle an on-going difficult situation with a particular guest is a call for the management to make, not the server. Just so we aren't talking apples and oranges, remember the crux of the camper issue was a waiter demanding larger and larger tips to allow a guest to remain at the table. Can you imagine a scenario where that would be permissible?

You even exhibited signs of "camping" and "camper sensitivity" on your visit to Orlando when the rude server put the silverware near your table.

I did? I probably didn't mention that we had not even finished our steaks when they plunked the silverware down! My client is from Brazil and likes to eat late, so we were not even seated until 845. It was a high-end restaurant (average check $75-100 a head), so naturally the meal took some time and it was certainly later than the average when we finished. But can you imagine a scenario where it would be permissible to start pushing guests off the table before they were even half-way through their entrees?

Dennis Berkowitz, a brilliant restaurateur in San Francisco, has the following notice posted conspicuously in both the front and back of the house in all his operations"This establishment is run for the enjoyment and pleasure of our guests, not for the convenience of the staff or the owners." I think that particular lesson was lost in this instance and that was the point I was trying to make.

Your "rants" about servers seem to only offer an opportunity for other non-servers to discuss theory.

My subscribers are managers, not servers. The purpose of my "rants" is to use real-life situations to raise the awareness of management to what could easily be happening in their operations, often without their knowledge. The readers who respond tell me it helps them raise the issues with their staff.

To his credit, Thom responded with the following note:
Thank you for your well thought-out response. I believe that you clarified your position and gave more facts that changed my viewpoint. Please forgive me for not researching your background further, I meant no offense. A friend and fellow broker read your response to my e-mail and we both agreed that based on the new info, I was obviously not on the same wavelength. I sounded like a server that would do those sorts of things. I am still an avid reader of your e-newsletter and am now a bigger "fan" of yours! Please consider me as a subscriber that is "straightened out" as to the purpose of your newsletter.

A note from the Doc:
There are lots of right answers to the issues we face in this industry. When I offer my opinions and observations, they are only that -- my opinions and observations. Please feel free to let me have it if you think I am off the mark as that is the sort of dialogue we can all learn from.

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