The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - May 25, 2001

We are just about to the end of our Italian adventure . . . and just when we were starting to get comfortable with the language! We are off to Burgundy around noon tomorrow to continue the research (and our annual corporate meeting!) If you have been following the trip via the daily diary, you know that we have been looking at restaurants of all sizes and types. A few things that I love and I hate about dining in Italy . . .

I LOVE . . .
. . . the quality of the food and the moderate prices, at least outside of the cities and tourist haunts. Dining out is a part of the culture and for the most part (see my dissertation below on serving hours) they make it easy.

. . . the attitude of the people very fun-loving and eager to please. Even when there is a language barrier, they do not lose their patience or their smiles. It got me thinking about how poorly Americans do with other languages (except perhaps Spanish.)

. . . that people will try to speak English if you try to speak Italian, even if their English is poor to nonexistent. I did not pick up any feeling of snobbery around language (although I am sure we could get a few more deals if we could jostle with them in Italian.) Margene studied Italian for several months before we came on this trip and it is amazing how well she can get along with just the basics. It got me thinking about how arrogant Americans can often be about English. How many languages can you get along in?

. . . that wine is considered as natural a part of the meal as water. It got me thinking that restaurants who just know that guests will order wine seem to sell more wine than those who feel they have to "talk people into it" and treat it as an add-on sale. Granted, we have some societal evolution to go through before we truly arrive at wine with every meal, but we can at least make it easier for people to experiment and develop their understanding of the relationships between wine and food.

I HATE . . .
. . . that the restaurants here don't open until 7:30pm. I suppose with the afternoon siesta, people are not getting home from work until about that time. In that context, it makes sense but I see a lot of folks, primarily visitors I assume, looking for a place to eat much earlier. If I were an adventurous local restaurateur, I would open up a few hours earlier and siphon off all this business. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but this got me thinking about who you are in business to please -- yourself of your guests?

. . . that no matter how far up the food chain a restaurant is, it seems that the people delivering food to the table have no idea of who ordered what dish.Rather than hold a "food auction" ("OK, Who wants the plate of gnocci . . .") they just drop things in front of people and leave it to the diners to sort it all out. In one spot yesterday they guessed wrong on 8 out of 8 items brought to the table. Their approach is doable and certainly a conversation starter, but hard to condone from a professional point of view.

. . . that the menus seem to be only in Italian. We certainly bring that upon ourselves by eating more in the local establishments and shunning those who cater to tourists (somebody pointed out once that Margene and I are travelers, not tourists a totally workable distinction for me.) We can get along OK with an Italian menu but I did find it helpful when we could have a translation as it helped us understand more about the other offerings. Without that information, the tendency was to stick with items we were familiar with how boring! It got me thinking. How guest-friendly are you willing to be? What it would take to have your menu translated into several other languages, perhaps even with the prices converted into approximate equivalents in the reader's native currency? Do you think that having a menu in Italian, for example, would help make you a destination for Italian tourists? It might be something to think about, particularly if you are in an area that gets a significant number of visitors.

All in all, travel continues to be a source of education and insight. Be sure to keep up with the daily diary and photos on the website (http://www.restaurantdoctor.com/italy2001.html) and look for more ramblings from France next week.

BY THE WAY . . .
I got this note from Rona Gindin at Nation's Restaurant News. I pass it along in case you have personal experience with the situation she describes. She says, "I'm writing an article for Breakfast Journal, a supplement to Nation's Restaurant News, and I'm hoping you can help. The article is about labor issues that arise when a lunch/dinner restaurant adds breakfast service. I'd like to interview an expert about staffing issues such as scheduling, recruitment, pay, tips, whatever else is important in this area. Interested?" Rona Gindin <RonaGindin@aol.com>, (407) 876-7983.

If you have added breakfast to your offerings, please contact Rona directly I am sure she will find your comments relevant. After all, you are in the trenches and that makes you the real experts.

Ciao for now.

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