[ Home ] [ Top ] [ Email Restaurant Doctor ]ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - May 9, 2003
What an exciting time it is! Pizza Insight is starting up, there are several hundred details to handle before we head out of the country on Monday, all the spring fix-up needs to be done around the house ... and spring fever has hit big time!
EXCUSES SUCK
Apologizing or making excuses for the food, service or policies of the restaurant make you seem like an amateur. If you are not proud of it, don't serve it. If you
don't agree with a policy, get it changed. If something is wrong, fix it. If you can't fix it, do something to make it right with the guest.
Telling guests why you cannot give them good service does not somehow magically make everything OK. For example, explaining why food is slow coming out of the kitchen does not put the guest at ease. If the kitchen is backed up, inform the table, apologize for the delay and offer to do something (round of drinks, free appetizer, free dessert) to compensate them for your lapse.
Might this cost you some money? You bet! But it is all good news. If you have to comp $2000 worth of food one month because things are slow coming out of the kitchen, I bet you will figure out where the backup is and fix it. If you don't pay out the money, food is still slow coming out, it is still costing you money in guests that never return ... but you just don't know it. Relish every opportunity to pay off because it puts a dollar value on your shortcomings.
A successful restaurant sets high standards, creates systems that can deliver to those standards and brings its staff up to meet them. When you hear your crew make excuses to your guests, it may mean that your systems are dysfunctional ... or your staff has higher standards than you do.
PIZZA INSIGHT IS HERE!
If you are in the pizza business, you have to take a look at Pizza Insight, a joint venture between myself, Big Dave Ostrander and Pizza Today magazine. Pizza
Insight is a compelling new flow of information designed to give operators an unfair advantage in the marketplace. As I watch the first few pieces come
together, I can promise you that it is all that ... and a lot more!
Pizza Insight includes a monthly interview with people in the industry who are doing significant things, a weekly e-letter, a monthly newsletter, teleconferences, chat rooms, an amazing package of bonuses and benefits that make the subscription one of the best values I have ever seen.
The first e-letter goes out on Monday and the May interviews and newsletter go in the mail on Thursday. If you are selling pizza, you will not want to miss a word of this so check it out and subscribe today!
For more information on Pizza Insight
ITALY R US!
Margene and I will be in Italy from May 12 to June 3 for our annual corporate meeting. (Hey, nobody ever said WHERE you had to hold the meeting!) I am SO
ready for a little down time and am really looking forward to seeing more of the country, sampling the food and spending some time in the wineries.
As is my custom, I will be posting a daily diary of the trip. You can find the diary on my website under "Trip Reports." It is not so much about where we went and what we saw, although there certainly is a bit of that. The focus is more about what I learned that day. I find that I notice things in other cultures that are equally applicable on my own side of the pond ... and there is always something new to learn.
Along that line, if you never get out of your restaurant to see what is happening in other markets, you end up breathing your own exhaust! You can easily spend all your time getting better and better at doing things that are increasingly irrelevant! The the importance of an event like the Super Summit and the reward of a trip like the one we will take next week is that it leads to fresh eyes and insights.
THE PERPETUAL QUESTION
What did you learn from your staff today?
[ Home ] [ Top ] [ Email Restaurant Doctor ]
© 2003 Restaurant Doctor