A few days ago, I was talking to customers at one of our operations. A gentleman asked me about what it’s like to manage a full service restaurant. My response was the same as it has been for the last ten years. Managing the front of the house of a restaurant is like throwing a big party at your home for 150 of your best friends and relatives. The biggest difference is the party is perpetual, every night.

At your home, you want to make sure every guest is entertained, happy, served well and there is no negative body language that would say otherwise. Running a restaurant is much the same.

Your eyes catch everything.  A server who passes by a dirty table, a customer with an empty glass, body language that seems negative, the piece of paper on the floor, the customer waiting for a check, the busboy that needs a haircut, a guest that drops a fork – it all happens almost simultaneously.

When you have a party, don’t you do the same thing? You work hard to make sure everyone has a good time, is happy with your food and leaves with a smile on their face. You eyes scan the room for any glitch that will improve the guest’s experience at your home. Why would you do any less at your restaurant?

At your home you may pay special attention to your mother-in-law who is very picky. Don’t we have the same at restaurants – guests that are picky? We care about how clean the bathrooms are at home – we care at the restaurant also. You would never let loud, inappropriate music blast your guests at your house, nor at your restaurant. The crying baby in the living room at your house is often offered something special ostensibly to satisfy the baby, but really to stop annoying the rest of your friends and family – the same at your restaurant.

While you can find a few differences, the reality is that there are far more similarities between a big party at home and the nightly experiences at your restaurant.

One of the key differences is staff. At home you may hire a person or two to help with the party, but at your restaurant, you may have dozens. If you can train them to think like it is their party every night, you have created an atmosphere that will bring people back time after time. Including the free-loading in-laws!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

Restaurants spend thousands of dollars on advertising and marketing programs that bring new guests in the door. To sustain growth, insure repeat visits and maximize your investment in new marketing programs, the savvy restaurant owner knows that adjustments must be made to the last step of the marketing process - delivering what the customer expects.

As your staff becomes busier there will be blips in customer service that have to be addressed to bring those new faces back in the door. Here are a few suggestions;

• Keep your staff informed. Let them know why they are busier and how to maintain a high level of customer interaction. Remind them that a smile and quick frequent table visits will solve half the problems.
• Waiting is by far the worst experience a customer can experience. It is clearly documented in every customer survey that the guest doesn’t want to wait for their table, wait for a server to show up, wait for drinks, wait for their order, wait for a server to check on them, wait for a check and wait to pay. Where is your breakdown in the waiting game? Evaluate time frames and eliminate a few seconds from each step and you will have happier guests.
• When service does break down, repair the damage if possible. Servers know when a customer isn’t pleased. Managers should be able to just look at a table and tell from body language and faces if they are pleased. A visit from a Manager is imperative to completing the experience. Do whatever is necessary to insure a return visit - even if it means offering complimentary food or drinks to repair the damage.
• Anticipate your success. If you are confident that your marketing will work, why wait until you are over burdened with new business to hire and train new staff?

One of the early mistakes I made when opening restaurants was too much business to the point of wasting all of the marketing dollars on our poor job of meeting the customer’s expectations. That experience and many other correctable problems are recounted in The Restaurant Ebook. Don’t fall prey to your own success!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

The restaurant industry continues to debate the value of celebrity chefs with their reality shows and entertaining “cooking” shows. Most of us know the public’s perception of these fictional programs is based on the entertainment value as opposed to the real cooking element presented. I am sure I am not the only restaurateur that has laughed as Emeril flubs another dish as they go to break for a million dollar commercial. Personally, I am not convinced these TV personalities have much of an impact on the food business other than their own ability to sell products and advertising.

One thing is clear. Just because they can brand their name and open restaurants across the country, that doesn’t mean success is guaranteed. The customer still has expectations that must be met for an extended restaurant life. No one truly believes the fantasy of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen or the business mess of Rocco’s. Few of these stars have escaped the pad locks that decorate their closed ventures. Ramsay has three closures in the last six months. Under the marketing conditions in the coming year, there will be many more celebs packing it in.

The difference between the celebrity restaurants and the “real” operations that open up is the amount of initial publicity. Robert Irvine, recently deposed from the Food Network, has been planning two restaurants in the St. Petersburg, Florida luxury district downtown for many months. The publicity has been non-stop for six months since the announcement. No independent food operation garners such attention. We do it the old fashion way - one customer at a time.

The basic elements for long term survival must be employed by any venture. You have to create a real connection with the customer. The connection cannot be based on  short lived hype or legend. It must offer an experience that guest will savor, send and save. They will savor the experience by meeting their expectations. Customers will send the experience on to friends and family by word of mouth. Finally they save the visit in their mind for many return visits. If your restaurant doesn’t capture the guest with a connection, no amount of publicity will salvage your ultimate fate.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

The Internet is a beautiful thing! Behind the keyboard you can be anything you want. There is even a song that tells the tale of a guy who becomes 6 feet 5 inches tall, dark and handsome - online. He becomes a millionaire with big fancy cars and expensive habits - online. His fantasies become reality - online.

When it comes to finding help for ailing restaurants, its amazing to me that websites, blogs and articles hype the achievements of the fabulous marketing gurus who become magicians - online. They apparently have crystal balls, taro cards, boiling pots of potions and withered skulls that produce overnight results for anyone willing to pay. There are so many of them that I have to believe someone is believing their hype.

I may be a little naive when it comes to Internet marketing, but are there really restaurant owners who are hiring these online marvels? Are there really business people who believe there are quick fixes for sales, marketing and operational problems? What happened to knowledge, experience, learning and planning?

Visiting other websites and blogs have become my daily humor exercise. How can anyone not be amused by someone selling the restaurant “W.O.W. Factor” for $29.95 and offering a guarantee that if it doesn’t work, they will work for free (by email) until it does? More belly laughs can be had by the people who offer thousands of new customers by purchasing their mailing lists of people who are moving into your area. I don’t know where you live, but the real estate agents in my state are looking for jobs. I am wondering if these “thousands” are homeless and all the mail is going to shelters?

Of course, then there are the “marketing experts” who just came out of a national restaurant chain who were responsible for “397 multi-unit operations”. This person is now offering their “coaching” skills for as little as $25 per hour to give you the “secrets” of restaurant marketing. Now if you are sitting in Podunk, Idaho with a restaurant that just lost $10,000 last month, what do you think some character out of a public restaurant chain based in Atlanta can do for you?

Restaurateurs who fall for these voodoo, knee jerk pitches online should walk out the door, go to the closest McDonald’s, spend five bucks on a burger and shake and then just watch, look and listen for about an hour. You will learn more about marketing, service, cost control, customer expectations, operations and training in an hour than a $25 an hour witch doctor will teach you. There, I just saved you $20! Send me a fee.

To survive in the restaurant business you need knowledge, not quick fixes. You need to learn what marketing really is. You need to know what your customers expect. You need to know the differences between cash flow and profits. You need to find how to develop a marketing plan while tweaking your customer service system. You need ideas that work for your restaurant, not the chains. You need to know about analyzing you demographics. You need to find out why you have advantages the chains can’t match.

There is no substitute for experience. Of course, I am kind of fascinated by the thought of becoming a witch doctor. Might be fun concocting these quick-fix potions in some 40 quart pot. Maybe I can get the staff to do a little dance around the kitchen at the same time.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

There is a study done by Restaurant Hospitality magazine that says 27% of restaurant diners have quit going to a particular restaurant in the past year because of “poor service”. That is over one fourth of the people eating out quit going to someone’s restaurant. Was one of them yours?

The problem is defining what poor service means to various segments of the population. Is it rude servers, long ticket times, not visiting tables often enough, forgetting condiments, slow follow up or some combination of these? It may take another survey or more customer feedback to define “poor service”.

Some research I did for the mini-ebook titled “Pardon Me, But Your Customers Want to Talk To You” may be a glimpse into what guests think bad service really is. For about a month I collected individual reviews posted on blog sites, restaurant review websites and newspaper reviews on restaurants that subsequently closed their doors. It was tedious research, but the quotes from the restaurants’ customers were so compelling, I couldn’t stop. The thought crossed my mind that if the owner had read these comments well before he closed his doors, could he have changed his destiny.

The research found that “bad service” was by far the terms most used by customers about the vast majority of the closed operations. Assuming “bad service” and “poor service” are interchangeable, then comments from those who further defined bad service will help define the term. In almost every instance waiting long periods of time for any guest service was an issue and reason given for the restaurant’s closing. In rare circumstances did the customers cite bad food as the cause.

A synopsis of those comments were;· Waiting to be greeted.· Waiting for the table to be visited by a server.· Waiting for drinks to be delivered.· Waiting for the order to be taken.· Waiting for food to be delivered.· Waiting for a return visit by the server.· Waiting for the check.

Obviously, waiting for any facet of the guest’s experience was the single most frustrating part of the dining experience. How many of these bottlenecks do you have in your restaurant? Do you know? What have you done to correct them?

Based on the comments of guests from closed operations, now might be a good time to find out the answers to the questions above.

Larry Edger, Author
The Restaurant Ebook