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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Uniform for your dining staff

Part of a restaurant's concept and image is the design of its dining room service staff or waiters. It is important as well to determine how the uniform is worn and the grooming you want your staff to maintain.

First on the design. A lot of conservative designers and restaurateurs go for the plain long sleeves with necktie or chef's uniform modifications for waiter's uniforms. Other restaurateurs prefer to go out-of-the-usual. This is specially true about themed restaurants and fastfood places. I personally like inculcating a restaurant's concept into the waiter's uniform but not in a way that the uniform looks weird. I like designs that bring out the personality of the restaurant. At the same time, I like simple designs that give waiters comfort and allow them to move around easily but with a simple touch or accessory here and there. Simple accessories or touches could range from color combinations, different cuff links or buttons, simple brooches or pins.

Fine dining restaurants would admittedly have to be more conservative. Materials would have to be exquisite.

On the other hand, I also would like to emphasize how waiters carry their uniform or groom themselves. I prohibit waiters from wearing strong perfumes and heavy makeups. I also allow only a few pieces of jewelry like a watch and a ring and stud earrings for ladies. No muliple or fine jewelry allowed! Why? You don't want your waiters to look more dressed up than your customers. I also emphasize good grooming, neat hairstyle and clean, pressed clothing. Try if you can to set as a policy that your waiters don't wear their uniforms on the way to work. If possible, uniforms should be washed inhouse care of the restaurant.

A waiter's uniform is part of your establishment's image. Therefore, it should be given attention to just like the other aspects of your restaurant's operations.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Curtains or blinds?

In the area of dressing up your windows, I would be torn on whether to use curtains or blinds. Blinds need to be utterly presentalbe. I would say the same for curtains but you basically have more pattern and design choices for curtains. If you could afford a Hunter Douglas, well and good! But if not, you have to go and get a presentable set of window blinds.

The reason I am writing about this is because windows are a part of most restaurant structures and dressing up your windows is part of your ambience.

You might even choose to use neither. However, this is an important decision specially in tropical countries. Curtains make a place look soft, comfortable and homey. Blinds on the other hand, make a place look spic and span, neat, modern, clean cut.

As to which is more practical, blinds give you one-set of a look. Curtains give you more flexibility. If you wash your curtains, you probably need another set of curtains while the other set is drying. With blinds, you clean them up, wipe them dry and they are done.

However, what would be the most important factor or question to answer is if a curtain or blinds are what you need for the ambience that you want to create.

Sprucing up your dining area

With the so many restaurant themes that have come up and the stiff competition among restaurants, the need to find an edge is now a must.

The edge or what makes you different from others or what your customers would keep coming back for should be clear and should be understand by your customers.

In this aspect, the focal point should be your dining room. There are definitely other guest areas that are just as important like your toilets, parking area and entrance.

One of the things that you is often overlooked over the design is how comfortable the area is. I particularly like restaurants where you can slouch and be comfortable in cozy chairs. Now that I am thinking about it, how about persian rugs and low tables? I think rugs will always embody an ambience of coziness.

Comfortable can also be accomplished by making your tables and chairs lower than the usual dinner table set where your knees are bent at basically 90 degrees. One of my favorite restaurants have low tables and chairs that allow you to slouch and lean over the table. Talk about table manners! What more if you have hand knotted rugs for that great feel on your feet when you take off your shoes.

Comfortable also means cleanliness and orderliness of your dining room. Make sure that your furnitures are not broken or wobbling.

When customers remember what lovely time they had in your restaurant, they just might be a candidate for repeat customers.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

What's your Leftover policy for employees?

Leftovers are somewhat a signal of how well you manage your menu or the quantity of your servings.

For ala carte type of service, having lots of leftovers on guest's plates all the time means that you have overportioned and vice versa.

If it's a buffet or eat-all-you-can type of service, leftovers mean that you need to watch your forecasting and take a keen look at what you're missing. In some places, though, forecasting is not helpful because of the unpredictable trend of diners. This makes it very difficult for a restaurant operator to make forecasting work for them, if they do it at all.

Consequently, one thing that has to be answered is what do you do with leftovers? I hear fastfood chains do not give them away or recycle them or sell them at a cheaper rate to employees. They just throw them away. I guess for fear of getting a bad reputation when somebody eats a not so hot burger or soggy fries.

I know of restaurants who sell leftovers at a cheaper rate. A local bakery has a 30% off on breads at 10 minutes before closing time. I have honestly waited hear the bakeshop sometimes at 10 minutes before closing!

Some restaurants put them in the dog food or pig food bin (in the philippines, piggery owners actually buy leftovers and even those food that were cleaned from plates to feed their pigs) where they are collected and fed to the dogs or pigs.

Some throw them in the biodegradable bin. Some give them away to poor people. Noble act, I would say, but wouldn't the poor people get spoiled with eating restaurant food all the time? Anyway, the food is not spoiled at all!

If you decide to throw them away, make sure you throw them where they will not rot or be a nuisance to the neighbors or the environment.

If you decide to give them away to anybody including your employees, include it in your employe handbook and make your employees understand, or anybody for that matter, that you will not be held liable if they get sick as a result of eating your restaurant's leftovers. It sure is not a good publicity.

For me, when my clients ask me aboutwhat to do with leftovers, I recommend throwing them away or recycling and not to give them away free to be eaten by somebody. Why? Because you never know what happens to that dish after you give them away. It is safer to throw them away. However, with the worldwide food crisis, I think twice already. But I still recommend throwing them or recycling.

Whatever your policy will be, make sure it is clear to all employees and that your policies and procedures on disposing of your leftovers are concise.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

How about a Midyear Review?

The month of July has started already. I hope that the year has been a great or at least not a bad one for you. Much as July is a little bit past midyear, this might be a good time to conduct a midyear review.

What's a midyear review? Simply put, it's an evaluation of how far you have come to realizing your goals for the year, that is, if you have set any. (I hope you did!)

You might have been accustomed to the annual review, which is good in the first place. A midyear review gives you a reminder of how much more you have to get working for. I personally do this not just for business but also for personal goals.; Sometimes, a year could be so long you tend to forget your goals along the way. This causes losing focus on your objectives.

If you did not set any goals for the year, then you could do a review based on how you have performed and use this for your annual review or next year's midyear review. Example of the data you should check are:
- monthly sales (have they increased? decreased? how much is your average sales so far?)
- average guest check
- food cost
- turnovers (table, employee, stocks, etc.)

There are more actually. There are also things you could check like guest satisfaction, cleanliness, employee satisfaction and more.

However, let me say now that all these reviews would be useless if you do not act on them as needed. If you have a low rating on a certain factor, make sure that your review has an action plan or solution coming right up.