Fastfood, casual or fine dining? (Part 3)

When it comes to details, standards and pageantry, fine dining restaurants would be on top of the list. If there is anything that should differentiate a fine dining restaurant is its elegance and price. Elegance and price in everything! Menu price, price of cutlery, dinnerware, linen, ingredients, furnishings, decors, music, everything! These have to be all justified by great food and even greater service.

A fine dining restaurant requires waiters who know how to serve different fine dining types of service like wine service, Russian and French. Waiters have to be familiar with proper order and manner of service of certain menu items.

A fine dining restaurant's table setup is usually composed of dinner knife, dinner spoon and fork, dessert fork or spoon, soup spoon, charger or soup bowl for initial setup, table napkin. For glassware, there should be a water goblet and wine glass.

It's a different game altogether if the restaurant is themed. Like if it is a Chinese restaurant, there will be an assortment of spices needed, chopsticks and chopsticks holder.Food is usually served one at a time. The food should be served in this order, whichever is ordered.

1. Appetizer (soup or hors d'oeuvre)
   
2. Entree
3. Salad
   
4. Dessert
5. Coffee or tea

A lot of times, fine dining restaurants have individual servings, have a rather more formal setting and quieter than most casual type restaurants.

Fastfood, casual or fine dining? (Part 2)

Casual dining restaurants are probably a favorite of mine when it comes to setting up and concept. It is not as 'casual' as fastfood and not as formal as fine dining restaurants. You can play around so much with the concept, restaurant setup, menu, uniforms, everything! Fun would probably be an appropriate word for it.

Casual dining restaurants should aim to be comfortable, cozy and yet, not with a little formality needed if you are hosting business meetings. Talk about power lunch. It is a place where you would usually find couch and family meal servings. They can be themed according to country (japanese, chinese, greek), interests (music, movies, sports) or even just any theme that suits you like pizzeria, burger, cereals, your family secret recipes or your favorite dishes from all around the world.

One thing that should be noted even for other types of restaurant is your Unique Selling Proposition. What sets you apart from the other restaurants? What should customers look forward to?

Casual dining restaurants would be heavy on customization if it wants to make a niche in the dining public. Here are a few things which casual dining restaurants can customize for that marketing flavor.

• MENU (not just the menu book itself but with the names of the items and presentation. How about LCD tabletop menu screens?)
  
• RESTAURANT LAYOUT
• RESTAURANT ACCESSORIES (table placemats, utensils, salt and pepper shakers, napkins, centerpiece, utensils, glassware, diningware)
• STAFF UNIFORM
  
• RESTROOMS

Casual dining restaurants have to decide on whether it will serve individual servings or family platters. These would have to be decided upon at the beginning. It will be such a hassle, not to mention expensive, if you start recipe testing for individual servings and decide later on to serve in platters. A combination would be possible. The only critical part is to make it clear in the menu so as not to confuse customers and dining service staff as well.

Sticking to the theme is important. If you decide to be a Pizza and Pasta restaurant, it would be odd seeing Tempura or Bulgogi in the menu.

Casual dining restaurants also need a good group of dining service employees. Most people who dine in casual dining restaurants tend to know a couple of things about food, have the extra money for a casual dining and would usually ask things about the menu. It is important to have a clearly and neatly printed menu with simple descriptions. However, it is also a must that the waiters know how to explain the food. Best would be if they have actually tasted all the menu items.

(to be continued in the next post)

Fastfood, casual or fine dining? (Part 1)

The question of whether to have a fast food, casual or fine dining kind of service in your restaurant would have to be one of the first questions you have to answer. Of course, there are other choices like cafeteria style (where guests queue up with trays and point to the food they like). In the Philippines, it is called turo-turo or point-point because you point the food items you want to order. There are also family dining restaurants, bar-type and eat-all-you-can.

For this article, let me discuss fast food, casual and fine dining.

Fast food service is when guests line up to order, tell the order taker what they want, pay, wait for their food and carry their tray or food to their table.
Food prices: are expected not to be expensive
Service: courteous but don't expect to be treated regally
Food presentation: usually none or very minimal
Plates, glasses and utensils: not fancy but decent, usually plastic or of melamine

Advantages: It is ideal for office or business district lunch destinations. When working people have only one-hour breaks, they cannot eat in a restaurant where they have to wait for their food to be served after 15 or 20 minutes. The number of people you have to employ for service can be reduced to 1 staff for every 10 or 15 tables since they only have to take away the trays and utensils and clean the tables. The dining table staff do not have to be bothered with having to know menu items by heart since the cashier or order taker takes care of that solely. Kitchen procedures can be simplified and batch-cooked as food has to be ready in advance. Knowledge of how many orders of each menu item is ordered has to be established as it is critical. Kitchen and purchasing need these data to just about right as to the number of menu items to be cooked.

Disadvantages: Like in any restaurant, food wastage and spoilage is the scary part as fast food restaurants need to pre-cook or at least pre-prepare food. Every item has to be standardized down to the number of minutes it takes to cook one item.

(to be continued in the next post)

Restaurants are Made of These...

Any restaurant, big or small, posh or otherwise, has to have the right combination of CONCEPT, RULES and RELATIONSHIPS.

Concept meaning marketing mix, theme, ambience, location and the like.

Rules cover control measures, house rules, business manners, policies for functions, large orders, guest complaints, employees, order replacement and workflow processes.

Relationship is all about customer service standards, service policies, values to uphold, employee relations and proper business ethics with clients and suppliers.

In my next posts I will discuss each section in details.

For starters, restaurant owners will benefit a lot by answering the following questions. This is to assess, in brief, how the restaurant fares in terms of marketing, service, stock/inventory control, staffing and cost control.

1. What sets my restaurant apart from other restaurants belonging in the same catergory as ours?
2. Do we have repeat customers? How many in a night?
   
3. Do I know what is our average check per guest? Our average daily revenue?
4. How much revenue goes to food and beverage? functions? large orders?
5. How much is my food cost?
   
6. Are my recipes standardized? Documented?
7. Do I know which menu items are popular?
   
8. Do I get to monitor all purchases and stock release to the kitchen?
9. Do I have away of knowing if any food item is cooked, consumed and not paid for?
10. Are there separate persons for purchasing, receiving and stock disbursement?
11. Are there separate persons for cashiering and auditing?
12. Is there a person assigned solely to see if guests are attended to properly?
    
13. Do I know if guests are satisfied with the food and service?

I Love Restaurants!

It’s my vice.

When I travel, instead of shopping and incurring excess baggage weight, I spend my money on checking out restaurants.

When I have extra expendable money, I think about visiting that new restaurant or new hotel.

When I go to the bookstore, I buy recipe books and food magazines.

I love eating good food.

Growing up with a mother who cooks really really well and in a family where overcooked vegetables and tough meats are a no-no, my senses have been stretched since birth Luckily, my career path went to managing hotels and restaurants. So I share, in this blog, not only my formal and work learnings about restaurant management but, more importantly, that restaurants should serve great food above everything else.

Enjoy reading!