Training, as it stands in most restaurant operations, is broken. It is transactional at best and completely irrelevant at its worst. Not because operators do not care about developing their cast. Because the thinking behind most training programs is wrong at the foundation. The following four ideas came from an actual gathering of corporate chain […]
An area manager tells his unit-level managers that if he ever has to physically work in their restaurants, they are failing. He is technically correct. If the multi-unit manager has to get behind the line or run food to keep the operation from falling apart, something upstream has already failed — the hiring, the development, […]
This was written in 2017 when restaurant wages were rising at nearly 5% year over year, double the rate of menu price increases. The argument then was that operators who believed their existing business model would “work itself out” were making an expensive mistake. They were. Labor costs in hospitality have risen more than 20% […]
If you’re waiting for Friday & Saturday to be able to make payroll – you have serious issues that need to be addressed. #20thCenturyThinking — Jeffrey Summers (@JeffreySummers) July 28, 2017 You have a business model problem. Not a cash flow problem. The distinction matters because cash flow problems have cash flow solutions — a […]
There is a pattern so common in restaurant management that it deserves a name. A manager hires someone. After a short time it becomes clear the hire was wrong. The person is terminated. And instead of asking what went wrong in the process that produced the hire, the manager blames the employee. “I took them […]
Q: Shouldn’t you use social platforms like TripAdvisor to market your business? A: No. You shouldn’t use a consumer platform (which is what social media sites are) for commercial messaging. Social platforms are not a multi-purpose business tool and any attempt to push messaging to them will be met with negative friction. FUQ: But can’t […]
After four decades in this business, one contradiction still amazes me: operators say they want teamwork and collaboration, then design every incentive system to produce competition and individual performance. Employee contests are an anti-teamwork tool. They pit cast members against each other in a transactional contest of winners and losers, dress it up as motivation, […]
Employee Engagement Is Not A Program The statement that employee engagement is “tricky to tactically execute” contains two errors in four words. It is not tricky. And the employer does not execute it. Engagement is intrinsic to the employee. It is a property of the person, not a product of the program. The cast member […]
Q: “I get so frustrated with myself on a weekly if not daily basis . Like how can I set personal or work goals and then continue to make choices that prevent me from achieving those goals ??? Sometimes it’s just forgetfulness , laziness , moments of weakness or taking the easy path instead of […]
By definition, best practices are what the crowd does well. They represent the aggregate experience of many operators across many contexts, distilled into recommendations that tend to work to varying degrees in most situations. Which means they are designed to produce average outcomes at above-average consistency. That is a useful thing. It is not a […]
Every business school graduate has an answer. Undercapitalization. Poor location. Bad concept. Weak marketing. High food cost. Labor problems. The economy. The competition. The timing. Every one of those answers is a symptom. None of them is the disease. Restaurants fail because the operator didn’t know what he didn’t know and didn’t ask for help. […]
The operators who build sustainable success are not doing more. They are focused on different things than the operators who are struggling. Six specifically. They focus on the Guest Experience above everything else. Most of the work that fills a shift has nothing to do with the Guest. Reports, policy mandates, cleaning schedules, process management, […]
A colleague asked this question in a forum years ago. The answer has not changed. Yes. Restaurant marketing is broken. Not because the tools do not work. Because the thinking behind how most operators use them is wrong at the foundation. Here is what is actually broken: The assumption that retail strategies work for hospitality. […]
Every service failure is the direct result of a process breakdown. If not a broken process, then the absence of a process where one should have existed. The server did not screw up the order. The process that was supposed to prevent the screwed-up order was not in place, not trained to, or not held […]
The Product Is Not The Food Operators in the hospitality business have a blind spot so common it has become an industry assumption: the product is what is on the plate. It is not. The food is the delivery mechanism. The product is the experience — the event in the day-to-day life of the Guest […]
Some people argue that talent is overrated. The evidence across every industry suggests otherwise — and the multiplier is not what most people expect. The best developer at Apple is at least nine times as productive as the average software engineer at other technology companies. The best blackjack dealer at Caesars Palace keeps his table […]
You have heard it for years: hire for values, train for skills. Here is what it actually means in practice and why most operators get it wrong. You need cast members who can perform and who share your values. Both. Not one or the other. The server who can sell the menu brilliantly but is […]
For years I heard gurus tell operators to think outside the box. I resisted it. Not because outside the box thinking is wrong. Because I kept looking at the businesses around me and seeing that nobody had exhausted their inside the box thinking first. How do you move beyond something that is not even working? […]
Most operators, consultants, and industry associations use the words interchangeably. They are not interchangeable. Confusing them is one of the most expensive mistakes in the business. Two questions. Only two. And they have to be answered in order. What kind of business do you want to be? How will you become it? The first question […]
Most operators would answer yes if you asked whether they are working to improve their Guest Experience. The dishwasher, the server, the cook, the manager on duty — every one of them would claim they are contributing to a better Guest Experience. And they might be. But individual effort is not a Guest Experience program. […]