There is a hiring practice so deeply embedded in corporate America that questioning it gets you looked at like you just said something dangerous. It has consultants, certifications, and decades of institutional momentum behind it. It is also largely useless for the independent restaurant operator who needs to know in 45 minutes whether the person […]
The operator who cannot find a General Manager has a talent problem. The operator who has been running ads for four months without filling the position has a different problem, one that the ads will not solve. Talent is not scarce for the operator who has built the conditions that attract it. It is scarce […]
Wrong question. The right question is whether the operation was designed to produce operating profit from Guest one. If it was, the answer is immediately. If it was not, the answer is never, at least not without redesigning the cost structure that should have been built correctly before the doors opened. There is a distinction […]
The benefit is always less than if your brand controlled everything it touches. Using a third-party to execute a significant portion of your Guest experience can be crippling. The Guest’s loyalty then is with the delivery brand and not your brand regardless. You’ve become a commodity.
They can be, if: it’s the right kind of busy it’s the right kind of busy it’s the right kind of busy Just because a location is in a busy area doesn’t mean it’s the right kind of busy for your restaurant. If you depend on transient traffic then you are continually going to be […]
The timeline is irrelevant. First year, third year, fifth year — the challenges are the same. They have always been the same. They will continue to be the same for every operator who has not built the system that addresses them. The Five Fundamentals. Perspective. The operator who cannot see the business accurately cannot run […]
It does not appear on the P&L. No accountant will flag it. No audit will surface it. No lender will ask about it. But it is the single largest expense most independent restaurant operators are running, and it compounds every shift. The Lost Opportunity Tax is the cost of not maximizing your own potential. Not […]
Service is table stakes (pun intended). Every restaurant has a service sequence. Twelve steps, fifteen steps, however many steps the training manual specifies. Greet the table. Present the menu. Take the drink order. Suggest the specials. Return with the drinks. Take the food order. Check back within two minutes of the food arriving. Refill the […]
The question contains the problem. The moment an operator sits down to define what excellent Guest Experience looks like, they have already made the mistake that produces mediocre hospitality. They are defining it. From inside the building. Based on what they do, what they prefer, what their operational model makes convenient, what their training manual […]
Probably nothing. Not because the market is too competitive. Not because the timing is wrong. Because differentiation is not something you create after you open. It is something you design before the first Guest walks in. If you opened without it, you did not forget to add a feature. You built the wrong thing. This […]
The word loyalty has been hijacked. In the restaurant industry it has been redefined to mean a discount that rewards a Guest for dining with you or incentivizes them to return at some future point. The result is a system that trains Guests to think transactionally — to respond to points, rewards, and incentives rather […]
The question is wrong. The right question is: what does this specific Guest need from this specific menu in this specific market for this operation to be profitable at the price point it requires? The answer to that question determines the menu size. Not a best practice. Not a competitor benchmark. Not a theory about […]
It is not the bad boss. The bad boss is a symptom. Every reason cited for why cast members leave — bad culture, poor leadership, inadequate pay, difficult Guests, broken processes, no work-life balance — is a symptom of the same underlying condition. They are descriptions of what the environment felt like, not explanations of […]
Get the read you cannot get for yourself. Most operators who fail in the first year failed before they opened. Not because they lacked passion. Not because the concept was wrong. Because they built on assumptions that were never tested, costs that were never modeled, and a Guest experience that was never designed for the […]
It is a fair question. You walk into a restaurant, the host greets you, and within fifteen seconds you are being asked about your evening plans, whether you have been in before, or what brings you in tonight. The conversation feels practiced. It is not personal. It is not impressive. And it is not hospitality. […]
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, […]
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 […]
