Blue Orbiting

Admittedly, I’ve put on a few pounds over the past few (20) years and I’ve made several attempts to shake it off.  All have been successful and all results eventually come back to level. It seems the balance of the weight Mother Nature intended for me lies far north of the height:weight charts.  Six feet tall = 155lbs to 175lbs.  I’m 240.  Something isn’t right.  Under 200 and I feel like I’ll break.

Over the years the most successful program has been to start with Atkins to shake some weight really fast then mellow into Agatston’s South Beach Diet until I can run without blowing my knees out….then the exercise takes over (or is supposed to).  No diet seems to make sense without excercise, which is where it all goes to pot.  Agatston is a proponent of the glycemic index - some mathematical equation that says that just because the food is natural and “whole” doesn’t mean it won’t make you fat (something to do with the carb to fiber ratio).  Bananas get lumped in with Pineapple and Kiwi as forbidden fruit.  Corn is off limits too but that’s another sore spot.  What afflicts me seems also to afflict these fruits. Mother Nature is either cruel, imperfect, she doesn’t watch 90210 or she’s dead on and I’m dead sexy.

All of this just to say that I’ve re-discovered bananas as a dessert…or a sandwich meat.  I was consulting for a restaurant in the Meat Packing District in New York a few years ago when I learned of a local favorite: toast with sliced bananas and honey.  Bananas and peanut butter is old news but what about one I saw on famed Atlanta burger restaurant “The Vortex’s” menu: the Elvis Presley - a half pound burger with peanut butter, bacon and fried bananas?  Recently I was trying to figure out how to do a “banana creme brulee canoli”…it just sounds good…get some banana creme pie filling with fresh chunks of bananas and somehow candy the ends like a creme brulee without burning the canoli shell, then drizzle with honey.  Everyone, of course, loves Bananas Foster.  Banana Parfait.  Banana Creme Pie.  Granola, or just some Corn Flakes, with fresh bananas. Banana Split. Banana crepes with vanilla ice cream and caramel.  Banana Tart Tartin.  Candied bananas dipped in cinnamon and served with hot Mexican chocolate?  Speaking of Forrest Gump, did anyone notice that the actor who plays “Hastings” in the 2010 season of 24 is the same actor who played Bubba?  Of course when bananas start to turn spotty, toss them in the blender with a bunch of other high glycemic index stuff and call it a smoothie…add some rum and call it a day.

Recently I was in New York getting ideas for a coffee shop we’re putting together in Atlanta and my partner and I ran into this odd Vegan breakfast place near 9^th and Houston near Chelsea’s Market in the meat packing district. The odd little fellow behind the counter may or may not have cared that we were leering at his menu, trying to decide what on earth we were going to eat. It was 7am and I looked around to see the place was filling up …with other odd little fellows and fellettes staring at the chalkboard menu with the same blank expression as the don’t-give-a-crap-barista. Once I started paying attention, I thought, “why is it so important to give a crap about someone giving a crap about me and my inability to make a decision?”

In the movie, Gorillas in the Mist, Anthony Hopkins has an “aha” moment when he tries to shield himself from the rain with a big banana leaf while sitting with a band of gorillas in the wild (“band” is the correct term for a group of gorillas…I just looked it up…sorry to insult you if you already knew that…I didn’t). As he looks around at the other gorillas, they had not altered their behavior during the transition from sunshine to rain. They continued picking bugs off one another as if it wasn’t raining. He catches on and puts the banana leaf away.  Sure he gets wet, but so what. What’s so great about staying dry?

I’ve been back to that odd place with the odd people many times since. Probably because no one is really trying too hard. In fact, when I go there I have license to be an odd  fellow myself, and I grin when I see a newbie frowning at the menu and scowling at the barista.  There was a neat little sign above the cashier that read, “Mornin’ Pretty”. It’s a neighborhood place not a company vying for market share. I’ve also engaged the barista a few times for help with the menu. He’s 100% himself, sincere, and he cares for me about as much as someone who doesn’t know me should care for me. He’s just doing his job. He has to work to pay the bills like the rest of us.  He’s not impolite or rude. He’s just not there to make friends…or enemies.  So he does his job and recommends the right thing…just by sizing me up and asking a couple of questions in stunted (efficient) English. “…you like oatmeal?” *pause…I nod, brow furrowed like ‘really dude?…you’re going to sell me freakin’ Oatmeal?  “…try the porridge…it’s better for you because the bran is still on it. I can put some fruit in it?” I nod, he slaps it together, tosses it on the counter… “want some coffee?”….I nod… “fourninetyeight”. Dang if it isn’t the most satisfying breakfast I’ve had in years, and it’s probably because of the service as much as the porridge. If more servers could pull off the Napoleon Dynamite ‘tude and just stick to the facts, we’d all probably stop whining when we don’t get our butts kissed by a server or cashier.

Restaurants are magnets for interesting “out of the box” thinkers, often attracting people with an amazing blend of “artsy” and “scienc…y?”  innovators. Unfortunately, they can also attract a “night owl” workforce who finds a career to support a socially questionable after-work lifestyle.   In these cases, I contend, the line between work and play is very thick and blurry.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a business and plenty, if not most, restaurant managers and employees view their jobs as careers.  Respectable careers that support families and play an important role in the community.  For the others that use the late hours and party atmosphere to jump start their social lives, the restaurant is a haven for poorly supervised debauchery.  Drug and alcohol abuse, on and just after  the job…it can be a pre-party.

Unfortunately for the restaurant owner who wants to operate their business from afar, the lack of business discipline can chew up profits as fast as they come in.  In the case of failing restaurants, an inability to manage key areas eventually leads to failure, often to the owner’s surprise.

A restaurant’s prime costs are made up of Cost of Goods and Labor.  Together, they consume about $.55 to $.65 for every dollar made…in a well run operation.  Throw in Direct Expenses (china, silver, glass ware, paper goods, supplies, repairs), Operating Costs and Occupancy Costs and a good restaurant is lucky to deliver $.15 per dollar to the bottom line.  Cost of Goods is tough enough to manage… spoilage, theft, over ordering, pricing, waste…but poor labor management is just plain lazy.

Restaurant sales are relatively predictable and labor planning is much more of an an exact science than managing food cost.  The target is 30% of sales for management and hourly labor plus benefits, taxes and (some say) uniforms and employee meals.  Project the sales, back out 30% and voila!…there’s the dollar amount you are allowed to spend.  Smoosh it around any way you like but don’t go over it.  Schedule it to the minute.  So why is it so hard?  In well managed restaurants it is still difficult but the culture is that of a serious business, created to generate profit.  In poorly managed restaurants, the managers are little more than deputized line cooks or servers  who have never been taught how or held accountable for delivering the scheduled labor.  If every cook in the kitchen leaves 15 minutes late every day, by the time Friday or Saturday rolls around, they are headed for overtime long before the busiest part of the shift hits.  “Jefe, I’m about to go into overtime.  Would you like me to go home?”….”Gee Tommy, it’s 7:30 on Friday night…go ahead and stay until 9:0o like you were scheduled”  Tommy is psyched.  No one challenged him all week and when the day to challenge him came, he had the restaurant by the short hairs.  Is Tommy to blame?  Nope.  He didn’t know it was important and he was nice enough to alert the manager.  I’d say Tommy is close to being a model employee just for bringing it up.  The problem is that there is no culture of accountability and it starts with the owner.

Reconcile Labor Daily:  Every day, at the beginning of every shift, the shift manager  (sous chef or kitchen manager for kitchen employees and service manager for service employees) should know precisely who is coming in, how many hours they’re scheduled for the week, how many hours they’ve worked OVER or UNDER their scheduled hours so far and how many hours they have to go before they hit overtime.  Fortunately, most Point of Sales systems include a time and attendance program that allows the manager to print a shift roster anytime they want.  The roster consolidates this information for the manager so all they have to do is review it for 5 minutes before the shift, using it throughout the shift to drive productivity.  Toward the end of the shift, they simply inspect their employees’ work and manage them to finish their tasks and leave on time.

Hold Managers Accountable:  After every shift, after all employees have clocked out, the manager should review their “actual vs. schedule” performance (again…a report feature in most modern time and attendance software systems) to ensure they didn’t miss anyone.  By the end of the week, when sales projections are coming true, labor performance is on track.  The General Manager, and ultimately the owner, will review actual vs. schedule every week before posting payroll.

Inspect the Late Night: in general, the biggest labor problems occur at the end of the night as employees who are not scheduled to work later linger to wait for their friends to get off work.  If the managers are not controlling their labor, politely tell them, “manage the labor…or you are the labor”.

Perhaps our most requested service is for helping restaurants with “training”.  The word itself is somehow mysterious…nebulous…like smoke, just within reach but never reachable.  Instinctively, most restaurateurs know it is important but they don’t fully understand what it takes to get someone sufficiently “trained” to do their job. They DO know that, when someone is “trained”, they’re able to  leave them alone and they’ll get the job done… competently and confidently without much prompting or hand holding.  Sales go up, the restaurateur’s life gets easier, customers are happy, employees are happy…a silver bullet if there ever was one.  “We need you to improve our training” they’ll say.  And when we do, the ones who let us take control of their training say, “if I had known it would be that easy I’d have done it myself!”

However few have the stomach or the patience needed to effectively take someone from a neophyte to a professional.  They pay only lip service to the adage that “people are our most important resources”.   They blame the employee or say “we need better people”.  The bad news is that we encounter far more restaurants that blame their staff for poor performance than look in the mirror for their problems.  The good news for restaurants that want to compete is that the majority of the training programs are not compelling enough to keep great employees, so they’re ripe for the picking.

To me, training is simple…view new employees as elementary school students on Day 1. How you handle Day 1 will make or break your training process.  Day 1 is never the day to outline the pressure you’re going to apply to them. Never use Day 1 as a sort of “boot camp” where intimidation is valued over the welcome wagon.

Day 1 is about overcoming fear.  Fear of a new environment. Fear of using the restroom too many times.  Fear that they won’t fit in. Fear that no one will like them.  Fear that they may not like anyone.  Remember, everything is new and they’re scared. Control their fear by legislating welcoming behavior from your staff.  Introduce them to everyone they’re expected to know. When a new face arrives, it is everyone’s job to say “hello!” and introduce themselves.  Be sure their training schedule is outlined and printed professionally.  I like to have a meeting with my Trainers for a new batch of employees outlining which trainers are handling which days of training, printing and posting training schedules in a prominent are…using at least two thumb tacks and ensuring the edge of the paper is level to the ground and aligned vertically (sounds crazy but make it important!).  Then I insist that they introduce themselves, saying “Hello!  I’m Jim…what’s you’re name?  Phillip?  Nice to meet you!  I’m training you on your days 5 and 7 for your wine class and your final follow shift.  I look forward to it!”

Next, make sure you don’t put the new trainee in a situation on Day 1 where they have to prove themselves to anyone.  It is about where to park, when to eat and what to eat, warm introductions, orientation, a good tour, distributing uniforms, reviewing the handbook, filling out paperwork…and all of it should be done by someone dedicated to the task who will not be interrupted.  They should be made to feel like their arrival is important…that you’ve invested resources in training them because you’re glad they’re here and you need them.

The next critical factor is the training schedule.  The schedule should be distributed on Day 1 but should be accurate.   It should show who is training them, when they’re being trained, what they’re learning, what uniform they should wear, what materials they should bring, and what they will be expected to learn.  Days 2 and 3 should happen in stations/departments of the restaurant that take the trainee out of their element and away from pressure that they’re used to.  If a new employee is a line cook, their first day should be spent bussing tables.  They should bond with the front of the house.  They will have a BLAST doing something they know they were not hired to do but that is a learning experience.  A few messages are sent.  1) WOW!  they’re paying me to bus tables and I’m not even expected to master it, 2) My training is going to be thorough, 3) They’re investing in me.  That line cook may end up being the best busser you’ve ever had because there is no pressure to excel at it.  They get in the spirit of “proving themselves” to you without the pressure to do so.  They want to do it and, from Day 1, they’ve raised their own bar.  Servers?  Start ‘em in prep for a few hours then move them to dish for 3o minutes. Their homework is to learn the names of the people they work with along with something interesting about them.  When your line cook moves to “Server follow” and your Server moves to “The Line”, you can layer on more expectation…”draw a diagram of the prep cooler” or “list 4 items you made today and how to make them” or “what are the table numbers” or “how should a server stand when addressing a table”.

Pay:  Make sure you pay the trainee a respectable wage.  If they’re a server, try to protect them with a wage equal to what they’d make as a fully trained server.  It’s expensive but you’ll have the employee’s undivided attention.  You’ll also gain a reputation as a company that is serious about a job well done…which bleeds into your community and sculpts your position in the market.  If they work for an hourly wage (not tipped) pay them their full negotiated wage, not a training wage.  The money you save with a training wage will set a negative tone in the new employee’s mind that you won’t recover from.

Lastly, since you’ve started the process by being thorough, continue it through the rest of the training.  Give that employee 2 or 3 days to touch positions in the restaurant for which they will not be responsible.  Sure, they get an amazing lesson in how to do other people’s jobs, but more important, when they get to the job they’re expected to master, the “fear” is gone. They know where and when to eat, where to pee, who works where, how to clock in…they’re part of the team now and…get this…eager to repay you for protecting them.  They’ll gobble up the training materials for their actual job and want to prove to you that you’ve made a wise investment.

Why don’t more restaurateurs do this? Because it costs money…because their budgets for training are blown…and they’re blown because they operate a revolving door…because they don’t invest in their people on the front end.  Save the money on the glossy manuals and fancy pins…if you don’t care for your new employees on Day 1, the rest is duck farming.

This blog deserves much more time than I’m going to give it right now…but I was reading an article in Nation’s Restaurant News on El Pollo Loco picking a fight with KFC (I post feeds on my website to some great blogs so I can go there every day to keep up with what’s going on in restaurants). KFC is getting their teeth kicked in by El Pollo Loco! Who?!!, right? I didn’t even realize El Pollo Loco was big and strong enough to go into the octagon with KFC but they have them in a rear choke submission on the topic of using beef powder and rendered beef fat in their grilled chicken…and it isn’t actually grilled… http://beefychicken.com. I’m going to try El Pollo Loco just on the merit of this commercial ad.

15 years ago I said to my wife, my boss and my dog (my dog was the only one who paid attention to me then) “The Mom and Pop will return with a vengeance to topple the mighty chains.” I don’t care what they say about market share, economies of scale, block buying, and leverage…people want authentic food!. I believe that now more than ever. Restaurants go wrong when they get greedy. They cease to be restaurants and, instead, become…well… retail stores serving food.  REAL Food needs supervision and love. Retailers and accountants who apply pure economics to the food industry can get pretty far but they rarely create compelling food. Chili’s? Ponderosa? Bennigan’s? On The Border?  Yep, you can pack em in but the food lacks “love” and the service might as well come from Asimo.

Nope, for my money, I’ll give the small guy a chance, provided they are focused on using real fire from real wood, real grill marks, real cream in the cream sauce, real butter in the beurre blanc, real roasted chicken in the, uh…roasted chicken…I want real food when I go out to eat and I want to see the chef being a little creative.  If he whiffs a few times, I’ll cut him  a break…at least a human being is doing his best to cater to the community.  If the Kitchen Manager at Chili’s sends out a burger that is Medium Well when I ordered it Medium Rare, I’m disappointed with him …and Asimo too…because they didn’t follow the carefully choreographed and trained and re-trained steps to make sure my burger comes out Medium Rare.  Kitchen Systems are critical but over relying on them saps the restaurant of it’s soul. Chili’s provides jobs with great benefits and teaches restaurant managers to use some of the greatest streamlining and scaling tools available…but they sacrifice authenticity.  Indeed every chef who wants to learn to run a successful restaurant should sign up for a stint at one of the big chains…they’ll learn how to be efficient, consistent, and profitable.  I have nothing against Chili’s and think they do a marvelous job at consistently replicating their food in multiple markets through robust system execution. However…

Truly great food doesn’t happen when it’s done “for the money”. There is plenty of profit to be had when it’s done right…”right” means for a reasonable profit with a dining experience and assortment that suits the neighborhood it serves. Wall Street pressure will never support fresh food. El Pollo Loco should be careful, though. Once they get the taste for market share, they’ll surely start taking some shortcuts to support their growth…and pressure for profit…like KFC.

The  culture of a business affects everything they do and everything they produce. This is perhaps most evident in the restaurant business where complaints about poor quality and poor service are solicited, expected, published, and in demand.  Feedback to restauranteurs is immediate and often harsh.  When was the last time you opened the newspaper to the section on “Cell Phone Service Reviews”…or  your city celebrated it’s local daycare assessor?  Restaurant Critics are celebrities. With feedback on restaurants front-and-center of their success or failure, you’d think that they’d protect their image and reputation on every front.  Poor service, abusive work environments, lousy food, shady accounting practices…all point to a culture of “poor character”.

One of the least obvious contributors to a poor reputation  is a restaurant’s relationship with their vendors.  Many restauranteurs blow it with their vendors.  In that group is the guy who sweats to bring the product in the back door to your coolers where he endures most of the abuse.  Napoleonic chefs often badger a vendor and/or belittle the driver.

For vendors making a sales calls, I often hear passive aggressive responses from chefs and managers: “I don’t have time to talk right now” or “hey lemme call you back” .  Some more direct abuse comes in the form of demanding that the vendor produce product at the restaurants doorstep…on a Sunday…when the warehouse is closed…when the vendor is with their family…and it’s the chef who doesn’t know how to forecast and order properly in the first place. Delivery drivers get it the worst: “What time is?  What does my watch say!  What time are you supposed to be here!  Say it!  Before 10 o’clock!  Why are you 1 hour late?  Take it all out of here and bring it back at 3pm…and have your boss call me!”

When the time comes to negotiate better pricing, guess who get’s the worst deal?  Guess who’ll get the worst delivery times available? Guess whose reputation as “difficult to work with” will be spread through their communities ? Guess who won’t get a tip about a star chef who is about to kick off a job search? Guess who won’t get baseball tickets for a Father’s Day game?  Guess who won’t get their hands on a super-allocated wine that everyone is buzzing about? Vendors are some of the most underutilized resources for making your business hum.

When sales reps call and asks for your time, give it to them. Not willy nilly, mind you, but schedule it.  Be honest about what you can do and why you don’t want their product if you indeed don’t want it.  Vendors and sales reps should be thanked for taking time to come and see you.  They’re motivated to sell you things and often bend over backwards to help your run your business.  A restauranteur’s goal should be for every sales rep and vendor who interacts with them to walk away saying the same thing about them as they want people to say about the restaurant.   If it is a cold call and you philosophically disagree with the products offered, have some $15 gift cards loaded and give them one after you explain why you’re not interested.  Goodwill, reputation and character cost very little but cannot be bought.  Gracious, polite hospitality in everything you do.  Sometimes restaurant managers and chefs are the LEAST hospitable folks in the business.  It’s criminal.

Take care of your delivery drivers!  Feed them.  Ask them about their families.  Establish a personal relationship with them.  If you have to send something back and they have to call their boss, stay with them and support them.  Maybe even call their boss yourself and kindly explain why the product is going back.  Help them get the product back on the truck.  Get them a Christmas Card and remember their birthday.  Invite them to the company party.  It is the norm to abuse the driver and snub the rep.  The point of differentiation that will help  any restaurant deliver better returns is it’s relationship with the people who keep the business supplied.

I live in Atlanta and two chef’s immediately come to mind as having stellar relationships with vendors.  I’ve met both of them and they may or may not remember me…but I remember both of them because of their reputations with the vendor community as being “kind, generous, friendly, approachable, a pleasure to do business with”…oh, and they’re two of the most celebrated chefs in Atlanta…Gary Mennie and Kevin Rathbun.  Some would argue that their reputation comes from their success.  I say their success comes from their reputation.  I met Gary back in 1990 when I was a line cook at the Ritz Carlton.  I’m not sure where he worked but we ended up meeting at McTighe’s  where we shot pool.  He was nice then and nice when Ford Fry and I met with him to see his wood burning grill in 2006 at Taurus.  I met Kevin Rathbun at Nava when he was working with Pano Karatossos and Buckhead Life and again at his own restaurant…doing the same thing…making sure everyone liked the food (he REALLY wants to know what you think like no chef I’ve ever met). My interaction with these two gentlemen is very limited but I can sing their praises because the vendor community sings their praises.  They have a reputation and I’m happy to dine in their restaurants, I’m happy to forgive them if I have a bad meal, and I’m happy to spend more to support them (I may get an extra glass of wine and/or save room for dessert!).

When I see poor behavior in a client’s business, I put down the manuals and spreadsheets and recipe books and systems … and have a heart to heart about their culture.  They can tell me whatever they want …but I look at the way they treat the guy with the hand truck.

Pre-Shift Meeting

Have you ever watched a new manager run a pre-shift meeting ? Probably not, unless you’re a restaurant manager.  A pre-shift meeting is when the manager sits/stands with their staff prior to a shift to explain the specials, determine whether any of the servers are drunk or high, inspect uniforms, and prepare them for their shift. Every NEW manager (new to their position, say, within the past 3 months) …from the server-turned-manager to the graduate from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration…without fail…without exception…blows their first shift meeting and has to back pedal for months to regain the staff’s trust.  Why? Because they’re new to the position and are scared…so they puff up and beat on the staff to show their stripes…”I outrank you…I’m the boss!”.    In their defense, servers can be a tough crowd.  They’re generally very intelligent and on their way somewhere else like law school or medical school …or just ’school’…so getting performance from them can be difficult because, as an occupation, they’re on their way to something better.  They eat soft managers for lunch.  (I wish more folk in this country would recognize Table Service as a fine career, but the truth is, the majority of those who occupy the position are not going to stay in one restaurant beyond a year and likely will exit the business within three years…despite incomes of $40k to $100k per year)

Shift Meetings are as valuable to your restaurant as any advertisement you can pay for…and they’re basically free…yet so many General Managers either don’t know how to run one or they don’t know how to teach their inexperienced managers how to run one.  Shift Meetings are a time to pump up your sales force… to educate them on food product…to celebrate their successes or kick off sales contests…yet without fail,  new managers slip into using them as the bully pulpit until they’re taught not to.  This isn’t a knock on young or inexperienced managers…it’s my belief that one isn’t necessarily born with an ability to lead others with their words…they may be charismatic, fun loving, natural leaders, but to inspire another person with words is learned through watching someone else inspire with their words.  Allowing managers to deliver shift meetings without validating that they will do it in a productive way is not just lazy,  it’s negligent.  So…new managers are off the hook…it’s the culture from the CEO through to the GM that fails.

“You people” is how they often begin…”I’m tired of everyone doing a half ass’d job on their sidework…you people need to sell dessert…we can’t stand for tardiness…from now on if you’re late you’ll get the bad section”. This one kills me…”How many of you like working with me when I’m happy?  How about when I’m angry?…”  How about not at all, you jerk. I quit.

A good shift meeting should be:

1. informative
2. educational
3. inspirational

…that’s it.  If you or your managers are using shift meetings to vent their frustrations on the staff and to “group reprimand” then it’s simply bad parenting and bad management.  Your sales force (your servers) will begin their shift daydreaming about moving on to another job where they won’t have to suffer more fools.  They’ll pick up the tempo at which they take liberties with your product (restaurant employees are entitled to your food…at least that’s how they see it…it isn’t stealing to them).  They won’t circulate or run food.  They won’t gladly de-gum the bottoms of tables unless forced to do it.  They’ll offer lackluster service to your Guests, steal your toilet paper, and torture your young manager in 15 different ways without them even knowing who is doing it.

You want your team to up-sell. You want them to build check averages.  Most of all, you want them providing your Guests with a memorable experience that will get them to come back again.  Group reprimands only break the relationship between teacher and student and they disengage your staff from a job you need them to do.  How can they trust you to help them when you just publicly beat them down and tell them they’re wrong…just for showing up to work?

I like to bring out a pile of herbs. Everyone likes to cook so ask them to tell you the difference between chervil and Italian parsley?  Can they identify sage or oregano or thyme or basil? What’s salsify?  I also like to taste wine with them as often as I can because it makes them comfortable with an “add on” purchase, not an “instead of” purchase. Everyone benefits from a high check average.  Teach them how to get it.  Educate them on the food they serve.  Hold a cooking class on the use of Roux vs. Arrowroot vs. Corn Starch or on the importance of brining pork loin for a day or so before cooking.  Use Shift Meetings to share a guest comment on a server or quiz them on product knowledge (with prizes for right answers…preferably money…no one is insulted by money but most can be insulted by a Jack Daniels umbrella). Bring your cooks out of the kitchen to participate in shift meetings so they can be appreciated for what they know and to build the team…let dialogs between a server’s curiosity and a cook’s depth of knowledge spontaneously occur. Pick out the server with the best looking uniform and praise it.  Give your service staff the know how and support they need to make your Guests, themselves, and you happy.  They should walk from your meeting energized and supported, not unlike the way the Lakers feel when they step on the court after a Phil Jackson pre-game meeting.

And when you do reprimand, make sure it is in private, it is with the individual (not the group), it includes specific examples, it is documented, it is without emotion, it seeks to understand before seeking to be understood, and it includes action steps to avoid recurrence.  Oh…and your young manager will love you for teaching them how to earn the staff’s respect and run a smooth shift.

I pulled this morsel from chef Graham Duncan’s blog "From the Kitchen: Graham Duncan" and couldn’t resist throwing in my two cents.

The “dine and whine” has become the new “dine and dash” except instead of sneaking out to avoid paying for a meal(which in some restaurants it becomes the obligation of the server to pay for the meal)patrons sit right there in the restaurant and tell the restaurant management to their face that they are going to walk right out of the there without paying for a damn thing and there is nothing the management can do about it. Every restaurant manager is very familiar with this scenario, the “take care of my check, or else”, or else I will tell my friends not to come here, or else I will tell your boss that you didn’t treat me like the special person I am, or else I will go home and write on my blog (some clientele, I have heard, even post negative reviews on Yelp with an iPhone, while they are still sitting at the table in the restaurant, complete with photos!)that this restaurant sucks because..(insert complaint here) i.e. cold food, ditzy server, loud table next next to yours, the busboy didn’t smile at me, the hostess did not know my name, etc., etc.

Or for the cowardly that want to play this game, they go home and write a negative review of the restaurant on Yelp.com (and pretend that they are a real restaurant critic) and they will invariably, if the restaurant wants to stay competitive, be invited back “on the house” and get their butt kissed in the process. Either that or the restaurant can pay yelp to cover up negative reviews, which could be considered mildly unethical, at best. I have experienced, in my time in restaurant management, complaining patrons get their meals comped(paid for) and an invitation to return gratis, bring in six of their friends and drink top shelf drinks and eat lobster tails and steak on the restaurants dime.

I LOVE Graham’s topic! I was horrified when I first saw how blogging became the free needle and syringe for injecting  personal opinion into the bloodstream of public opinion.  Paid restaurant critics were feared enough (think Antono Ego from Ratatouille) but now every hack, wanna-be critic has a forum with equal credibility via the web.  Yikes!…and Ouch!  How can we stop them from ruining our reputations/careers/livilihoods?  Then I took a deep breath and gave it some thought…if anyone and everyone can do it, is anyone listening to them? If so, who gets listened to?

"Honest, instant information" is supposed to be the mantra of the information age…yet it isn’t so honest…it’s just quick and voluminous.   The more there is, the more it mimics society…where’d we ever get the idea that  it has to be honest?  If 30% of our society is dishonest and self serving then 30% of all blogs/reviews/rants are dishonest and self serving.  We should trust our customers to filter the data like they filter every decision they make every day.  One complaint about raw chicken in a sea of compliments on the same chicken dish will be mentally kicked out by the consumer.  However, multiple complaints about raw chicken means you have something to fix in your restaurant…and you’d better do it fast.  This is brilliant stuff!

Google is wrestling with "data manipulation" now.  They’re freakishly protective of their algorithms to sort out which websites are relevant to the search topic and which are not.  Even so, marketers, paid advertisers, and website developer hacks (read "me") have done remarkably well to stay hot on their heels…so Google abandoned "keywords" as a means to determine content value.  Computers are "rule based" and the schemers (marketers/advertisers/etc.) just figure out ways to break the rules.  Truly all that Google…and the rest of us…want is good content . No cheating.  Give us the good stuff and we’ll decide for ourselves.  Google’s efforts give us reliable, objective searches for what we are looking for and we reward them for it by making them the search engine of choice.  Natural selection.

We should trust our customers to sort through the data and separate objective criticism from whining or freebie hunting. Managers should take complaints seriously but pay special attention to those that are communicated directly to the store…to a person not a computer.  All phone calls should be investigated carefully, and I believe, handled quickly, erring on the side of the guest when uncertain what to do.  Face it, American restaurants represent a unique retail phenomenon… consume the product, say you don’t like it, get it for free, and maybe get even more on top of that for free!  Try that at Best Buy.  Ahhh but what are we selling in restaurants? A widget? A cut of meat? Nope.  It’s an experience.  It’s about warm fuzzies and if people don’t get warm fuzzies when they dine in our restaurants, they complain.

Complaining about food in restaurants is a favorite past time because we all want to be schmoozed.  Give it to them.  All interpersonal interaction should be appreciated for what it is…a guest who has taken time to share their experience with us in a constructive way…in a way that allows us solve the issue and demonstrate true hospitality.  Go overboard to protect this guest and give them the lovin they crave.   They’re the ones who likely have a real complaint.  The blogs and Twits and Yelps should all be gathered and used.  It’s great data!…but should be filtered for repetition so we can act on real patterns and resolve real issues.  Don’t, however, waste your time reaching out to professional whiners…it’s too late and you’ll likely never make them happy.  Graham has done an excellent job identifying who they are…they don’t confront in person…they do so from behind a computer keyboard.

Not all electronic reviewers are whiners but all generally have a history… an account on Yelp or other traceable depositories for their rants.  If their post looks legit (ie - there are other comments like it and/or they don’t have a record of whining), post a comment back to them, thanking them for their opinion and vowing to investigate and resolve the issue so it never happens again.  Your street cred, as a restaurant, will have a very good chance of skyrocketing by showing you care.  If their collection of reviews exposes them as a whiner, ignore them.  Chances are, the consumer’s Bulls–t detectors are working just fine.

You’ll waste too much time and money chasing whiners when you could use that time to make yourself available to your staff and your customers so the issues don’t happen in the first place.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a planning meeting at a major corporation.  They were rolling out a new training program and were already encountering big problems with the system.  The team leader outlined the issues, asked for suggestions, received very few and the meeting ended with no resolutions.  Later  in the day I heard almost everyone who attended that meeting talking about the problems with the system and many had great ideas.  I wondered why no one had voiced their ideas in the meeting so I just kept listening.  I kept hearing more great ideas, but I also heard a lot of fear.   There was fear of not being heard, of being shot down, of receiving blame and of insulting the team leader.  It became obvious to me that the root of the problem was lack of trust.
“Trust” is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone.  In my mind trust means you work for a good person.  Someone who is honest, has no hidden agenda, respects his reports and has their back in hard times.  An environment of trust encourages the expression of opinions, feelings, and doubts.  Trust allows for the sharing of important information and ideas and fosters enthusiasm.  Trust builds strength.
However people don’t automatically trust.  A good leader has to earn trust and build confidence.  There are a few simple things a leader can do to build trust.  The hard part is that you have to live them consistently every day.  They have to be so deeply ingrained within you that they are actions as important to your survival as breathing.   I find many leaders are unwilling to commit to the following way of life.
1)     Know Your People:  Relationships are the key to most successes.  A good leader knows his people both personally and professionally.  That means he knows how many children they have and at the same time knows they can manage a profit and loss statement better than anyone in the building. Knowing them personally proves that you care.  Knowing them professionally allows you to assign tasks according to their strengths.  That way everyone on the team is a winner.
2)    Communicate, Communicate, Communicate:  Communication begins with listening.    Everyone needs to feel that they are being heard or they stop talking.  Listening helps you to understand what motivates people.  And when all have been heard then it is your turn to talk. Be explicit and direct, never leave anything to assumption.  Let people know where you stand but also let them know why you stand there.  This is their turn to understand what is important to you.  Good communication builds a common vision and a clear path to that goal.
3)    Do What You Say You Are Going To Do:  Many leaders lie to their people every day and don’t even know it.  I call this “Loose Jaw Syndrome.”  It is so easy in the rapid pace of our day to promise things without even realizing it.  “Sure I can adjust your clock out time for yesterday.”  “I will get that insurance signup information to you this afternoon.”  “I would be happy to call your best friend in for an interview.”  All of these are simple promises but they come out of that “loose jaw” without the mind engaging.  They are low on our priority list but important to our people.  In these simple statements you have made commitments to your people that require immediate action.  If you don’t deliver you lose trust.  Instead you need to listen (there’s that word again) more carefully and only promise what you can deliver in the expected time.  If you can’t deliver explain why.
4)    Give Small Gifts:  The greatest gift you can give to your staff is the Sharing of Credit for successes.  You never do it all on your own, make sure everyone knows who played a part and what they did.  People are motivated by recognition. Allow them to go home every day proud of what they have accomplished.  Credit is an easy gift to give but there are many more.  How about honoring schedule requests, or cutting someone early when you overhear that they need to get out early?  Small gifts may be the easiest part of building trust and could have the largest impact in the smallest amount of time.
5)    Be Seen Working:  You have heard it a million times.  “Never ask your staff to do anything you wouldn’t do.”  I do not believe that statement to be 100% percent true. I ask my people all the time to do things I wouldn’t do because they can do it so much better.  But I will step into the dish pit when it gets backed up and run through some racks or carry trays of food up a flight of stairs to make sure it is delivered to a banquet fast and hot.  Being a worker is just being part of the team.  It gives you insight you can never gain standing on the sidelines and it lets your people know that you can help if they need you.
6)    Admit When You Are Wrong:  There is something comforting and refreshing about working for someone who is Human.  We all make mistakes, we all learn from those mistakes.  There is nothing wrong with sharing that with your staff.  They respect you for your honesty and they also learn to avoid that same wrong road.
7)    Don’t Believe Your Own Hype:  The worst thing a leader can do is think that he received the position because he knows everything.  It is true you wouldn’t be “the guy” if you weren’t pretty good at what you do, but a little humility goes a long way.  Be seen as confident and in charge, your people need that security.  They need to know that there is a decision maker in the building.  They also need to know those decision are based on sound advice from a knowledgeable source and that source is not always your own head.

If you are really committed to building a team that shares ideas and gets results show them they are important and work every day to earn and maintain their trust.  It is an environment that is contagious.  You will see your staff operating the same way with their peers and their subordinates. Most importantly problems will get solved in daily interactions and solutions will not drift away as they are grumbled into dead air.

There isn’t much better than a big fat pastrami sandwich. I’m talking about the 16 ouncers…you know…the 7th Avenue crowd in New York…Carnegie or Stage or Katz.  Far too often, especially in chains like Jason’s or Schlotzky’s or Wall St., you get the sense that someone is putting the meat on a scale.  There’s no “Look at THAT!  I DARE you to try to finish it!” like at the places that have a reputation.  If you’re a Deli and you don’t serve an enormous Pastrami sandwich, are you really a Deli? (that’s rhetorical, thank you).

A few years ago I used to watch a show on TLC called “Junkyard Wars”… a little geeky, but I learned a valuable “rule of thumb” from it (it has since been pulled but you might be able to catch some in BBC syndication…it wasn’t that great of a show so don’t worry about it…just listen up).  In the show, two teams were asked to build motorized vehicles to perform some task defined at the beginning of the show using whatever junk they could find from around a junkyard.  The vehicles could be boats, planes, motorcycles, ATV’s, or trucks.  Regardless, the game was the same. “You build yours, I build mine, then we race them”.  The show went off the air, I believe, because the story line was too predictable: Whomever had the best power to weight ratio ALWAYS won.  A Honda CR 125 dirt bike generates probably 25 horsepower. A 1967 Mustang GT (Eleanor from “Gone in 60 Seconds”…sorry…had free Direct TV preview from Starz this weekend) has, probably, 400 horsepower.  In a 1/4 mile sprint the dirt bike will smoke the Mustang every time.  The significantly lower horsepower in the bike is more than offset by the significantly higher weight of the Mustang (250lbs vs 4000lbs).   For a restaurant, determining the right “power to weight” ratio is not always easy.  A hot dog stand is akin to a motorcycle…low overhead (weight), high profit margin percent…but not much in gross profit dollars (power).  A large Market & Bakery generates incredible retail sales (often $1000 per square foot) but it is labor intensive and the profit margin is low.

It isn’t so easy to identify which combination of seating capacity, through put, profit margin, and production complexity will win the race but you can level the field in a big hurry if you stick with one altruism:

“Occupancy Costs as a percentage of Sales < = 6%”.

This one is probably my favorite “rules of thumb” because the startup process generally leads with an idea for a concept followed by an emotional site selection process.  “I’ve always wanted to put a restaurant here!” or “Look at the traffic! It’s a sure hit.”  Hey look…you can find out the cost per square foot pretty easily. Brokers and Landlords aren’t shy about it don’t keep it a secret.   Bake in the CAM (common area maintenance),  multiply it by the number of square feet and voila!…there’s your annual Occupancy Cost.  Divide it by 6% and bang…you had better be able to meet or exceed those sales numbers or you have the wrong place.  Don’t violate this or you’ll be in for trouble. Pizza place, sandwich shop, steak house, dinner-only fine dining, bagel shop…don’t care.  If you can’t do the sales, look elsewhere.

Here’s an example.  The Landlord is offering a 5000 sq ft end cap unit for $28 sq. ft. with $4 CAM.  Occupancy Costs = $160,000.  You had better be able to deliver $2,666,667 in top line sales or you’re at a disadvantage.  Why?  Because I said so.  Because this number works.  Because that bit above about “it’s hard to get the right power to weight ratio” is not hard when you’ve opened enough restaurants and been through enough closings to know.  It gives you breathing room.  It allows you some room to fiddle with your consumer value proposition so your guests don’t feel pinched every time avocados or tomatoes or lettuce or beef prices get jiggy and you feel compelled to goose prices or pull an ounce of meat off your sandwiches.  Screw around with the value proposition and you’ll lift your head from your computer one day to find that Fred (the bar regular who likes Makers Mark Manhattans, perfect, up) and Julie (the lady who always takes two cannoli’s home for her daughters) and Richard (the guy who thinks “medium rare” is “warm pink center”) and that-cute-little-old-couple (that come every Tuesday at 5:15 and request table 42 with the Ocean View) have stopped coming in.  Too late.  You’re screwed.  Get the rent right on the front end, because the back end isn’t pretty.

I’m always amused when I hear of would-be-restauranteurs looking for locations but they can hardly articulate their concept. “It’s gonna be great!  I’ve got a great recipe for ribs and BBQ pork butt that will knock your socks off!…seats? prime costs? direct expenses? debt repayment? operating capital? construction contingencies? tenant improvements? FF&E? I’ll figure it out after I get the location”.  Are they mad?  They skip the financial profit structure…the part where the ‘power to weight ratio’ is defined through knowing what kind of check averages the market will voluntarily bear and what kind of costs are associated with hanging that shingle on the door.

If you’re a restaurant broker or are in commercial real estate and you have a potential buyer on the hook that never calculates their rent as a percentage of expected sales, then you have a future failure on your hands.  They haven’t a clue. They’re the restauranteurs who make menu choices based on something their mother-in-law saw on TV or they choose equipment without having a menu defined (um…you bought a 72 inch griddle but use it only for toasting hamburger buns?..oh!  but you got a great deal on it…I see).  If you’re a landlord, you don’t want to talk to this guy because you’ll only get your rent through litigation which hangs on the strength of your prenup.  Move on.  Decline future meetings.  Run! If you’re selling the property, double the price…you might get it.

If you want to open a restaurant, define your geography “box” (the 25 square mile area where you hope to find a location), then develop your concept FULLY …including financials…no, ESPECIALLY financials.  THEN look for the space.  As the variables pour in while on your search for the perfect location, you’ll amend your model to suit the area and amend your area to suit your model.  It’s an organic process but the rule of thumb that gives you your best shot at opening a successful restaurant is simple: Occupancy Costs <= 6% of Net Sales.  When you’re not under pressure to hit a 28% Food Cost, you can make better decisions for your customers…decisions that increase guest count not ones that focus on squeezing profitability through marginalizing quality.  When a restaurant gives me 16 oz of Pastrami on my sandwich for the same price that the guy down the street gets for half the meat, I’m thrilled…because I know the owner is in control of their overhead and is making decisions to keep me coming back.