• What kind of metal? Forged or folded?
• What’s the best ratio of high carbon steel to stainless steel?
• What kind of tang (the part of the blade that extends into the handle) does it have…full or half or is it a rod covered in plastic?
• Should the heel be flush with the blade or steeply taper out to give you an effective bone cutter (or can opener)?
• Should the edge be serrated or straight…or curved?
• Should the side of the blade sport dimples (for releasing/preventing wet food from sticking to the side of the blade as you cut) or should it be flat?
• Should the blade be flexible or rigid?
• Should the tip be pointed like a “V” or should it be more blunt, providing more uniform blade-edge surface area at the front?

All great questions and they mostly center around “whatcha gonna use it for?” I’ve never met anyone, for example, who lists the meat cleaver as their “favorite knife” but try to cut through bones with a paring knife and you’ll wish you had one.

Asking a chef to choose one knife is like asking a golfer to pick one club to use for driving, chipping and putting…or asking a carpenter to choose one tool that is best for cutting, measuring and drilling. However, if you let a golfer choose 3 clubs or a carpenter choose 3 tools, it gets a lot easier for them.

So here are my 3 favorites …and why.

8” Chef’s Knife – it’s the right size for most big jobs (don’t waste $150+ on a great big 12” chef’s Knife just so you can cut through a Tombstone Pizza…get a decent $15 wheel cutter for that). For handle, heel, steel and feel (sorry…couldn’t help it), I like the MAC MTH-80 Mighty Chef 8” with Dimples. The steel is hard so it holds its edge very well but be careful not to chuck it into your knife drawer or it might chip the blade. Japanese knives can be a little brittle compared to German knives, which are more like Ford F-150’s than Ferrari’s. Go Japanese for your chef’s knife. Once you cut with a sharp Japanese style chef’s knife, you’ll throw away your collection of “As Seen on TV!” and Pampered Chef knives. You might even toss out your Henckels…or give them to a neighbor. Oh…and this particular knife has “dimples”. They make it lighter and help to keep food from suctioning to the side of the blade (I’ve cut myself more dang times trying to slide vegetables or meat off the side of a sharp knife…)

6” Utility Knife – this isn’t a boning knife (not really flexible) nor is it a paring knife (about 3 inches longer) but it can take on most tasks of both. I like this knife to be Japanese too because I have no patience for sharpening German knives. I like thin blades that are razor sharp…and stay that way. If you’re de-boning a chicken, this knife will do a nice job. It’s also great for peeling fruit and trimming sinew from a pork loin. I use a SHUN Classic 6”.

8” Serrated Bread Knife – this one is good for much more than bread. In fact, it’s often the first knife I grab. It doesn’t need to be sharpened, which is a plus, and I just get rid of them when the “teeth” wear down too much. They’re great for trimming rind off of melons, cleaning peppers, slicing tomatoes or cutting through a wrapped sandwich without leaving bits of paper in the cut…not to mention they do a great job with bread. I also use it to slice slender cuts of meat like beef/pork tenderloin or stuffed chicken breasts. Even though it’s called a “bread” knife, I use it as my true utility knife. Generally the Germans are the only ones making good bread knives and you need that hearty, thicker steel so you’re not burning through knives. Besides, I’ve never seen a thinner/harder steel version from the Japanese. I like the Wustof 8” Classic IKON Bread Knife.

Buying great knives won’t make you a chef. You have to know how to use them. Futz around with a whole chicken using a dull knife or the wrong knife and you’re bound to wind up in the emergency room getting stitched up. Chop chives with your Chef Knife instead of slicing through them and your razor-sharp prize will become as dull as a butter knife (ever hear someone “whack-whack-whack-whack-whacking” through a case of mushrooms, showing off how fast they can chop…whadaya think is happening to your edge as it strikes the cutting board over and over?). Use your 6” utility knife to cut through that confounding plastic packaging that entombs your daughter’s new Barbie and you’ll wonder why you threw out your “Laser” knives from COSTCO. Buy three smart knives, protect your investment and use them correctly.

Ray Camillo is a restaurant consultant for Blue Orb Restaurant Advisory

What is lunch? Whether working in a garage, on Wall St. or in an operating room, we need fuel when we’re away from the nest. Around, oh say 11:30, we want something fast, easy to eat, cheap, and most of all, tasty. Since I can remember, the usual hand-to-maw fare has been burgers, pizza, bar-b-que, fried chicken, or traditional deli sandwiches. “Saying” we want something new and actually “Seeking/eating” something new are two different things. As Millennials take the gastronomic-direction-setting mantle from Gen X they seem almost completely unfamiliar with the family meal. They’re barely familiar with raw ingredient shopping (I’d say “grocery shopping” but today that means visiting a place where prepared foods outnumber raw ingredients) let alone with the notion that the shopping expedition itself wasn’t the end of the hunt/gather process…ya still gotta turn groceries into a meal. The burgeoning lunch business has crossed into dinner territory.

Cheaper, “all-day” menus are quickly replacing dinner. It has long been accepted that lunch is for your hands, dinner goes on a plate but former latchkey-kids-turned-adults and the new laptop kids are asking, “why do I need a plate?“ Eating lunch is not really an interruption. When professional image is more about one’s avatar and alias than about clothing, hygiene, and outward appearance, dining becomes about fueling up. However, it is NOT about filling the gullet. Today, perhaps moreso than ever, we watch what we put in our bodies and we want it to be tasty, fast AND cheap….AND good for you. This forces us to look beyond the burger and the pizza. We’re in luck, however, as burritos, tacos, falafel, gyros, kabobs, and empanadas are giving burgers and pizza a run for the money, forcing them to get better. Good for us right? Places like Five Guys, and Chipotle have become household names and the mom and pop startup lunch shack is back.

“Hand-food” exists in every culture – essentially some sort of flour or grain based product, mixed with water, baked/fried and filled with meat or meat substitute (pizza is really just an open faced sandwich built on raw dough and all cooked together, if you think about it). Taking a step back it’s easy to see why street vendors have become so popular – every culture has their version of the “sandwich”…portable food. For some reason we think this is an American phenomenon because we’re oh so on-the-go and so important to the spinning of the globe. Notsomuch. The world gets hungry three or four or five times a day, whether folks are reinventing the world or watching TV. Some parts of the day are supported by cultural/tribal rituals where perhaps Mrs. Cleaver (or her cultural equivalent) create large meals to feed the family…but that’s traditionally been only one (maybe two) meals per day. What about the others? At some point someone slapped some leftovers in some bread/tortilla/flatbread and so they could wolf it down because mom was punched out for that shift and they inadvertently created the sandwich. There seems to be no end in sight for the sandwich. In fact, if you walk into a Five Guys or Chipotle or a Taqueria at 7pm (when mom is supposed to be making your dinner), you’ll likely wait in a line to get your hand-food…for dinner. As we get used to the idea that there is more to a quick meal than burgers and pizza, the rate at which Americans mainstream the hand-food from other cultures will increase. Ubiquitous taquerias are old hat and Indian curry stands, Chinese steam bun shacks, Ukrainian Bikti joints and Alcapulcan Empanada/Tamale joints are likely to garner more attention today than they would have twenty years ago. Chipotle helped us embrace the Burrito as more than something we eat when we go out for “Mexican”. Starbuck’s helped us embrace the two-dollar cup of coffee, raising the bar on our expectations and making it possible for the local coffee shop to get in the game. So what about burgers and pizza? Sure, they’ll always be there and every time a new culture’s sandwich is introduced to our culture, someone else will re-invent the burger and the pizza. They’ll likely remain the kings of hand-food in our country but we have a long way to go before we stop discovering great hand-food from around the world. The “meat and three” no longer defines what we eat after 5pm and the Sandwich is more than a quick bite to eat at midday. It’s becoming what we eat, period.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.