March 2011 Blog Posts (54)

Restaurants record when reservations are made, but rarely have an ability to see when customers want to make reservations. Many…

Anyone who has been reading my blogs knows that I have spent decades in the restaurant business.  I’ve worked for three national chains, all in different segments. I’ve eaten at almost everyone of these brands’ competitors; until I literally felt like throwing up.  I once spent a week visiting restaurants between the hours of 11pm…

Restaurant Service Consulting, by definition, is a review or evaluation of the restaurant dining room service system. This means, "how the dining room runs" which includes all of the service tools provided (or to be provided) by the management.

These tools include readable floor diagrams, seating coordination, menu descriptions, properly done staff schedules, sidework postings and a whole host of other things.

 

There are two main aspects to the Restaurant Service Consulting…

No one lives in the ideal world; no one's naive. Stuff happens and so does poaching. It's an unfortunate fact of our business lives. 

Poaching is also arguably (especially with a deeply financed, human-resourced national company entering the market) the default position of the less than reputable, less than imaginative, less than skilled (in talent development) among us. Do the work...

Poaching is just plain bad manners and lacking in loyalty, particularly if you've been…

For many years, restaurateurs have checked out the competition and no one so much as commented on those activities. Chains coming into a new market would routinely have managerial personnel visit existing operations, observe the service, and sometimes make offers to particularly talented servers/bartenders/etc.

This happened recently in Boston, where national chains in the past often found it difficult to open new units. Today, with a number of real estate opportunities, we've…

  It's been about 4 months since I last posted and the absence has been a planned one, albeit a bit longer than I anticipated.

  For those of you who've followed me for a while you'll remember that my personal and professional story had been reflected in the daily headlines as the recession affected millions of people, myself included.

  For those of you who haven't followed me, my recent history was as challenging as it was…

There’s good news and bad news regarding the prospects for an economic recovery. This should not be a surprise, especially since the news has to do with the findings of economists, perhaps the only subspecies of humans needing a third hand to settle arguments.  (You know the old joke: arguments which often include the phrases 'on the one hand...' and 'On the other hand.....’).…

This weekend as the media and music savvy minds gathered in Austin Texas for the South By Southwest Conference to marvel at the advancements we have made with our technical evolution, Mother Nature gave us a reminder of who is really in charge of this planet and how frail we are as humans.



For all our…

Checking in at SXSW in was nearly a full-time job. This being my first time I was a bit overwhelmed. If you don't know, SXSW means South-By-South-West, a conference held annually for the past 25 years in Austin, Texas. It started out as a music festival and now, more than 125,000 people attend during its 10 days. This place is nuts. It's where Interactive, film and music intersect. Tech executives, geeks, musicians and movie stars collide with movie buffs, authors, fans,…

Sunday was the second week of America's Next Great Restaurant. The NBC restaurant reality TV show will pick a winning fast-casual concept to open in three American cities this summer - in Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis.

The idea behind the show intrigued me more than…

Georgetown Baglery was named Washington, DC’s Best Bagel in 2011 according to the Washington City Paper and the results of its annual Reader Poll.

We attribute the Bagelry’s success to putting customers first when making decisions for menu items, ordering experience, physical…