I visited a new place in town the other night with my dear wife. I like going to new places (who doesn’t), seeing what’s happening in town, watching the different approaches to the same old business. I love this most of all My favorite part of going into a new restaurant has to be the…
Category: Portland Restaurants
Teamwork
Unfortunately, there are many restaurant servers who forget that there is no ‘I’ in team. So often they are focused only on their own section, apparently unable to see anything else. Almost like a horse with blinders, they just plow ahead. I don’t mean to pick on just servers, I was one for many years…
Preset
I have talked before about the importance of mise en place for the front of the house. This definitely falls under that category. Whether you own a fine dining establishment, or just a local neighborhood joint, pre-setting of silverware and other things is still very important. It actually makes the whole experience better for the…
The Greeting
We have all had that experience where you walk into a place and no one greets you. They are all too busy. It feels like you entered a saloon in the old west. Everyone looks at you, but no one says hello. The waiters are running around frantically tracking down appropriate glassware for the wine…
Make it Nice Every Time
Why not? I never really understood anything but. Is it really so much more important to be cool than to be nice? I understand that some customers can be quite difficult, but shouldn’t we at least start out under the assumption that everyone is decent, and therefore deserve the very best we have to offer?…
Work Ethic
Because of my resposibilities here at the culinary school, I am often asked to speak to students who are about to leave the nest and go out into the real world. I find myself returning to this same theme over and over again. I see this all the time in this business: Those who work…
The Customer Has a Responsibility, Too
Ok. I have been harsh on the service thing for quite sometime, and I think it is finally time to broach this subject. I now want to be harsh on that customer who thinks they know evertything, or at least that they think they are always right. Or even worse yet, the customer who is absolutely…
To-Go Boxes
My daughter participated in a Lego Robotics championship a few years back in Atlanta. (Ok, they won). It was the international tounament and the whole family got to go with her team on the trip. At one of the restaurants that we dined at, my daughter approached an employee and asked where she could find the…
How About a Best Service Shout Out?
Every year we get the pleasure of reading about all of the ‘best’ restaurants in town. The Oregonian and Willamette Week bless us with their ideas of which restaurants really stand out for one reason or another. I am not here to judge their results, or the qualifications of those doing the judging (sounds like I…
Hints that the Customer Might Need Something
I have mentioned before that customers who leave unhappy will end up telling a lot of people (ultimately over a thousand with social media). If you can catch them before they go out the door, you can save about 83% of those–a substantial number. You can’t save the 83% of unhappy customers, however, if you…
Get Them to Come Back
The more I talk about this to my students, the more I meet with consulting clients, the more I think back on my restaurant experiences–both as an employee and as a customer–the more I realize that this is really all it is about. Getting them to come back. Absolutely right. It is not how much restaurants…
Tip vs. Service Charge
This post is for all of those customers out there who think that they are taking care of their waiter when they see that a service charge has been added to the bill. There is a trend currently of restaurants adding service charges to the check. The restaurants generallly are being up-front about it, no surprises for…
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