The Demand

Before your next shift, run the Five Tests this article gives you against your own thinking about your Guests. Name one Guest you currently think of primarily in terms of frequency or spend, and ask honestly whether you would still call them family if they disappeared for six months. Decide this week to name, out loud to your team, one place where [The Regular] language has been standing in for real relationship in your building — and correct the language.

The Work

The Five Tests — answer each honestly:

When you describe a Guest as important, what comes first — what they do for the business, or what you are to each other:

On a slammed night, who do you instinctively stretch for, and is it based on frequency and spend or on relationship:

If this Guest disappeared for six months, would you still think of them as family:

How do you talk about Guests when they are not in the room — could you swap their name for a revenue metric and the sentence still make sense:

Has a Guest relationship in your building become primarily about money — have you named that as Road 1 yet:

Extended versus immediate family:

Name a Guest who is extended family right now — less shared history, still fully Guest:

Name a Guest who is immediate family — deep shared life in both directions:

What would move the extended-family Guest closer to immediate, and what will you do about it this week:

The place in your operation where [The Regular] thinking — sorting by economic utility and calling it hospitality — is currently running, and what you will call it instead starting tomorrow: