This was written in 2017 when restaurant wages were rising at nearly 5% year over year, double the rate of menu price increases. The argument then was that operators who believed their existing business model would “work itself out” were making an expensive mistake. They were. Labor costs in hospitality have risen more than 20% […]
The operators who build sustainable success are not doing more. They are focused on different things than the operators who are struggling. Six specifically. They focus on the Guest Experience above everything else. Most of the work that fills a shift has nothing to do with the Guest. Reports, policy mandates, cleaning schedules, process management, […]
A colleague asked this question in a forum years ago. The answer has not changed. Yes. Restaurant marketing is broken. Not because the tools do not work. Because the thinking behind how most operators use them is wrong at the foundation. Here is what is actually broken: The assumption that retail strategies work for hospitality. […]
Every service failure is the direct result of a process breakdown. If not a broken process, then the absence of a process where one should have existed. The server did not screw up the order. The process that was supposed to prevent the screwed-up order was not in place, not trained to, or not held […]
The Product Is Not The Food Operators in the hospitality business have a blind spot so common it has become an industry assumption: the product is what is on the plate. It is not. The food is the delivery mechanism. The product is the experience — the event in the day-to-day life of the Guest […]
Some people argue that talent is overrated. The evidence across every industry suggests otherwise — and the multiplier is not what most people expect. The best developer at Apple is at least nine times as productive as the average software engineer at other technology companies. The best blackjack dealer at Caesars Palace keeps his table […]
You have heard it for years: hire for values, train for skills. Here is what it actually means in practice and why most operators get it wrong. You need cast members who can perform and who share your values. Both. Not one or the other. The server who can sell the menu brilliantly but is […]
Most operators would answer yes if you asked whether they are working to improve their Guest Experience. The dishwasher, the server, the cook, the manager on duty — every one of them would claim they are contributing to a better Guest Experience. And they might be. But individual effort is not a Guest Experience program. […]
First and most important: you do not define it. The Guest does. The Guest Experience is how a Guest thinks of you after considering every interaction they have ever had with you — from the moment they first became aware of your operation to every visit, every meal, every interaction with your cast, every review […]
For years I heard gurus tell operators to think outside the box. I resisted it. Not because outside the box thinking is wrong. Because I kept looking at the businesses around me and seeing that nobody had exhausted their inside the box thinking first. How do you move beyond something that is not even working? […]
Most operators, consultants, and industry associations use the words interchangeably. They are not interchangeable. Confusing them is one of the most expensive mistakes in the business. Two questions. Only two. And they have to be answered in order. What kind of business do you want to be? How will you become it? The first question […]
Spend time in any industry forum or blog where front-line cast members talk to each other and you will quickly see the gap between how they think about the work and how the operator needs them to think about it. It is not a gap in effort. Most front-line cast members are working hard. It […]
The performance/values matrix tells you who the cast member is. The engagement matrix tells you where they are right now — and what the leader needs to do about it. Two axes. Business success contribution on the vertical. Individual satisfaction and success on the horizontal. Where a cast member falls on those two axes determines […]
Every budget conversation in hospitality should start with one question: is every single line item in this budget Guest-focused? Not customer-focused. Not revenue-focused. Not cost-focused. Guest-focused. Does every goal for the front of house and the back of house connect back to the Guest Experience? Does every pre-shift meeting, every line check, every vendor conversation, […]
Teamwork has become a marketing term or art. It sells books, training programs, workshops, and consulting engagements. It appears in company values statements and pre-shift speeches. It is invoked whenever a leader wants to inspire collective effort without doing the harder work of building the conditions that actually produce it. Most of what gets called […]
After four decades of hiring, developing, and coaching thousands of cast members, I have learned to look for specific behaviors that separate the remarkable ones from the merely competent. Not credentials. Not experience. Behaviors. Here is what A Players actually do. They go beyond service to produce hospitality. The steps of service are not enough […]
QFO: “I’d like my business to provide great customer service, but staffers don’t seem to grasp the concept. Can it be taught?” Danny Meyer offered this answer: “The most important thing you can do is make the distinction between customer service and guest hospitality. Customer service entails getting the right food to the right person […]
QFO: “Since most loyalty programs involve some sort of comp (discount) what do you propose instead as the incentive?” Answer: Whatever the Guest actually wants — except your margin. The assumption embedded in the question is that the incentive has to be financial. That Guests are loyal because of what they save. That the relationship […]
You do not. That is the entire answer. And it is the answer most operators have never accepted because it removes the comfortable illusion that the right training program, the right incentive structure, the right motivational speech will produce a cast that cares about the work. It will not. You cannot make people care about […]
Most operators who lose Guests do not lose them dramatically. There is no scene. No complaint. No scathing review. The Guest simply stops coming back — and the operator never finds out why because the Guest never told them. Here is what they experienced on the way out. The server who wrote nothing down. The […]