Plan of Attack - Designing the Shift

"Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

- Sun Tzu ("Art of War")

“If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” This would be another great quote for this area. Too many people restaurant work is a simple concept. And, well, in a lot of ways it can be. But, this is usually by those that have done it long enough that they can make it look easy – much like anything else. However, for the others out there they get caught up in the “concept” of a restaurant and not the actual concept of their restaurant. Now, what I mean by this is they think they just need to open the doors and people come in, you feed them, they leave, you clean up, and then you lather, rinse, and repeat. And, well, in a lot of ways that’s exactly what we are doing. However, even though the name of the game isn’t rocket science it doesn’t mean that there’s not a little bit of science involved. You can pretty much sum up the job of an owner or a manager into two main groups (and the best I can tell this isn’t just for restaurants this is for any business): 1) to get people in the front door and to instill a desire for them to want your services again, and 2) to maximize the profits of each of these guests that enter the building by upselling and minimizing costs. Now, how can you do either of those two things if you don’t have some form of plan?

One of the first things that should be addressed when talking about the plan is scheduling. After all, how could you possibly achieve either of those two things mentioned above without having some form of schedule? Scheduling is more than just filling in squares on a board and filling spaces with a body. I’ve seen this kind of place that just throws some bodies on the schedule just to say they’ve done it and, well, I just don’t see those places around anymore. Scheduling is the first step in building your plan. And, without doing it right and accurately could not only cost you guests but could cost you whatever profits are coming in. Now, with that being said it would be impossible for me to cover every possible scheduling requirement out there for every possible restaurant (this is similar to hiring needs mentioned earlier). However, I can still go over some universal truths that are good whether you’re writing a front-of-the-house schedule, a prep schedule, a back-of-the-house schedule or even a manager schedule.

Know your audience! This is the first step. It seems like the simplest, and in many ways it is and, yet, at the same time it is complex. Know your audience begins with your guests. It has too! Think about it. How could you possibly write a schedule for your staff if you don’t know what your guests want? When are you the busiest? When are you the slowest? Are there events near you that will draw a crowd? If so, what kind of crowd will it be? Do you have banquets or parties planned? Do you have catering functions? All of these (and more) are concepts that you should be thinking about before you even think about writing your schedule. And, in some method or another they should be noted to remind you when writing but to also alert your staff that is working of what to expect!

Think about the last part of that last sentence, “to also alert your staff that is working of what to expect!” You can’t possibly talk about teamwork and camaraderie if you keep information that will be directly affecting your staff. And, you want them to be prepared, as well.

So, once you know when the busy times are going to be, what events you have going on around your establishment, and what events you may have going on at your facility, it is now time to start making your schedule. It is a good idea to always work on your schedules to a point that you are twice as far ahead as the time it takes to train staff members. For example, if you can typically train a staff member in about a week, then you should have your schedule written two weeks ahead of time, at minimum. This gives you enough time to know if you need individuals, to interview candidates, hire them and get them trained before you would actually need them. Once again, when writing your schedules always have them written ahead at least twice the time frame as your training. The further you are ahead the more time you will have to make modifications to your schedule to be better prepared for upcoming events / shifts. You want to be proactive and not reactive!

You now have a schedule format that should have a list of what kind of events are going on around or at your facility. You should be aware of what your peak times are and what your slow times are. Now most schedules are written in fairly similar formats. You will have the days / times that you are open at the top of the schedule and you will have the staff members names listed down the side of the schedule. I typically will add to this by blocking out the times that staff members are not available to work and which times they prefer not to work. By being aware of which times staff members would like off it shows them that their time is important to me (and the restaurant) just like the time they give me is also important to me (and the restaurant). It also helps down the road if I need additional help for a specific time that may be abnormally busy for a particular unique reason.

Now comes the fun part – putting it altogether. Over the years of working in the restaurant business I can honestly say that shifts that went bad went that way because of poor planning, by reacting to situations. So, we have to begin planning now, during the schedule. We have to start being proactive, now. When putting together the schedule we should at least visualize how the shift will go and where people will be when we’re writing it. If our vision of the shift and the way we are writing it makes us uneasy, then we probably should rewrite it to make us feel a bit better. After all, if we’re uncomfortable with it, then how do we think our guests are going to feel?

Before actually filling in the schedule there is one other set up procedure that I do. I organize my staff listing by three groups. Now, I don’t actually separate them on the schedule with a line, box or category. But, I will put them in order from the best (on top) to the least experienced (on the bottom). The method that I go about doing this is by breaking the staff up into three groups: A, B, and C employees.

“A” employees are always ahead of the curve. They know all operations of the job (and possibly others). They consistently shine, incorporate teamwork and act as a leader for the rest of the team. “B” employees are consistent. They may not be the best but they have a solid grasp of their job and are able to maintain it under stressful situations. They have the potential to become an “A” employee but they may require more time, more guidance or possibly even a nudge in the right direction. “C” employees are in one of two categories. Either they are new on staff and haven’t had enough time to get the overall fundamentals down or they just are falling behind the curve.

Obviously, your attention needs to be on which side the “C” employees lie on. If it is because of lack of experience, then we need to make sure that we don’t overwhelm them by staffing them during the busier shifts. This will inevitably just frustrate them, other staff members, and our guests. This is a no win situation. Even if the staff member is showing promise you still want to bring them in at consistent pace. If the problem is that the staff member has been on staff for a while but is just following below the curve, then the next step with that is a bit trickier. First, you need to determine whether or not it is because of their skill or their attitude. If they are falling behind the abilities of others, then you need to speak with them and offer additional training. You’ve already invested a lot of time and money into their initial stages of training you can’t just let them go without giving it some more time and attention. If it’s because of their attitude, temperament or ability to get along with other staff members, then once again you will have to talk with them, and for the same reason. You interviewed them, you hired them and you trained them. You have a lot invested in them and there must have been something that you saw at the beginning to bring them onboard. You need to speak to them and explain once again what your expectations are and how they are falling short. You should never keep someone on staff out of necessity. The moment you allow this then you have become a hostage to your staff and their expectations not yours. So, when writing the schedule we have one other thing that we need to keep in mind: to improve the Cs to Bs, the Bs to As, and to help the As stay where they are.

As you begin to write your schedule you will want to begin with the shifts that are the busiest. During these shifts, you will want to staff the majority of your “A” staff members and a few of your “B” staff members. You definitely want to run, at minimum, 75% of your staff as the “A” individuals. If you’re going to be the busiest and have the opportunity to impact the largest amount of guests, then you want to have the best people available to give the best impression! There’s no point getting 400 people through the door if you’re just going to piss off 350 of them! And, your staff should know that this is how you work it! Now, if the staff members that work these shifts are tipped employees, then they will obviously receive instant gratification from working these busier shifts. However, if these individuals are hourly employees, then you need to make sure to compensate them justifiably; especially, if they have to work consistently on the busier shifts (busier shifts can mean more stress and they need to be compensated to help justify this). I’ve seen a lot of managers that have lost great people due to burn out factor! Being in the weeds is a real stressful situation and if you consistently keep hammering away your great people on busy shifts without compensation, then you will lose them! And, I’ve seen people lost for a quarter an hour!! Think about it. Let’s say an average shift on a busy night is 6 hours; heck, let’s say its 8 hours. And, let’s assume that you have 3 busy shifts a week like this and during these shifts you need 6 “A” cooks to work. So, to compensate these individuals perhaps you decide to pay them an extra $1 / hour. So, that’s an extra $8 / cook or $48 each shift for a total of $144 / week. Is it worth it? What if these cooks make less mistakes (saving food costs), follow proper recipes (saving food costs), excel at ticket times (satisfying guests and increasing table turns), and deliver fantastic meals that entice guests for future visits (increasing future sales)? Is it worth it now? What if by having just any “B” or “C” cook on you have to recook an average of 3 plates an hour? Or, you have food coming out slower or lower than your standards and as a result you are buying that food? What if your ticket times leaving the kitchen are slower and this impacts all of your guests entering the restaurant for that shift? How much will that cost you? $50? $100? $300 – or, worse? What if you realize all of these scenarios may happen and you decide to adapt your schedule to account for these “potential” problems and in the process you have to schedule one extra cook? Now, how much are you spending? Rewarding outstanding employees and having your schedule reflect this not only takes care of your staff members; it takes care of your guests, it takes care of you and it takes care of your restaurant. So, remember taking a little bit of time thinking about how you put together your schedule and compensating accordingly can go a long way. 

Boot Camp - Training

"Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than their enemy."
- Helvetius

With almost a million individual restaurants in the US, the restaurant industry remains one of the number one employers of individuals outside the US government. The majority of these individuals are trained within their own stores, including managers / owners. In fact, 80% of all restaurant owners started off their career in entry level positions. Training is the most critical aspect of a restaurant. It will reflect and resonate in all areas of who / what your restaurant will be. The first thing that I tell people during their initial training period is that training does not stop. It is ongoing. This is critical for you to understand. Our restaurant is a wheel in motion. Our guests will always have options of places to go to. We will always have the opportunity to continue to impress them. It is because of all of these moments of opportunity that we must continue to improve, to train our staff and ourselves. The moment we become comfortable and complacent is the moment that we have begun to lose the war within our own restaurant.

Now, it would be impossible to produce a simple article telling you what or how to train all of your staff members since the amount of diversity of restaurants and jobs are endless. However, it is completely possible to produce some guidelines and bring attention to certain pitfalls to avoid.

So, we've managed to interview and hire individuals for the jobs within your restaurant. Now comes the tricky part - making sure they can live up to the goals you have set for them. Think about that statement: "live up to the goals you have set for them." Too many times in this industry I've seen the bar lowered to accommodate the individuals that we've hired instead of releasing them. Why? You don't want to hurt their feelings? You feel that the job isn't brain surgery so they don't have to be too perfect? You don't like to interview people so you don't want to replace the person? You don't like confrontation? How about loss of sales? Or, increased costs? Wasted man-hours? Higher turnover? Loss of guests? Poor reputation? Any of those sound appealing? The moment you decide to lower YOUR bar, YOUR standards you've thrown in the towel and have begun losing the war within your own restaurant. It is your plan, your guidance, and your goals that should be the compass that dictates your training.

So, you will need to define all of the different jobs within your restaurant. This will include everything from a host to a dishwasher, from a clerk to a server, from a bartender to a grill cook, from a bathroom attendant to a prep cook. Whatever the roles are for your restaurant you must define their function. In the process you need to set your standards and your goals for each area. This will help to dictate the training for each of these jobs. Once you have this established the real game can begin: consistency!

It is imperative that for the first stages of training you are consistent. I highly recommend having a structured training process for at least the first week of employment. Obviously, this time will be modified depending on the job and the role that you have set for it. You must be consistent. Train each new hire exactly the same way and with the same level of enthusiasm. If you use trainers, then they must be consistent as well. Consistency will ensure that you are setting the proper tone to every individual that you bring on board.

Enthusiasm. You better have it! If you don't, then how do you expect your staff too. They have to believe in what you believe in. If you go into it with a monotone, drab feel, then that is what you will get from your staff. And let me tell you, there's no successful monotone, drab restaurants out there. They just don't make it. ENTHUSIASM! PASSION! This drives a restaurant. After all, that's why we do it. You need to ensure that your trainers have it, as well. Motivate them. Reward them for their training. It will come back to you tenfold. And, monitor them. You need to ensure and monitor that your trainers have CONSISTENCY and ENTHUSIASM!

Training manuals outlining what you expect, requirements, and job specifications will help with your consistency. Following up with your trainees throughout their training via interviews, tests, and performance observations (reiterating your goals and enthusiasm) will help to ensure that you're being consistent.

Compensating your trainers and rewarding your trainees for success in testing or goals will help to keep them enthusiastic and motivated. And, you can do this a lot of different ways. Perhaps you pay your trainers a little more while they're training. Maybe you work out some other prizes like movie passes, theatre passes, gift certificates / cards, etc. Any of these things that may cost you a little up front will lead to better sales for you down the road. Your employees are some of the best forms of advertisement that you can possess. When you hire new people and they're working with senior people they are up close and personal with this advertisement. This can be a positive thing or a negative thing. Either way it will come back to you tenfold in one of those two ways. I suggest you keep the consistency and enthusiasm up.

Recruiting - Part 2 (Scheduling)

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Earlier we discussed some methods when looking to hire the right people; more importantly, to make sure that we get the right people on board at the beginning. However, how do we know if we even need people? And, once we get the people where / when do we put them into action? There's no doubt about it scheduling can either make or break your establishment. Staff too many people and your labor costs will skyrocket and you'll lose money. Staff too few of people and you may lose sales because your guests are not receiving the care that they deserve. Staff the wrong people in the wrong places and you could lose people because they're frustrated. Scheduling goes hand in hand with hiring. You need to know when to get more recruits and where to put the ones that you have.

Scheduling could be one of the more tiresome, grueling, imperative, and necessary things that you do for your restaurant. Since the majority of restaurants operate outside, what many would say, "normal" hours. Our first problem is to find staff that is available for the hours that we will need them. This will vary from establishment to establishment, the hours of operation, and the days opened. The next step will be to determine when your peak hours will be. This will, obviously, need to be the time that you have the most of your people working. It would be impossible to determine a layout for how many individuals you will need for your establishment, what your peak hours would be, etc. since there are so many different varieties of establishments out there. So, for all purposes I will have to assume that you have determined what works best for your establishment. Instead, I just want to address a few problems and possible solutions with scheduling in general.

Whenever I teach people on how to write a schedule I always tell them to do a couple of things. First, I recommend placing your staff in order of their skills, availability, and possibly seniority. One of these aspects should not be your guiding light; unless, it is their skill. You should never have someone at the top of your list just because of their availability and definitely not because of their seniority. Now, think of that last comment - especially "their seniority". I know many people will have a problem with that; especially those individuals that have seniority at a place. However, you can be with a place for a while and that doesn't mean that you're the best individual for the job. Hopefully, it doesn't mean that you're the worst person there either (if so, then they should have gotten rid of you a while back). There is something to be said for being consistent, however. A restaurant is a wheel in motion. Its motion began when it was first opened. It has been moving down its own path for some time. It doesn't matter where it was initially. It matters / cares for where it is heading. Seniority helped them yesterday; however, it may not be helping them for tomorrow. Too many times people want to slow down and become complacent because they feel that they've put their time in. However, this wheel needs continuous momentum and energy going into it. This means that the energy of yesterday is not nearly as important as the energy for tomorrow. So, if you want to succeed you need to look past those individuals of yesterday and look at the ones of today that are thinking about tomorrow. I've used a saying in my restaurants for years, "If you think about the shift next week, then the shift at hand will take care of itself." In other words, if you want to have job security, then do everything now to ensure that the guests will come back next week! So, once again...look pass seniority and focus on skill.

So, we've established that we should organize your schedule based on skill, availability, and then seniority. Now, when you write your schedule you should always write it from the top to the bottom and fill in your busiest days / times first and work back toward your slower days and down your schedule - to your least skilled, least available, and least senior people. In doing this, you will actually create a schedule with your best foot forward during your busier times. In turn, this should take care of the majority of your guests (peak times mean peak guest counts) and, hopefully if we're doing everything right, guarantee future growth. Your staff will be happy because they are working with skilled individuals. Your guests will be happy because they are being cared for by the best. Your new hires and least trained will be happy because they are working slower times, getting trained properly, and not getting as frustrated as the waves of the restaurant are moving at their speed and not over them. Your restaurant will be happy because it will be collecting the best revenue, reducing labor expenses by minimizing turnover of staff. All of this will make you happier!

Now, the last thing that you want to do is to have your slower days with only the least skilled, least available and the least senior individuals. Many of your guests will seek out slower days and times because they believe this to be the best time to get the best service. If you have all new, unavailable and unskilled individuals, then these guests will share their experience about how you can't even get the job done when there are 3 people in the building! So, be sure to fill in your slower days with some of your "seasoned" individuals. When it is slower this is a great opportunity to have them work with the others to increase their capabilities. It's also a good way to ensure that you will not be crippling your restaurant when the wheel is moving at a slower speed.

So, the last part of looking at the scheduling is to always plan. Like the old saying goes, "Failing to plan means that you're planning to fail." This saying also coincides with the starting quote that I placed, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." We should always write our schedules several weeks in advance. I recommend at least two weeks in advance. This gives you time to make adjustments based on things occurring around you, based on time off for the staff, parties booked, things going on in the community, etc. It also will give you time to move staff around based on their skill, their availability, and their seniority. At the same time by being a couple weeks ahead you will know about situations where you may be short on staff. You should correlate your schedule writing with your projections - what you think your restaurant will sale during these time frames. By making these projections and writing your schedules ahead of time you can produce a projected labor cost. By having these numbers you will be able to determine if you are scheduling yourself for failure by losing money in your labor expenses (too high of a labor percentage) or potentially losing sales because you are understaffed and unable to care for your guests (too low of a labor percentage).

The last part of scheduling is to not just live and breathe by the numbers. You must observe what your scheduling has done when the shift at hand occurs. Labor percentages, sales per hour, sales per person, plates per hour, all of these things are great but if ultimately the guest care and your expectations for your restaurant beyond the numbers are not being met, then you will want to make adjustments to your scheduling. Now, these adjustments may need to be made in many forms and some of them, unfortunately, are the unpleasant part of being in business. Individuals that do not get along or work are unable to work together may need to be rescheduled. Now, I don't encourage you going completely out of your way to rewrite schedules just so people can be professional. It's a business and they need to be professional. However, if you find it necessary to ease the tension, then by all means adjust your schedule. Individuals that are not prepared to handle higher volumes may need to be retrained further and/or moved to slower shifts. Individuals that have already been placed on slower shifts, failing to achieve your standards and/or failing to work with others may need to be let go.

So, the two main things that you should keep in mind when scheduling is to have some plan in mind when writing it. Know what you're expectations are for your restaurant. Know when you will be the busiest. Write your schedule with these things in mind and staff your best people in the busiest times and work your back to your slower shifts. Finally, stick to your guns. If you're going to go to the trouble to hire with strict guidelines, then you need to treat your schedule with those same guidelines in mind. Reward your staff that is the best with best pay and/or the best shifts. Make sure your staff is aware of how you schedule. If they know that there are goals and rewards for those goals you will find that the right people, when hired, will achieve these goals. In exchange, your restaurant will achieve the goals you set forth.

Recruiting - Part 1 (Hiring)

"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."
General George Patton Jr.

Hiring. We all have to do it, if running a business. It's a tough process. We have to find that right person that will help enhance our business and we have to do it via paper at first. We take an application or resume and we review it. Something on that page strikes our attention enough to the point that we decide to meet them. We sit in an interview with them for 15, 30, or even 45 minutes. During that time frame we are taking notes and realizing the qualities that they can bring to the table: they plated 100 plates an hour, maybe 200; they sold $3,000 behind the bar on a Tuesday; they sat 150 guests an hour; or, whatever the case may be. We love them. So, we hire them and get them in the system. Wow! If only that were the case. More times than not, it's not even close.

For many years working in the industry I saw managers (and was encouraged to follow suit) hire people solely based on their availability. "We need someone for Sunday mornings. Hire them!" What a common statement that was. But, at what risk? You end up hiring out of need instead of to succeed.

So, let's break it down for the number folks first. Let's say your average server (for example) sales an average of $10 per person. During the course of the week you deal with 5000 guests. This means that your average sales would be $50,000 / week. Now, let's say you just "hire" someone and they are just 10% below the curve as your average server. This would mean that they would be selling $9 per person. Now, if your hiring methods made you 10% below the norm, then if the guest counts were the same across the board you would only be selling $45,000 / week. So, by hiring people just 10% under the norm could cost you a potential of $5,000. Now, you can compare this same thing to a cook. Let's say you have a cook that can generate 50 plates an hour and each plate costs $10. This particular cook is generateing $500 / hour for you. Now, if that cook is 10% slower than that average person, then they are only generating 45 plates per hour and are now costing you $50 / hour. Now, how much could this cost you throughout the course of the week?

Now, we can also look at the initial training cost. Let's assume that it takes you 20 hours to train a person and in this time they are going to be average or just slightly below average (you know, like 10% below average). So, in that 20 hours you still have to pay your trainee and in theory you have a trainer that is training them. During this time you are in essence paying two people to do one job. With this basic principle you are adding to your cost and not increasing your sales. By definition, this is going to increase your overall cost during this training process. Your normal cost % equation would be C / S (where C is your labor costs and S are the sales generated). So, during this time period of training your C may increase x1.5 or x2. Now, if this time period is even just for a week you have a considerable amount of money invested. Imagine if you have invested that time for someone that is just 10% less than your average staff. You've invested money and now are generating a loss of either $50 / hour or $5,000 / week. What a great deal it is to hire out of necessity!

Another way of looking at this would be to hire either a cook or server that is slightly lower than your average staf member. Let's assume that your average server makes a tip % of 25%. You hire a new server and they make an average tip % of 20%, or roughly 20% lower than your other servers. Now, this is an average. It means, in rough terms, that 1 out of 5 people didn't think s/he was that great. This means that 1 out of 5 people may not come back to your establishment because of the care that they gave. Now, maybe this server only handled 10% of your guests throughout the week. So, of the 5000 guests throughout the course of the week s/he only encountered 500 people. However, of those 500 people 1 out of 5 of them will not be returning (or, 100 people). What is worse is of those 100 people, how many other people will they share their experience with? Now, the reality of the situation is that we've all (presumably) been with a group of our friends trying to decide where to go. We may not all agree initially where to go but we can all agree where not to go. And, that is determined the moment one of our friends tells us where they will not go - and a reason isn't necessary! So, now we've hired this person that isn't selling as much, is chasing away guests, and they aren't making money so they are probably even more miserable; but at least we have them for a Sunday! We can use the same comparison for the cook. Let's assume our average cook makes $10 / hour and we manage to hire a mediocre cook for 10% less than our avearage cook, or $9 / hour. However, during their first hour of work we had to recook 4 different entrees ($8 / piece of raw cost), they dropped 10 plates ($5 / plate of raw cost), and took 10% longer to cook items ultimately costing us another $10 / hour in comps. So, we're paying this individual 10% less and spending $10 (in comps) + $9 (hourly wage) + $50 (broken equipment) + $32 (food costs) = $101 / hour! And with this cost, we would NOT be receiving any additional sales...only costs! If this individual after the first week or two decides to quit or to avoid us, then they have increased the costs and NOT increased the sales!

So, with all of this information coming at us we should think about the hiring process as one of the more critical processes in our restaurant (followed by training). It is imperative to get the right people on board. You should be selective. These will be the individuals that generate your product. They will be your voice. They will be your face. They will be your presence with ALL of your guests. You must take the time to hire the right people!

I personally recommend when hiring to break the hiring process up into two parts: 1) the first interview and 2) the second interview. I also believe that when doing these interviews it should be run by a different person to keep perspectives fresh. At the end of both interviews discussions should be made by both interviewers to confirm that the candidate is the right choice for the job.

The first interview should really take no longer than 5 or 10 minutes. In this time frame you should ask the basic of questions: availability, desired hours, position, experience, etc. During this time it is more important for the interviewer to just get a feel for the candidate. Are they comfortable? Are they dressed properly? Are they polite? Are they taking the interview serious? Are they giving coherent answers? Are they trusting? Is there a sense of comfort when speaking with them? Remember some of your staff will only have a few moments to interact with your guests, perhaps only 5 or 10 minutes of total interaction time. If during the first interview if they are creeping you out, then they will probably do the same to your paying guests.

The second interview should be a little bit more in detail. I would recommend having a dozen or two dozen questions drafted up that are more job specific. Now, you don't want to base the questions on experience only because some of your candidates may never have worked in a restaurant but may still be phenomenal new hires. Instead, try to make questions that represent the qualities that you are looking for in the particular field of your restaurant. Once again, during this time frame you not only want to listen to the answers that your candidate is giving but how they are giving them. Are they calm? Are they fumbling with their words? Are they nervous? Are they giving short answers? Are they giving long, lengthy answers? Do they seem calm? Do they seem anxious? All of the answers to all of these answers and then some should come together to give you a more concise, logical answer as to whether you should hire this person or not.

Remember, hiring shouldn't be easy and it shouldn't be taken lightly. You need to break the mold of restaurants being a vagabond industry. Sure, the candidates can probably get a job at any other resturant. And you know what? Good...let them go work for the other restaurants. Let them make the war within that restaurant more difficult. Your job is to make sure that the war within your walls stays as controllable, as manageable, as possible. This begins by making sure that the troops that are going to help you are the best that they can possibly be and not just because they can show up.

Welcome

It's my first run at making a blog but I decided to give it a whirl. I've spent a lot of years working in the restaurant industry. In that time, I've trained hundreds, if not thousands, of staff members. These individuals ranged from servers to hosts, from bartenders to bar backs, from cooks to managers. I love it.

I've worked for "mom and pop" places and I've worked for some big guys in the corporate world. Every restaurant out there is about the same. It's not a matter of reinventing the wheel. It's just realizing how your particular spot is rolling. Now each restaurant will have its own beat and pulse. You just need to get your finger on it. The only truth that I know when it comes to restaurants is that it will never be successful, nor will you, if you don't love it!

I've been the managing partner for the Downtown Grill & Brewery since 2003. We have about 6500-7000 guests coming through our doors each week! It's fantastic. But, the key isn't just getting the bodies through the door. The key is realizing how to keep them coming and to keep the money from going out the door, as well. And that's where the real war happens. The battle isn't with your competition, like so many think. In fact, your competition is the furthest thing that you should be worried about. You can't change they way they market or advertise their store. You can't change they way they hire and train their staff. You can't change their decor or their menu. You can't change their prices or their service. So, they only your competition should do is inspire you to be the best that you can be. After all, they can't change any of those things with you either. So, the real war is within your own walls. It is the war that all restaurants are fighting.

Everyday that I come into work, I learn more about the war that I'm involved in. Like any other war you have to keep fighting, keep enduring, and keep the wheel moving. I hope over the course of this blog to pass on some of the tidbits, strategies, and techniques that have helped me be successful. I hope in turn these will help you become more successful.