Blog

How Blind Hiring Creates MORE Unconscious Bias

Telling people to stop their biases often has the opposite result. Helping people notice their biases and blind spots helps them reflect and make a deliberate choice about their thoughts and behaviours towards others.

Hospitality Industry: How To Survive The Crisis Without Falling For Your Excuses

The hospitality industry is historically in reaction mode. It is the slowest to adapt a new technology and mindset necessary to stay relevant and profitable in any economy. Mostly, the hospitality industry fights change and adamantly tries to keep the status quo. During this crisis I see the same mindset over and over again: blame, apathy and defensiveness.

Hospitality Industry: How To Re-Evaluate Your Business And Survive The Crisis -- So You Can Avoid Being A Victim

Your business hasn't failed as a result of the crisis -- your business, while physically remaining open, had failed prior to the crisis.

Great Customer Service Is Costing You Business

The terms service and hospitality are often used interchangeably. Though interrelated, they are not one and the same. Service and hospitality are two separate aspects of business and if regarded and used this way, can fundamentally change the results you create.

Customer Surveys Are Killing Your Business

Sprint finally realized: people don't stay on the phone for a damn survey! And, they decided, tricking people into it would be a worthy and profitable idea.

How To Conduct Employee Reviews

For many, restaurants are a transitional path for people on the way to “real” jobs or careers. Yet, this truth is a poor excuse for the industry’s notoriously high turnover. In reality, lack of employer support and diminished growth opportunities -- not the prospects of a “real job” -- are some of the biggest contributing factors to why most people leave the restaurant industry.

What To Say To Your Hospitality Team In Pre-Shift Meetings

The truth is, many restaurants don't have pre-shift meetings, and some that do still don't have a solid system or strategy around how they do it. Many restaurant managers think of pre-shift meetings as a necessary evil. They make it boring and glum by merely talking about new specials, 86’d items, and pointing out the negatives, like wrong uniform or schedule issues.

4 Signs Your Hospitality Staff Are Ready For A Promotion

Traditionally, experience or seniority would dictate who was “next in line” for a promotion. Those lines no longer exist today, at least not in the most progressive, innovative organizations or successful restaurants. In today's world, experience alone is no longer enough, and seniority is a word used only by the most entitled of employees.

Management Skills That Can Help You In Business (And In Life)

Restaurants are unique because they combine every element of business under one roof: product creation, distribution, service, team development, strategy, marketing, operations, finance, tactical execution and more. Managing a business with all of these elements in one place is an opportunity you shouldn't miss.

The 6 Biggest Things That Keep Business Owners From Thriving

The economy and competition have little to nothing to do with the success or failure of a business. Strategic and operational errors are only symptoms of a deeper issue. The key difference-maker in businesses is the psychology of the business owner.

The 3 Most Common Misconceptions About Restaurant Managers

Many restaurant employees I’ve worked with wanted to become managers. They all had similar reasons for it: a bigger paycheck; a desire for authority and recognition; a more stable schedule. But most of them also didn’t understand what it means to be a restaurant manager.

How To Go From The Restaurant Employee To Entrepreneur

If you work in a restaurant in hopes of someday becoming a business owner yourself (whether of a restaurant or not), here are 8 ways you can take full advantage of your opportunities as a restaurant employee and cash in on your dreams sooner.

How to Become a Restaurant Manager Your Team Will Love

Between wearing many hats, the pressure to wear them all well, and juggling what can seem like a thousand daily tasks, restaurant management is survival of the fittest. It’s a job where shifts notoriously last 10-14 hours (sometimes longer), which can be taxing on the body and overwhelming on the mind.

Quick Service Restaurant Doesn't Mean Hit It And Quit It

With anything I do, say or write, I am not looking for people to agree with me. If anything, I'm looking for people who challenge my ideas. It kicks me into a higher gear of thinking; ideas are born. I get excited that I got them thinking and I get more to write about. This article is born from that.

What's Wrong With "Can I Help You?"

When the hostess finally looked at us, she asked the worst question any service professional can ask. "Can I help you?” She followed it up with a raised eyebrow. My cynical side wanted to come out say, “Well, I don’t know, can you?”

So, you want to open a restaurant?

Even with all the winning elements in place, 50% of restaurants go out of business within 3 years of their opening date. There are many opinions as to why this happens, hence the common “tough business, low margins, low profits” comments. The truth is, those restaurants don't make it because they lack HEART.

How Good Service Kills Your Restaurant

If you think service is why people return to your restaurant, It's a safe bet that you won't stay in business. "What?!” Let me help you out. You don't think people come to your restaurant thinking: I hope the staff is rude to me, my food tastes lousy, I wait for my drinks for an eternity, can't find my server when I need them, and hopefully they say "duces" on my way out, do you?

3 Ways To Keep Best People In Your Restaurant/Business

Ask any restaurant owner/manager what their biggest challenge is, I guarantee, hiring and keeping the best staff will make the top three on their list. Restaurants have high turnover, averaging over 66% annually, and with the payroll standard of 30-35% of total sales, let’s face it, there isn’t any room for hiring and training the ones that will bring your business down.

Is Your Restaurant Job “Real”?

I asked for my first gig way before I knew what the heck I was doing. I had done a half of a Bartending Course at Riddlers Lounge in The Bronx NY with an entire 15-minute internship under my belt. I got hired on the spot, but "easy" ended there.