A New Restaurant

It’s no secret; keeping restaurant employees is not an easy thing to do.  For most of your workers it is a transient position.  Even your best employees look at restaurant work as a temporary position; something to bring in a little income while they are preparing for a “real job.”  It is a business that is staffed by young people working their way through high school and college, and for the most part there is very little loyalty.  Some of your employees will be willing to quit for no more reason that that they have a friend working for one of your competitors down the street.

At the same time, you have to realize that your employees can make or break your business from a customer service aspect.  They are the front line of making sure your customers are well taken care of, and that they remain happy customers.  An employee with a bad attitude can absolutely destroy the customers experience at your restaurant.

When you couple those two things together you can see how important it is to devote some time and effort into keeping your employees happy in their jobs.  That is not something that can be accomplished with a single event, but at the same time, a single incident can destroy an employees attitude.

In his “Seven Habits” series of books, Stephen Covey writes about the “emotional bank account.”  The concept is that you build up good will by making deposits in this account.  When something negative happens you have built up enough good will that your relationship is not destroyed.  Deposits are made by doing good things for the person.  It happens by taking the time to thank them, to encourage them, and to let them know that they are appreciated.

It is a series of things, both large and small, that will shape your employees attitudes.  For instance, last week a snow storm blanketed the Midwest and parts of the east coast forcing many business to close early on Friday and Saturday nights.  If you were in that situation, did you pay your employees for the hours they were scheduled to work?

While not paying will probably not be something that will cause your employees to walk out on you, seeing a small paycheck will affect their attitude.  It is another small withdrawal from the emotional account.  On the other hand, paying them for the time they missed will make a deposit in the account by sending the message that you are willing to step up and take care of them.

It doesn’t have to be a large gesture.  It doesn’t even have to be something that costs your business money.  It is a series of things that over time send an ongoing message to your employees that you value their contribution to your restaurant, and that you appreciate the contributions they have made to your restaurants success.

I just wanted to do a quick post today to talk about designing your new restaurant.  If you are not buying an existing facility, and you are designing a new establishment, hire someone who specializes in designing restaurants.  Any mistakes made during the design of your restaurant will haunt you for years to come.

While you may end up paying a bit more for a specialist, it will actually save yo money in the long run.  If I was going to have surgery on my foot, I would go see apodiatrist .  If I had electrical problems in my house, I would call an electrician.  It’s the same with designing your restaurant; hire an architect that knows how to design kitchens.

One thing you need to understand about architects is that at heart they are artists.  Many times aesthetics play as much a role in their design decisions as functionality.  What you end up with is a restaurant that looks beautiful, but traffic and work flow problems are an ongoing headache for the staff.  There are areas of congestion that slow the food coming from the kitchen to the tables, and longer routes to and from the kitchen than are necessary, resulting in the staff becoming more tired.

There are also work flow considerations in the kitchen.  You will face higher labor costs because the design does not allow for efficient food prep and production, thee is an increased risk of collisions and food waste because the flow of production doesn’t move the way it should.

Unfortunately, once the restaurant is built, it becomes a nightmare to try and correct, both in terms of cost and time.

So, make sure the person designing your facility knows how to design a restaurant.  Once the initial design is given to you, take the time to really think through work flow and traffic patterns.  If you don’t feel comfortable doing that yourself, hire a consultant to do it for you.  Make sure the design works before the first brick is laid.  It is an investment that will pay huge dividends in the long run.