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Tales of the Cocktail, day one
I'm going to type up some of the notes I took at various panels today, to help both me, and you.
Just so you know, every panel comes with a drink or two. See, each panel is sponsored by a liquor company, and so they have a cocktail or two with 'em. Presenters create fantastic drinks to show off the liquor and/or techniques and skills.
I just tell you this in order to make you jealous. I'll probably write up a separate post about the drinks.
Okay, the first panel I went to was called "Is The Customer Always Right?" and was about standards of service. The panelists were Deet Gilbert, an instructor at Johnson and Wales, Jim Meehan, a mixologist and bar owner in New York, Charlotte Voisey, a mixologist, former bartender, cocktail consultant, and Hendricks Gin brand ambassador in New York, and a woman who's full name I didn't get, but could probably copy off of the front cover of several of the books that she's written. Her first name is Ti, and she's the owner of a high-end top-notch service restaurant in New Orleans. And the moderator was Doug Frost, who's done all sorts of things in the industry at all sorts of levels.
Charlotte started, and said that great service starts with three things: recruiting the right people, leading by example, and making sure to include service as part of your training.
When you are considering someone to hire, ask yourself if the person in front of you is genuinely warm, hospitable, and friendly. You can train skills -- you can't train niceness.
Then, make sure to feel passion about your job yourself, and infect your staff with that passion. Set the standard in how you treat both the guests and your co-workers.
She mentioned that, when she started tending bar, one of the things she was taught to do (and I was taught to do the same) was, after you set everything up, come out to the front of the bar, and look at it all, make sure everything is clean and nice. It took her a while to realize that that is not only to make sure that everything looks right -- but also to give you a chance to put yourself in the position of the customer, to give you a chance to think about the bar experience from the other side, and to help with your empathy.
Also, it's important to have policies in place for the manner in which you offer apologies when something goes wrong -- when to comp drinks, offer a free dessert, and so forth.
And, she pointed out that the purpose of service is to get repeat business. You want people to come back.
Deet Gilbert went next. She teaches a class on service at Johnson and Wales university, and had some great quotes. "We get paid to be nice to people and bring them what they want."
"No -- the customer is not always right, but we have to make them THINK that they are right."
And she also reiterated and reinforced many of the things Charlotte said, too.
Jim went next and said that he had learned that managing people had to be tailored to each person. He had started out thinking that one should treat everyone equally, and that that meant treating all of your employees the same -- but soon learned that that is not the case, and that you have to customize your interaction with each employee to that employee. And that you need to give each employee a reason to work for you.
He believes that part of good service is making sure that the bartenders and others have TIME to give good service, and so his place tries to seat people in shifts at least ten minutes apart, so that each person can get appropriate attention. Deet added that it was also vital to give enough support staff, such as barbacks, to allow the bartenders to be able to give that attention. Jim agreed, saying that management's role is to support people by giving them the tools and co-workers to allow them to succeed.
Charlotte added that that can include who you schedule together -- she's been known to schedule a vivacious, friendly person who is mediocre with mixing drinks quickly alongside a highly skilled "workhorse" who is weaker on the interpersonal skills.
Ti spoke next, and pointed out that our business tends to be impressed with quick work over service. We all have our war stories about shifts where we were totally slammed -- but HER question is, "Were the customers that you served in that time all satisfied and pleased with the drinks that they got? Were they happy with their experience?"
Ti feels that, as a manager, you have to create a "corporate culture", a term that she used to think was bullshit, but as she got more experience, started to realize that it means making a place where people can be excited and passionate as you are. As a manager, you have to be a head cheerleader. You need your staff to be on board with your vision and your mission.
Service is the most important part of the guest experience, but the least respected. Good service can salvage a dining experience which involves bad food (the server can find ways to apologize, bring replacements, and repair the situation), but that, if there is bad service, the food cannot rescue that situation, no matter HOW good it is.
Body language is part of dealing with obnoxious people. You need to make people feel that you are on their side, that you are THEIR ally. And we have to remember that it is an HONOR to serve people. If someone who is working for her doesn't feel that service is a noble and desirable position, she doesn't want that person to be working for her.
"Fanatical commitment to the consistent execution of the fundamentals." And what are the fundamentals? Well, to start with -- if the hot food's not hot, the cold food's not cold, and the bathrooms aren't clean, you're screwed. That's not all the fundamentals, but if you want a place to start, there's a place.
Doug said that he feels that every person who walks in the door should feel like they belong there, that someone has noticed them, someone cares about them. Greeting people is part of this. When someone comes to your bar, no matter how busy you are, you should make eye contact and smile, just to let them know that you acknowlege their existence and care about them.
The next topic was how important knowledge is to good service. Deet pointed out that you can TEACH knowledge, but that you are looking for people with passion and personality. She once hired a woman who had been back-of-house for front-of-house, even though she didn't know anything about waiting tables. But she was passionate about food, and she very quickly became their best server.
Charlotte said that that actually showed that knowledge WAS important. You can't talk about something that you don't know about, and part of service is being able to answer questions and give suggestions. That server cared about, and knew about, and was able to talk intelligently about and offer suggestions about, food. Which is what MADE her great.
Doug said that he's walked into bars that are very proud to display a thousand bottles of liquor behind the bar. But . . . if you've got a thousand bottles, does ANYBODY know what's in all of them? Does anybody know what they all taste like? What's the POINT of having those thousand bottles?
The next question was about speed -- to what extend is speed important in bar service?
Charlotte pointed out that bartenders are always working "live" -- everyone is watching you, so speed IS important. But it's important to make the drinks RIGHT and fast.
Up until that point, pretty much everyone was in agreement in pretty much everything that was being discussed. But now they started coming up with a subject with some disagreement. How do you treat your employees?
Doug made the statement for discussion: "We should treat all our guests the same. But we should treat our employees differently. Better producers should get better treatment."
That's an oversimplification of what he said, but it gives a framework for how the discussion happened.
To what extent should better bartenders get better shifts? For the most part, people generally agreed that it makes sense -- it's a reward for the best bartenders, and gives them more chances to make money, and it therefore makes YOU more money, too. But Jim said that doing it that way gave people less opportunity to develop, and he liked to put new people, paired up with experienced people, on busy shifts sometimes, to give them more time and chance to gain skills.
What about other rewards? Taking people on trips, conferences, and so forth. And, if you DO do that, to what extent should everyone else know that you're rewarding people?
I suppose you can fill in the ensuing discussion -- dissention in the ranks, but a reason to stretch, and to know who to emulate . . . I wasn't totally convinced by any of the arguments.
But they DID point out that, in bars where the plum shifts went to the people with the most seniority, those people got lazy, and were therefore not the best bartenders.
The next question was employee satisfaction -- what IS it, how do you ensure it, how do you measure it?
One point on which EVERYONE agreed was that, no matter what side of the last question they were on, even if you think you should treat employees differently in terms of perqs or prime shifts or whatever -- if it's a conflict situation, EVERYONE gets treated the same -- your prime producers get no extra consideration in a conflict. And, by the same token, you also always have complete equality of access -- the new guy should have no more trouble having a chance to talk to you than the guy who you've known for ten years. And you have to find ways to make sure that you can get honest opinions from people. If there are problems, you have to have the empathy to see it, since people may not want to tell their boss that there's a problem. You may have to dig a little to find it. And that being pro-active about that sort of thing is part of a manager's job.
The final question was, when ISN'T the customer right? And they all agreed that, if a customer is actually ABUSIVE to the staff, they go out the door. But "what is abusive" may be culturally dependent! In New Orleans, people may be touchy -- tap staff on the shoulder, or put a hand on a shoulder while talking. In New York, that would not be acceptible, and in some parts of London, the guest would be lucky to actually keep that hand attached to their arm.
If a customer's behavior is interfering with the enjoyment of other guests, it's DEFINITELY time to intervene. And, frankly, many of them found that the people who were being loud and obnoxious actually appriciated being reined in -- they don't actually WANT to be jerks, so felt that the staff was helping them. They tipped high, and came back as repeat customers.
In conclusion, Doug said that policies are often written to deal with the exceptional, outlier cases, and that's a mistake. Your policies should be written to help with NORMAL stuff, and allow people the flexibility to deal with outlier situations by their own judgement. Jim said that perfection is not the goal: excellence is. You can make mistakes and still have excellent service -- you just make sure to fix those mistakes. Deet said that the fundmantal question is, did people have a good time? Do they feel that the money they spent was a good investment of their entertainment dollars? And Charlotte said that you have to "seek the complaint" -- if you get a feeling that someone feels that there is something wrong, they may not want to come to you -- you have to take the initiative to find out what it is, and fix it.
Just so you know, every panel comes with a drink or two. See, each panel is sponsored by a liquor company, and so they have a cocktail or two with 'em. Presenters create fantastic drinks to show off the liquor and/or techniques and skills.
I just tell you this in order to make you jealous. I'll probably write up a separate post about the drinks.
Okay, the first panel I went to was called "Is The Customer Always Right?" and was about standards of service. The panelists were Deet Gilbert, an instructor at Johnson and Wales, Jim Meehan, a mixologist and bar owner in New York, Charlotte Voisey, a mixologist, former bartender, cocktail consultant, and Hendricks Gin brand ambassador in New York, and a woman who's full name I didn't get, but could probably copy off of the front cover of several of the books that she's written. Her first name is Ti, and she's the owner of a high-end top-notch service restaurant in New Orleans. And the moderator was Doug Frost, who's done all sorts of things in the industry at all sorts of levels.
Charlotte started, and said that great service starts with three things: recruiting the right people, leading by example, and making sure to include service as part of your training.
When you are considering someone to hire, ask yourself if the person in front of you is genuinely warm, hospitable, and friendly. You can train skills -- you can't train niceness.
Then, make sure to feel passion about your job yourself, and infect your staff with that passion. Set the standard in how you treat both the guests and your co-workers.
She mentioned that, when she started tending bar, one of the things she was taught to do (and I was taught to do the same) was, after you set everything up, come out to the front of the bar, and look at it all, make sure everything is clean and nice. It took her a while to realize that that is not only to make sure that everything looks right -- but also to give you a chance to put yourself in the position of the customer, to give you a chance to think about the bar experience from the other side, and to help with your empathy.
Also, it's important to have policies in place for the manner in which you offer apologies when something goes wrong -- when to comp drinks, offer a free dessert, and so forth.
And, she pointed out that the purpose of service is to get repeat business. You want people to come back.
Deet Gilbert went next. She teaches a class on service at Johnson and Wales university, and had some great quotes. "We get paid to be nice to people and bring them what they want."
"No -- the customer is not always right, but we have to make them THINK that they are right."
And she also reiterated and reinforced many of the things Charlotte said, too.
Jim went next and said that he had learned that managing people had to be tailored to each person. He had started out thinking that one should treat everyone equally, and that that meant treating all of your employees the same -- but soon learned that that is not the case, and that you have to customize your interaction with each employee to that employee. And that you need to give each employee a reason to work for you.
He believes that part of good service is making sure that the bartenders and others have TIME to give good service, and so his place tries to seat people in shifts at least ten minutes apart, so that each person can get appropriate attention. Deet added that it was also vital to give enough support staff, such as barbacks, to allow the bartenders to be able to give that attention. Jim agreed, saying that management's role is to support people by giving them the tools and co-workers to allow them to succeed.
Charlotte added that that can include who you schedule together -- she's been known to schedule a vivacious, friendly person who is mediocre with mixing drinks quickly alongside a highly skilled "workhorse" who is weaker on the interpersonal skills.
Ti spoke next, and pointed out that our business tends to be impressed with quick work over service. We all have our war stories about shifts where we were totally slammed -- but HER question is, "Were the customers that you served in that time all satisfied and pleased with the drinks that they got? Were they happy with their experience?"
Ti feels that, as a manager, you have to create a "corporate culture", a term that she used to think was bullshit, but as she got more experience, started to realize that it means making a place where people can be excited and passionate as you are. As a manager, you have to be a head cheerleader. You need your staff to be on board with your vision and your mission.
Service is the most important part of the guest experience, but the least respected. Good service can salvage a dining experience which involves bad food (the server can find ways to apologize, bring replacements, and repair the situation), but that, if there is bad service, the food cannot rescue that situation, no matter HOW good it is.
Body language is part of dealing with obnoxious people. You need to make people feel that you are on their side, that you are THEIR ally. And we have to remember that it is an HONOR to serve people. If someone who is working for her doesn't feel that service is a noble and desirable position, she doesn't want that person to be working for her.
"Fanatical commitment to the consistent execution of the fundamentals." And what are the fundamentals? Well, to start with -- if the hot food's not hot, the cold food's not cold, and the bathrooms aren't clean, you're screwed. That's not all the fundamentals, but if you want a place to start, there's a place.
Doug said that he feels that every person who walks in the door should feel like they belong there, that someone has noticed them, someone cares about them. Greeting people is part of this. When someone comes to your bar, no matter how busy you are, you should make eye contact and smile, just to let them know that you acknowlege their existence and care about them.
The next topic was how important knowledge is to good service. Deet pointed out that you can TEACH knowledge, but that you are looking for people with passion and personality. She once hired a woman who had been back-of-house for front-of-house, even though she didn't know anything about waiting tables. But she was passionate about food, and she very quickly became their best server.
Charlotte said that that actually showed that knowledge WAS important. You can't talk about something that you don't know about, and part of service is being able to answer questions and give suggestions. That server cared about, and knew about, and was able to talk intelligently about and offer suggestions about, food. Which is what MADE her great.
Doug said that he's walked into bars that are very proud to display a thousand bottles of liquor behind the bar. But . . . if you've got a thousand bottles, does ANYBODY know what's in all of them? Does anybody know what they all taste like? What's the POINT of having those thousand bottles?
The next question was about speed -- to what extend is speed important in bar service?
Charlotte pointed out that bartenders are always working "live" -- everyone is watching you, so speed IS important. But it's important to make the drinks RIGHT and fast.
Up until that point, pretty much everyone was in agreement in pretty much everything that was being discussed. But now they started coming up with a subject with some disagreement. How do you treat your employees?
Doug made the statement for discussion: "We should treat all our guests the same. But we should treat our employees differently. Better producers should get better treatment."
That's an oversimplification of what he said, but it gives a framework for how the discussion happened.
To what extent should better bartenders get better shifts? For the most part, people generally agreed that it makes sense -- it's a reward for the best bartenders, and gives them more chances to make money, and it therefore makes YOU more money, too. But Jim said that doing it that way gave people less opportunity to develop, and he liked to put new people, paired up with experienced people, on busy shifts sometimes, to give them more time and chance to gain skills.
What about other rewards? Taking people on trips, conferences, and so forth. And, if you DO do that, to what extent should everyone else know that you're rewarding people?
I suppose you can fill in the ensuing discussion -- dissention in the ranks, but a reason to stretch, and to know who to emulate . . . I wasn't totally convinced by any of the arguments.
But they DID point out that, in bars where the plum shifts went to the people with the most seniority, those people got lazy, and were therefore not the best bartenders.
The next question was employee satisfaction -- what IS it, how do you ensure it, how do you measure it?
One point on which EVERYONE agreed was that, no matter what side of the last question they were on, even if you think you should treat employees differently in terms of perqs or prime shifts or whatever -- if it's a conflict situation, EVERYONE gets treated the same -- your prime producers get no extra consideration in a conflict. And, by the same token, you also always have complete equality of access -- the new guy should have no more trouble having a chance to talk to you than the guy who you've known for ten years. And you have to find ways to make sure that you can get honest opinions from people. If there are problems, you have to have the empathy to see it, since people may not want to tell their boss that there's a problem. You may have to dig a little to find it. And that being pro-active about that sort of thing is part of a manager's job.
The final question was, when ISN'T the customer right? And they all agreed that, if a customer is actually ABUSIVE to the staff, they go out the door. But "what is abusive" may be culturally dependent! In New Orleans, people may be touchy -- tap staff on the shoulder, or put a hand on a shoulder while talking. In New York, that would not be acceptible, and in some parts of London, the guest would be lucky to actually keep that hand attached to their arm.
If a customer's behavior is interfering with the enjoyment of other guests, it's DEFINITELY time to intervene. And, frankly, many of them found that the people who were being loud and obnoxious actually appriciated being reined in -- they don't actually WANT to be jerks, so felt that the staff was helping them. They tipped high, and came back as repeat customers.
In conclusion, Doug said that policies are often written to deal with the exceptional, outlier cases, and that's a mistake. Your policies should be written to help with NORMAL stuff, and allow people the flexibility to deal with outlier situations by their own judgement. Jim said that perfection is not the goal: excellence is. You can make mistakes and still have excellent service -- you just make sure to fix those mistakes. Deet said that the fundmantal question is, did people have a good time? Do they feel that the money they spent was a good investment of their entertainment dollars? And Charlotte said that you have to "seek the complaint" -- if you get a feeling that someone feels that there is something wrong, they may not want to come to you -- you have to take the initiative to find out what it is, and fix it.