We Teach the Finer Points of Service

I am so jealous of all of you that have taught or are teaching student run restaurants.  We opened today for service after having one week of orientation for the students last week. Today was the Monday section and we learned how well we did on orientation with a crew of students in the front of the house and back of the house.  I was pleased that we only had 14 reservations (6 parties) to get the kids some practice before we start to fill up on a regular basis.  All in all it went well.

HOWEVER, it was the finer points that we could not have possibly covered due to time constraints and other hiccups that reared their ugly head today such as no carbonation in the soft drinks.  The kids could not make up their minds as to which hand to use to set down plates or beverages and then take them away.  Where to stand when not engaged in service.  Which way do we want the plates to be set before the customer?  Where are the cut flowers for the tables?  When to return to the table to inquire as to the quality of the meal.  So it goes (stolen from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five).

What I learned today is that what I need to teach is the FINER POINTS of service.  Sure, we reviewed with servers how to approach the table and what to say throughout service through to clearing the table.  Yes, we worked with students on cooking the menu items in the back of the house.  But where we fell down today was all the little things that add up to the big thing we call Stellar Customer Service.  And that is what we will spend the next 15 weeks doing -- the FINER points so that when students leave here we hopefully have corrected the bad behaviors they learned someplace else or taught them to do service correctly from that point forward.

I LOVE IT!