On the Menu: Less than first-class service is a missed opportunity for restaurants
Sunday, September 11, 2011
By China Millman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
John Heller / Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11254/1173144-46-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel2
Contemporary restaurants are dominated by kitchens. We know chefs' names and faces and follow them on Twitter. When people talk about restaurants (or critics write about them), they are mostly focused on the food. This wasn't always the case. For decades, the maitre d' was the most powerful figure in fine dining restaurants -- so powerful there was often a separate line on a check for tipping him.
Today, front-of-house staff command no such respect, and people rarely discuss the art of service except to complain about it. We're in awe of cooks' culinary skills but collectively seem to think that anyone could be a server with a few days of training.
A controversial article from restaurant critic Alan Richman in the September issue of GQ accused many New York restaurants of a "disastrous decline in service," which has resulted in "inconsiderate servers who do almost nothing for customers other than slap plates down in front of them and expect a generous tip."
The complaint is not limited to New York restaurants.
Roger Levine, an instructor at the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, posits that these days diners have greater expectations about service as well as food, and that restaurants aren't meeting those heightened expectations -- a huge missed opportunity.
Restaurants cannot rely on individual servers to manage customer relations. They should have coherent service philosophies, which empower servers not just to perform the technical tasks that are required for a meal, but also to create an atmosphere of true hospitality. Mr. Levine calls servers "ambassadors," because "If ... the food doesn't reach the [diner's] expectations, the server can still win the customer back."
Most of the time, servers are like stage managers. If they do their job right, we don't notice them, but if they forget to move a piece of furniture off the stage -- or forget to bring you a spoon for your soup -- it can bring the experience to a screeching halt.
Servers' jobs are made up of dozens of tiny yet essential tasks: Setting the table, taking orders correctly, serving food and drink, replacing silverware, keeping water glasses full, bringing the check and collecting payment.
These are just the elements of service that most diners are aware of. Add in entering orders into a computer system, following up in the kitchen to ensure that orders are executed correctly, and being the first line of defense for any problems that arise -- and multiply that by the number of tables in a server's section.
Habitat, in the Fairmont Pittsburgh, Downtown, bucks the trend of more casual dining rooms and offers a more elaborate, European style of service. There, servers go through two days of hotel orientation followed by five fully supervised shifts, before they're set loose on guests, said Nicole Tabori, the director of outlets for the Fairmont Pittsburgh.
Ms. Tabori oversees training for front-of-house staff at Habitat, as well as in-room dining, Andys bar and the refreshment center, but Habitat's executive chef, Andrew Morrison, also plays a role in server education by conducting staff tastings when specials or new menus are introduced.
That knowledge of the product they are serving is essential to today's servers. As diners grow ever more experienced and sophisticated, restaurants try to stay one step ahead, sourcing unusual ingredients, and offering more personal, creative interpretations of dishes. Where once servers mimicked the role of servants, today, skillful servers are more like tour guides.
The overall quality of restaurant food in America has never been better, but for every person who goes online to rave about a restaurant's food, there seem to be two people complaining about service, often at the same restaurant. When diners call or email me to complain about a restaurant experience, they usually focus on a problem with service.
Restaurant service is rarely technically perfect. Whether it's a missing steak knife, a long wait at an empty host stand or a burger with the wrong kind of cheese, mistakes happen at every kind of restaurant all of the time. But it's what happens after a mistake that determines the quality of the service.
In "Setting the Table: The Transformative Power of Hospitality in Business," New York restaurateur Danny Meyer describes the moment that he realized that perfection in restaurant service was an impossible goal, but that mistakes could be viewed as opportunities, rather than disasters. He wrote, "In handling mistakes, our goal is always to alter course to create a positive outcome and an experience that ends up being memorable for the right reasons."
The best restaurant service experiences happen when a server turns a problem into an opportunity to impress. Often it's something as simple as a server letting you know that there are only two peach cobblers left in the kitchen in time for you to reserve one.
There is a lot of genuine bad service out there, just as there is still plenty of mediocre food. But talk of bad service seems to have totally overwhelmed any discussion of the many restaurants offering consistently great service. There may never be a show on television called "Top Server," but the very best servers and the people who manage them are every bit as deserving of our respect and admiration as the talented team in the kitchen.
China Millman: 412-263-1198 or cmillman@....
Follow her athttp://twitter.com/chinamillman.
First published on September 11, 2011 at 12:00 am
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11254/1173144-46-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel2#ixzz1Xli99PUe
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