Saturday night I spent some time on the patio with one of the newer servers at my restaurant. He is low on seniority, but has spent more years serving than I have. I estimate total the two of us have between three and four decades of serving experience. I am pretty high on seniority at […]
Tag Archives | restaurant server
A Food Critic Intervention
There have been several instances while writing posts for this blog where I have felt the need to place blame for the things that drive me crazy about the restaurant business. I have always managed to stop short of that because I do not want this to be a blog that complains about the problems […]
Cost vs Profit
In a previous post about why restaurants charge for different extras, I discussed the difference between the guest’s perception of profits and reality. It is not uncommon to hear a guest say, “I can buy this for half as much at the grocery store.” The problem is that food in a restaurant carries far more […]
Supply, Demand, and Chicken Wings
Yesterday’s post on extra charges for the various items a guest requests caused me to ponder on a larger scale. It is remarkably common to hear guests say, “I could buy that steak/wine/etc at the store for half that much.” This is the same principle as walking into a car dealership and demanding a price […]
The Evolution of Free Bread
In the far corner of Southeast Missouri is a town called Sikeston. If you have heard of Sikeston, MO it is probably because of a restaurant called Lambert’s Café. I’ve eaten at Lambert’s a number of times over the years, but don’t recall what I had. I always remember the food being good, but nothing […]
What Motivates Servers: Purpose
(Note: This is the final part of a six part series dealing with what does and does not motivate servers. It is based upon research presented in the first part. If you have not read the initial post entitled “The Epiphany”, I highly recommend you do so to fully understand the series. Later parts dealt […]
What Motivates Servers: Mastery
(Note: This is part five of an ongoing series regarding what does and does not motivate servers. It is based on research provided in part one. I highly recommend visiting that post to gain proper perspective on this one. The second part dealt with how money fails to motivate servers. The third part showed how […]
What Motivates Servers: Autonomy
(Note: This is part four of a series based on research presented in part one. Part one serves as the basis for the whole series and gives a great deal of background for this post. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend doing so to get the most out of this post and series. […]
How Money Motivates
(Note: this is part three of a series based on research presented in part one. Yesterday, I addressed why contests and financial incentives do not motivate servers. If you have not read these posts, I highly recommend doing so in order to fully understand the premise of this post.) Yesterday, I discussed why contests do […]
Why Contests Don’t Work
(Note: This is the second part of a series I am posting over the holiday weekend. The first part of this series lays out the basic premises this post and the rest of the series is based on. In order to full appreciate this series, please read “The Epiphany” where the research behind this post […]
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About The Author
David Hayden was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He took his first serving job in 1996. Since that time, he has worked for over a dozen different restaurant companies. He has held both hourly and salaried positions at independent and corporate restaurants. He has waited on over 100,000 guests and trained hundreds of servers. He has been named "Best Server in Kansas City" the last three years by the local weekly paper.