The weekend is upon us. Friday and Saturday nights get busy and take a lot out of us. The pace is faster, the side stations are more crowded, and all of the saucers in the restaurant seem to hide. The guests do not seem to understand any of this and have far less patience. This […]
Tag Archives | Service
Aspirational Dining Defined
I am a Mac guy. This means only the occasional interruption for updates from Microsoft. These are most often for Word for Macs. Yet in none of these updates have they added to my spell check dictionary words like “Barack Obama, Al Qaeda, or Facebook.” If they do implement this change they can use this […]
The Disadvantages of Set Schedules
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 […]
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 […]
Extras and Upcharges
I received a message the other day from a friend and reader of the blog who is not in the business. She recounted going out to eat and asking for a few extras. When the bill came it was filled with minor charges for each of the items she requested. Her concern was not that […]
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. […]
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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.