😢It’s not the market is down. It’s not people don’t want to work anymore. Its not COGs are too high.
These photos are from a major chain with many many locations. You’ll notice I put the timestamp to show you that the bathroom photos are an hour apart. Not a single thing was cleaned up in fact it just got worse.
Look at the photos of the dining room.
When we sat down the server picked up an orange slice that was sitting at the bar in front of me, but never actually wiped down the bar. I had to use the hand sanitizer in my backpack.
There was a menu on the bar next to us with jalapeños sitting on top of it. He never picked them up.
These dishes sat here for about 20 minutes. The bar tender walked by us half a dozen times. Even brought us a new drink ...
The bar was very well staffed. There was probably 10 servers and a host on the floor as well as as a manager.
I wish this was an isolated incident but m seeing every day, every where.
The bar I was at right before this, was practically empty ... but then again, the bartender was literally sitting on the back bar tapping away at his phone while people were going back in and out the back door to smoke marijuana, filling the bar with cold air every time they opened the door.
I walked into a coffee shop the other day and the person behind the cash register never greeted me. Just looked at me like "yeah what?" I said "id like an espresso please." His reply "anything else?" I said "no" and he hit tend on the POS terminal. Then ... nothing but of course the guest facing display asked me if I wanted to tip .... 🤦♂️.
➡️ It’s 100% we are hiring and training for the job not for the service.
😑 We’re showing people how to run the cash register, how to cook the food, where are the cleaning supplies are stored … all the automated training that’s happening out. There is great because it’s putting it into systems and on people’s phones, but it’s for the wrong thing.
✅ We need to be hiring and training for service. We need to be looking for people who generally want to be in service to others and to enjoy the act of earning a wage by making somebody else else’s day.
✅ We need to understand the motivations of our team and play into those.
I had my eyes open in this conversation with Geoffrey Toffetti on my podcast. I’d highly suggest taking the 30 mins listen.
I had not planned on writing this post to promote this episode but after what happened last night ...
We’ve got to change how we are approaching this part of our business as an industry, or we are going to continue to suffer.
What are your thoughts?
- Rev
