How to Guarantee Great Service in the Modern Restaurant Industry or "How I Learned to Shut Up and Tip 20%"

How to Guarantee Great Service in the Modern Restaurant Industry or "How I Learned to Shut Up and Tip 20%"

Jim Wade
article

Everything in life can be expressed on the bell curve, even restaurant customer service. You have a top 10-20%, a middle 70-80% percent, and a bottom feeder 10% to everything. Ideally, you want to be in the top 10%. This is usually reserved for family members, friends with benefits, weed dealers, and the lawyer that got us out of our DUI. The middle 80% is mostly everyone else. Civilians and random guests. You haven’t done anything to piss us off and being nice pays for our rent and cat food; we will probably be sincere about it too. The bottom 10%? Write us a bad review, we dare you. You say you’ll never come back? Is that a promise? Land in this category and after work we will be talking about you over shots for hours. Not a place you want to be. Here’s how to be in the top 10%.

Restaurant Management and Leadership: A Bar and Quill Survival Guide

Restaurant Management and Leadership: A Bar and Quill Survival Guide

Jim Wade

Part of being a good manager in the F&B world is making sure your staff has the tools and the training to do their jobs. Part of being a good leader is conducting yourself as the standard to which you are holding everyone else. Fortunately doing both of these things consistently well in the service industry is as easy as herding cats.

Restaurants Are America

Restaurants Are America

Jim Wade
article

Restaurants, taverns, bars, pubs, and café’s…these places are part of our community. When America was being settled the first building most towns would put up was a tavern; before schoolhouses, courtrooms, jails, or even a town hall, there would be a tavern. Whatever you want to call it, the house that serves fair-priced food and libations to locals and travelers alike is as American as George Washington, and celebrating momentous events with revelry is practically baked into our DNA. Proof? 2 days before the Constitution was signed, on the night of September 15, 1787, at City Tavern in Philadelphia, George and 54 of his pals threw a party and drank “54 bottles of Madeira wine, 60 bottles of Bordeaux wine, 8 bottles of old stock whiskey, 22 bottles of porter ale, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 jugs of beer, and 7 large bowls of punch”…plus dinner, fruit, olives and relish, because even back then they knew when you’re going hard you gotta eat.

Independent vs corporate restaurants

Independent vs corporate restaurants

Jim Wade
article

There are all kinds of kitchens, restaurants and food service venues but they usually fall into one of two categories: corporate or independent. It’s hard to say which is better to work at even if it’s like a pirate ship taking on the Royal Navy. Clearly there are some big differences. Let’s take a look.

Drugs and Alcohol: Restaurants vs The Real World

Drugs and Alcohol: Restaurants vs The Real World

Jim Wade
article

Drugs and alcohol are the glue and the grease of the Food and Beverage Industry. They help us keep our shit together but also let us unwind and loosen up. The range of chemicals restaurant workers use to get through the day runs from aspirin to acid and many would be lost without something to help take the edge off. Sometimes people take it too far, on accident or on purpose, and the one thing we don’t hear a lot of is “Hey, you might want to get some help.”

When the Shit Goes Down...

When the Shit Goes Down...

Jim Wade
article

In the restaurant industry stuff breaks ALL the time. Ideally you can call someone to fix things but if you have a vested interest in your kitchen or the operation as a whole you should know how to fix as many things as you can yourself, or at least be able to identify what the problem really is. Half because you need to get busted equipment functional again, and half because if you can figure it out yourself you don’t have to pay someone else hundreds of dollars to figure it out for you.

Restaurant Gods: A Closer Look

Restaurant Gods: A Closer Look

Jim Wade
article

Everyone who has ever worked in food service knows about the Restaurant Gods. They can be fickle as fuck. They're the ones who send in the full board of tickets just when you finish cooking your lunch. They're the ones who pay attention when you shut off your grill or turn off your fryer 30 minutes before close and punish you for it with burgers and fries at close. They hear you when you are dead and complaining about not having anything to do. "Oh?" they say, "You want something to do?"

And as my old kitchen manager Lee would say "And then the tour bus pulled up."

Opening a Restaurant in 20 Easy Steps

Opening a Restaurant in 20 Easy Steps

Jim Wade
article

A childhood friend of mine got a wild hair up her ass and she and her husband decided to open a coffeeshop in a little town outside of Madison WI and she asked if I had any advice. I told her I’d jot down a few things but I figured I’d share it with all aspiring restaurateurs…especially those with no previous food experience. Good god, where to begin.