Greetings!
For many U.S. operators, June marks the start of a whole new season, not just from the point of view of food and the menu but also operationally. Perhaps you have a patio that’s opening and a lunch trade that’s starting to pick up, or your customer base is moving into a more casual, school-vacation mode. You may even be welcoming back part-time summer staff to help with the extra volume.
That makes this a great time of year to focus on team-building issues. Our Senior Operations Associate, Chuck Imerson, shares some communications strategies for getting everyone pulling in the same direction as you gear up for the warmer months ahead.
We also have some ideas for making your website work harder for you, and a look at one of the exciting new food trends we’re tracking, the Japanese-style izakaya pub.
To your success,
Dean and Danny
Don’t Let Silence Become Your Approval
By Chuck Imerson, Senior Operations Associate
We’ve all heard the adage “Silence is Approval.” If your team lacks performance, your silence could be why. A manager’s failure to communicate properly with the team produces a lack of employee motivation. It causes distrust among employees, and it will inevitably end in employees being disengaged. The absence of communication with your whole team will most certainly result in an overall lack of understanding of both your company’s philosophies, and of its procedures.
Ask yourself this: “When I witness a coachable moment, do I seize the opportunity to coach? Or do I simply kick the can down the road?” If in fact you do let the moment just pass by, your silence consequently conveys to your team members that you accept their behavior, and that the rules simply do not apply to them. Your approval is your silence! The question is, how do you make time for these coachable moments?
Managing in the hospitality business is always “live.” For much of the day, a manager works with the team in action-stations, helping them out-of-the-weeds, and therefore ensuring that the guests have a great dining experience. To ensure that team members don’t receive the “silent treatment,” managers must focus on the following:
• Take advantage of the “minute” with ongoing and constant communication. One-minute conversations will add up throughout the shift, and they will keep the staff motivated, informed, and focused.
• When you observe individual team members doing something exceptional, acknowledge them before their peers. When employees see and hear peer recognition, it becomes contagious. They immediately achieve the behavior that you, the manager, desire. Everyone likes praise, and employees always want more of it. Your actions will go a long way in improving employee morale.
• Take time to stop, look, and listen. By doing this, you identify coachable moments, and you can avoid handing out the silent treatment. You gain buy-in from your team members when you explain to them why a task is done this way, and when you demonstrate how to do it. This why and how is crucial for success
• Understand both the value of communication, and the consequence of the silent treatment on the team.
And finally, never pass on an opportunity to make your team better, because that will help make your operation stand out from all the competition. Remember always that for the continual success of any business, the manager must give back. The more you give, the more the employee gives. So, try to incorporate your give-back actions into your daily plan of action.
Contact Synergy Consultants if you’d like a free consultation to discuss your team-building programs.
Iza-whatta?
Izakaya. Think of it as the love child of a tapas bar and a neighborhood pub, by way of Japan—the logical next step after sushi madness and a bad economy. There’s probably one coming to your town soon.
Starting life as sake shops where workingmen could sit and imbibe (the name means “sitting in a sake shop”), with the eventual addition of small snacks, the traditional izakaya serves an essential role in Japanese social life, just like the pub in England and the tavern in the United States.
Restaurant Business pegged the izakaya (pronounced ee-ZAH-ka-ya) as one of the Next Generation Japanese concepts headed our way, and the wide acceptance of both sushi and small plates as a way of dining has led to a recent proliferation of izakayas here in the United States.
Then, too, there are only so many chef-driven gastropubs dispensing drinks and reasonably priced food-to-be-shared that any given market can take. Izakayas offer this eating-and-drinking model in spades, with the relative exoticism of another culture thrown into the bargain.
Rather than dispensing sushi, however, the izakaya specializes in grilled foods like yakimoni (skewered foods), fried chicken, dumplings, rice and noodle dishes, and other menu items that are great for both absorbing and spurring sales of sake, beer, shōchū (a traditional Japanese distilled beverage made from barley or rice), and cocktails.
Some examples of new stateside izakayas include:
• Ki, in San Francisco – This “eco-sensitive” izakaya featuring local ingredients and sustainable seafood also features a sake lounge and a sushi bar. Owned by Paul Hemming and helmed by Chef Brian Beach (an alumni of Aqua restaurant), Ki offers modern interpretation of traditional Japanese pub grub, including kurobuta pork dumplings, a variety of yakitori (chicken skewers) and curry pork sliders
Ki Grand Opening from Temple Nightclub on Vimeo.
• Kushi, in Washington, DC – One of the granddaddies of the izakaya trend in the U.S. specializes in a menu of wood-fired robata-grilled items like asparagus, mushrooms, squid legs, quail and duck, as well as cross-cultural kobachi (small plates) such as Japanese potato salad with Bayonne ham), steam edamame and a daily chawanmushi custard
• Tanuki Tavern, in New York City – Restaurant impresario Jeffrey Chodorow’s entry into the field is the new Tanuki Tavern in the Meatpacking District’s stylish Hotel Gansevoort. The small-plates-intensive menu touts everything from fish and chips with yuzu tartar sauce to miso braised beef marrow bone, and there are several dozen esoteric and artisanal sakes on the wine list
• Sasa, in Walnut Creek, CA – Chef-owner Philip Yang has transformed a 100-year-old brick building into a fusion-style izakaya featuring foods from local farmers’ and fish markets; edamame hummus, Delta asparagus tempura, pan-seared dayboat scallops with carrot-ginger puree, and chicken “lollipops” with sweet and spicy glaze. The cocktail list features a number of interesting cross-cultural libations (Suntory Manhattan, anyone?)
Want more on food trends? The team at Synergy are all experts on what’s hot and how to implement it for your menu.
Is Your Website Up to Snuff?
In this digital age, a good website can be the second most important ancillary marketing tool a restaurant has, after a well-designed menu.
Although today’s restaurant websites look and function a lot better than they used to, there are still plenty of substandard or just plain bad websites around: hard to use, ugly, complicated, lacking in a consistent message, or uninformative.
Like all marketing tools, your website and any associated social media—Twitter and Facebook feeds, a blog if you have one—should speak with your voice. Whether your operation is a small independent with limited resources, or a chain with a dedicated staff to produce it, your website is an extension of your mission, personality and marketing message.
Take a look at the site for Kitchenette , a “home-cooking” restaurant in Manhattan. Though the two locations are in high-density uber-urban areas, step inside the website and you’re in another place and time entirely, one where a meal is like dinner at Grandma’s house.
The design and graphics are charming, the voice and subject matter are authentic, and from a technical perspective the site makes sense and is easy to navigate and understand. There are recipes for items like chocolate cake and Nana’s Chicken Noodle Soup, and a new blog where you can read about Sunday suppers and vegetable gardening. Even if you’ve never been to Kitchenette, you feel like you understand the place and know the owners. It’s not a sophisticated blog, per se, but given the concept it shouldn’t be.
Meanwhile, Dunkin’ Donuts has recently redesigned its website to be more locally friendly. Inspired by Facebook feedback, the company added GPS functionality for smartphone users as well as a tool that allows customers to enter their zip code to access information about their nearest DD, its hours of operation, Wi-Fi availability and so on. You owe yourself to check it out.
Technical subjects like search engine optimization and analytics are a whole separate matter, but here are some common-sense tips to keep in mind when evaluating or redesigning your website (or, heaven forbid, launching your first one):
• Take it easy with bells and whistles – Three years ago, animation and other examples of technical wizardry were de rigueur. But keeping in mind that some 50% of Americans are using a mobile device like a smart phone, that’s no longer a smart strategy. Slow-loading screens, flash animation, complex slide shows and other bells and whistles will simply crash your customers’ browsers
• Be careful with the music – The right tunes may set a mood in the restaurant, but can be annoying on a website: The volume may come on too loud; the noise can be distracting; and it can be an embarrassment to the poor schlub who’s trying to make a dinner reservation from an office desk
• There must be a menu – Absolutely, positively, even if it’s a sample one. Including prices is extremely important (many chains deal with market-by-market differences by having a menu link for each location). You can offer a pdf but it shouldn’t be the only versions—remember than smart phone user? And of course it should be current
• Play up the basics – Contact information (address, phone number, email address) should be on every page; why force someone to go back to the home page or, even worse, a separate contact page after they’ve perused that menu? Hotlink the phone number. Days and hour of operation, reservations policies and other nuts-and-bolts information (credit cards taken, availability of parking) should also be prominently displayed. Don’t make customers hunt to give you their business
• No pages under construction – Yes, your web designer has put in a template for photos or a future blog. They have no business on an active site
• No bad food photography – Digital cameras are getting better, and you may be able to take photos yourself, but if you can’t afford professional photography that does your food justice, don’t use it
Finally, remember that like anything design-oriented, websites can look dated after just a few years. Like any marketing tool your site has a shelf life, and should be updated as necessary for content, appearance and functionality.
Synergy Consultants can help you design a better website. Just contact us today for a free estimate.
Tip of the Month
The USDA’s iconic Food Guide Pyramid, introduced in 1992 and much criticized in the past several years for becoming both irrelevant and overly detailed, has been replaced by the plate. For many foodservice professionals who grew up with the pyramid, this represents an interesting paradigm shift, although the message to enjoy your food but eat less of it overall will come as no surprise. For information, check out the new site, choosemyplate.gov.