Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / How to Make Sure You Always Have a Great Service Ep. 76

Transcript

How to Make Sure You Always Have a Great Service Ep. 76 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:05
  to talk about what you need to do to make sure you have a great
• 0:07
  service. Stay tuned.
• 0:20
  This episode of Chefs PSA is sponsored by J&R Grills and
• 0:23
  Smokers. I use J&R Smokers and Grills for
• 0:26
  over 5 years as a chef and I could tell you there's a huge
• 0:29
  difference between cooking over live fire or smoking with wood
• 0:33
  then using gas. There's only one way to get that
• 0:35
  real wood flavor and now they've just added the J&R Vault holding
• 0:39
  cabinet. It'll be the last holding
• 0:41
  cabinet you'll ever need. It's built with 14 gauge
• 0:44
  stainless steel interior. It's ultra durable.
• 0:46
  It has precise electronic temperature control and it's
• 0:50
  going to outlast all those other holding cabinets that you've
• 0:52
  used and always breakdown. They build everything in Texas
• 0:55
  and shipped all 50 states in over 50 countries.
• 0:57
  And right now if you order before December 31st, 2023,
• 1:01
  you're going to receive 25% off plus free shipping.
• 1:04
  J&R will stand with you. They've always stood with me.
• 1:07
  Go to jrmanufacturing.com/vault. So before we get started, make
• 1:12
  sure if you're watching on YouTube, you hit the subscribe
• 1:15
  button. You hit the like button.
• 1:16
  If you're listening on Spotify, make sure you hit the subscribe.
• 1:20
  And of course leave five stars. Nothing less than five stars.
• 1:24
  If you want to support the show, go to chefspsa.com.
• 1:26
  You get all the merch, all the books including this hat right
• 1:30
  here. Happy cook, this ultra
• 1:33
  comfortable hoodie that I'm wearing.
• 1:35
  Chef's PSA, show your Chef's PSA support.
• 1:39
  It's holiday season. I have 5 books there ranging
• 1:42
  from Entry level Cook to Executive Chef, Strategist that
• 1:46
  wants to conquer the world, Kitchen, Art of War, Something
• 1:49
  for the Sous Chef, Bad Sous, Good Chef, Something for
• 1:52
  everybody in your kitchen. Make sure you go to
• 1:55
  chefspsa.com/books and get the books.
• 1:58
  I have a bunch of free ebooks as well, including a recipe book, a
• 2:00
  culinary dictionary, a Food Cost Mastery guide, which is a
• 2:04
  companion to a two-part series that I did, as well as a
• 2:07
  critical path to opening up a restaurant, which is also
• 2:10
  companion to a two-part series I did on Chef's PSA podcast.
• 2:14
  And of course I also have a journal because it's Christmas
• 2:17
  season, why not? Comes in different colors, Red,
• 2:20
  blue, black. How are you going to remember
• 2:23
  things if you don't write them down?
• 2:24
  The worst pen is better than the best memory, assuming that your
• 2:28
  pen is not broken and doesn't write at all.
• 2:30
  It's an expression. But we digress.
• 2:32
  I was at dinner the other day with a couple of chef friends of
• 2:35
  mine and we got into a really good conversation about how the
• 2:39
  industry has changed in such a short period of time.
• 2:41
  Now keep in mind I've been mostly retired for the last two
• 2:45
  years working on Chef's PSA strictly, but I do a lot of
• 2:49
  consulting, leadership seminars, public speaking events, chef in
• 2:53
  residence, things like that. But I haven't really been a chef
• 2:56
  running a day-to-day operation in two years.
• 2:59
  And one of the things that surprised me in the conversation
• 3:01
  that we were, we're talking about moving to the four day
• 3:03
  work week model. I hadn't really seen it where I
• 3:05
  lived and I didn't really understand how it would work,
• 3:08
  but my chef friends were saying how they've implemented it over
• 3:11
  the last couple of years, you know, within the last two years,
• 3:14
  let's say. And as they're opening new
• 3:15
  restaurants, that's the model. One of the things that you have
• 3:18
  to do to make sure that model is successful is you run a little
• 3:20
  bit higher FT ES full time employees.
• 3:23
  So maybe you pay a little bit more on the benefit line item,
• 3:26
  but the amount of hours is still the same to run the operation.
• 3:29
  So instead of working 50 hours a week at 10 hour shifts, you're
• 3:33
  working four days a week at 10 hour shifts or four days a week
• 3:36
  at 8 hour shifts. And what they noticed, what what
• 3:38
  we were talking about around the table is how much that's
• 3:41
  improved their retention for their staff.
• 3:44
  Now, I'm not doing a podcast on that today.
• 3:47
  I'm talking about what makes a great service.
• 3:48
  But nonetheless, I found that interesting.
• 3:50
  And I don't know much about it, but it piqued my interest and it
• 3:53
  makes me want to understand it a little bit more.
• 3:56
  So I'm going to put up a poll. If you're listed on Spotify, if
• 3:59
  you work in that type of kitchen, respond to the poll.
• 4:02
  I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to get some
• 4:03
  information. I'll also put up a poll later
• 4:05
  this week on my Instagram page because I I am truly curious if
• 4:10
  this is something that you would be interested in or if this is
• 4:13
  something that is happening and I'm just late.
• 4:16
  I'm just late to the party, which could be the case, who
• 4:18
  knows. But what I want to talk about
• 4:20
  today is what makes a great service.
• 4:22
  So as I've been in the kitchen lately doing a chef in residence
• 4:25
  the other day we were working, we had a really smooth service
• 4:29
  and I got to say that one of the highs that chefs get is like
• 4:34
  people call it the runner's high.
• 4:35
  When people are running the the after a certain point they get
• 4:38
  into this meditative flow state. If you're a high level athlete,
• 4:41
  they talk about that where you're just on autopilot and
• 4:44
  everything just flows. But every now and again in the
• 4:46
  kitchen we get into that flow state as well.
• 4:48
  Some people it's just prepping. You just zone out and you just
• 4:50
  become ultra efficient. Sometimes you're working in the
• 4:52
  kitchen and you get into that zone, that flow state and things
• 4:56
  just hum. And it's not just you because it
• 4:59
  takes the entire team to be In Sync.
• 5:01
  The synchronicity amongst the team, it just keeps flowing.
• 5:04
  And it's not just the culinary team, it's also the service team
• 5:06
  in the dishwasher team, and everyone's just working
• 5:09
  together. The food is going out smooth,
• 5:10
  it's perfect, nothing really goes wrong, and if anything does
• 5:14
  pop up, that can be a challenge. You handle it swiftly and
• 5:18
  efficiently, without stress, without panic, and you just have
• 5:21
  a really good service. And I want to talk about what
• 5:25
  that's like. What are the steps that usually
• 5:28
  have to be in place in order to be at the point where you can
• 5:31
  have those really good services? I'm going to call it the chef's
• 5:34
  flow state. So let's start at 0.
• 5:37
  What's the most important thing that you need to have a good
• 5:39
  service? Well, you need people.
• 5:41
  You need cooks, you need servers, you need dishwashers,
• 5:44
  You need bussers, You need server assistance.
• 5:46
  You need general managers. You need chefs.
• 5:48
  You need 2 chefs. You need the proper hierarchy.
• 5:51
  On the culinary team, on the stewarding team, on the service
• 5:54
  team, the person taking the reservations, the person
• 5:57
  greeting the guest, the person saying goodbye to the guest.
• 6:00
  You need to have all those positions.
• 6:02
  So first and foremost, you need the right number of people to
• 6:06
  make sure that service goes well.
• 6:08
  The second thing you need is you need the right people, a certain
• 6:11
  level of competence in position. Let's assume we're talking about
• 6:14
  Friday night service. Let's just say that's the
• 6:16
  busiest day of the week. Maybe you work a brunch service.
• 6:19
  I'm sorry, that's your busiest shift, whatever the case may be.
• 6:22
  But it's prime time, and during prime time you have your
• 6:26
  starting lineup. The A-Team.
• 6:28
  No one from the starting lineup is off on Friday night.
• 6:32
  Your best players are on, and not only are your best players
• 6:35
  on, but your best players are playing the right position.
• 6:39
  You have your starting quarterback, your saute cook is
• 6:42
  the best saute cook. Your grill cook is the best
• 6:44
  grill cook. The person on guard Manger maybe
• 6:47
  has the most swanier plating because a lot of times they do
• 6:49
  desserts. If you don't have a dessert
• 6:51
  position and you have a lot of crudos and raw fish dishes or
• 6:55
  salads that need to be plated a little bit more beautifully, so
• 6:58
  they have those aesthetic skills.
• 7:01
  The person that's cooking meat knows how to cook meat very
• 7:03
  well. They're the best person for the
• 7:04
  job. The person who's cooking fish is
• 7:07
  the best person at cooking fish, The person who's calling the
• 7:10
  pass, running, expedite or whatever you call it.
• 7:12
  And that's just the culinary team.
• 7:13
  The best servers are on, the best host is on.
• 7:16
  Everyone knows what they're doing.
• 7:17
  The A-Team is on. That is step one to make sure
• 7:20
  you have a good service. Everyone is awake and ready as I
• 7:23
  like to say. So the reason I say that, if you
• 7:25
  don't know the reference, when I was a chef, when people would
• 7:27
  come into the kitchen, I would say how are you?
• 7:30
  Everyone stay awake and ready and that was just a signal to
• 7:32
  know that you're here, you're present, you're focused, you're
• 7:34
  ready to go. There's nothing worse than
• 7:35
  having a full rail of tickets and a cook comes wandering and
• 7:38
  you say how are you? And they're like, you know, got
• 7:40
  a flat tire, had a bad day yesterday.
• 7:42
  And they want to talk about their personal issues or some
• 7:45
  nonsense when there's a rail full of tickets.
• 7:49
  Now, I'm not saying that it's not important because it is, but
• 7:51
  that's not the time and place. So a little situational
• 7:53
  awareness for a cook is needed. No, no wants to hear about how
• 7:57
  you'd forgot to set your alarm as soon as you walk in and that
• 8:00
  you're a little tired when there's a full rail of tickets
• 8:03
  and they're going down, they want to know you're awake and
• 8:05
  ready, Let's go. So that's where that comes from.
• 8:08
  The next thing is you need product.
• 8:09
  So whoever's ordering the food needs to make sure that you have
• 8:12
  all the product in the cooler, the dry storage, everything is
• 8:15
  in house. You don't want to 86 anything.
• 8:17
  You don't want to be scrambling and sending people to the store
• 8:20
  or informing the guests that you don't have it or it arriving
• 8:23
  late and you're prepping it just minutes before the doors open
• 8:26
  and so you're running a little bit behind.
• 8:27
  You don't want any of that. The prep has to be done.
• 8:30
  So even if the product is there has to be prepped.
• 8:32
  You don't want to be going into prime service and prepping as
• 8:36
  the orders are coming in. You want to be set and ready.
• 8:39
  Everyone had their coffee before they came to work.
• 8:41
  They didn't come to work and then drink a coffee or a tea or
• 8:44
  a Red Bull or whatever it is that you're having lights on
• 8:47
  someone's home. Mes and plus is ready and not
• 8:50
  only is your mes and plus ready, but it's correct.
• 8:53
  You've tasted everything, your sauces are right and you have
• 8:55
  enough for the amount of covers that you're going to do that
• 8:57
  evening. Zero, 86 items.
• 9:00
  Then there's the pre shift and the knowledge of what's going to
• 9:02
  happen for that evening service. So everyone knows the game plan
• 9:06
  that you're going into. You know at this point in time
• 9:08
  there's going to be compression. You're communicating that
• 9:11
  information to the service team, saying, hey, during this time we
• 9:14
  have a lot of covers. We have a lot of guests.
• 9:16
  At the same time, here's what we need to do to mitigate any long
• 9:19
  tickets. Push this item.
• 9:21
  Don't push that item. We're going to send bites from
• 9:24
  the chef. You've already identified who
• 9:25
  your PX or your VIP tables are. You know what you're going to
• 9:28
  send them. You know, if the chef has to
• 9:30
  touch the table, your anniversaries, your weddings,
• 9:32
  your birthdays, whatever special touches you do for those people,
• 9:35
  it's ready. You're not thinking about it,
• 9:37
  and you're not caught off guard in the middle of the rush.
• 9:39
  It's all been discussed at Pre Show.
• 9:41
  Now let's assume you have all that in place.
• 9:43
  The next thing you need is reps on the menu, reps on the
• 9:48
  service. So the service team is fully
• 9:50
  experienced on what the menu is. They know how to sell it.
• 9:52
  They know what the allergens are.
• 9:54
  They know what the substitutes are.
• 9:55
  They know what they can and cannot do.
• 9:57
  They're not going to come to you in the middle of service and
• 9:59
  say, can we do this knowing you don't have it?
• 10:02
  They're not going to come up to you and say can they get a side
• 10:03
  of steamed broccoli knowing you have no broccoli in house?
• 10:06
  They already know what your substitutes available are.
• 10:08
  The culinary team has reps on the dishes, so it's difficult to
• 10:12
  have the best service ever. On the first week of rolling out
• 10:14
  a menu, you still don't have rhythm.
• 10:16
  The more rhythm and the more practice that you get on the
• 10:18
  menu, you know, You know what, it's better if we move our pan
• 10:21
  over here. It's better if I turn the burner
• 10:23
  just up this high for searing the fish or the meat, whatever
• 10:26
  the case may be, You know you can't pick up that dish too fast
• 10:30
  because there's another component that's slow.
• 10:33
  You're In Sync with the rest of your team.
• 10:35
  It's really difficult when you have one really fast person on
• 10:38
  the line and the other people. You have dishes that take a
• 10:40
  little bit longer and you think you're doing a good thing by
• 10:42
  putting up your dishes 5-10 minutes before everyone else.
• 10:45
  While your food is getting cold and they're not ready, you have
• 10:48
  to be In Sync with your team. There's a there's a dance,
• 10:51
  there's a coordination that's going on.
• 10:53
  Kitchen karate, as I like to call it, got to have your black
• 10:55
  belt. So having reps on the menu will
• 10:58
  ensure that you have a good service.
• 10:59
  Like I said, it's always going to be difficult to have a really
• 11:01
  great service when a menu item or a whole new menu has just
• 11:05
  started. You got to get comfortable with
• 11:06
  it, and then it's kind of on autopilot and we get into that
• 11:09
  flow state that we were talking about earlier.
• 11:11
  And then there's the things that the service team could do.
• 11:13
  The reservations are spaced out adequately.
• 11:16
  It's not just one big pop. You're not open for five hours,
• 11:20
  but you do all your covers in one hour, right?
• 11:22
  Wheels fall off the bus, the kitchen crashes.
• 11:24
  That's never good. Things are spaced out
• 11:26
  appropriately. You're not taking more big
• 11:29
  tables than you can handle at once.
• 11:32
  A few big tables sprinkled in throughout service is good
• 11:35
  because you don't want to do 100 covers of all one tops tickets
• 11:38
  with just one item on it. You want to have a few larger
• 11:41
  tickets You could pump out food. I hate to use the word pump out
• 11:44
  because it sounds like you're just slanging hash.
• 11:46
  I mean so you could put out the dishes.
• 11:47
  So a couple of larger tables mixed in with some smaller
• 11:50
  tables is a good flow. You don't want only small tables
• 11:53
  and you don't want only large tables.
• 11:55
  Ideally you'd have 0 modifiers on the tickets and the modifiers
• 11:59
  make sense and they're easy to read.
• 12:01
  The servers know if there is a modification or an allergen.
• 12:04
  They're coming back and speaking to the chef and they're
• 12:06
  explaining what it is, not having you guess on something
• 12:09
  that doesn't make sense. The service team knows how to
• 12:11
  communicate. They know when to be quiet, they
• 12:13
  know when to talk, they know when to interrupt the chef, when
• 12:15
  not to interrupt the chef. I'll tell you what, when I'm
• 12:17
  expoing, if I'm working the past, I hate being interrupted
• 12:21
  when I'm calling. I need to make sure I say
• 12:23
  whatever I need to say on the ticket and then you can ask me
• 12:25
  the question. I don't like a lot of chatter in
• 12:27
  the kitchen. I like quiet kitchens
• 12:29
  personally. A quiet kitchen is a focus
• 12:31
  kitchen. That's just how I work.
• 12:32
  I know other people operate differently, but I do my best
• 12:35
  work when things are quiet and there's one person talking.
• 12:38
  I don't like kitchen operations where different people are
• 12:40
  coming up and talking to cooks instead of talking to the Expo.
• 12:43
  One person should be the voice in charge 1 voice, one team that
• 12:47
  to me makes a good service. If a plate comes back, steak
• 12:51
  needs to be up cooked. They change their mind.
• 12:53
  There's a certain brevity in which things are communicated
• 12:56
  right? No one likes that long
• 12:57
  narrative. Like, you know, the server comes
• 12:59
  up to you and they're holding a plate in their hand and they
• 13:00
  say, well, you know, there's this person out there and
• 13:03
  they're from this city and they're with their family.
• 13:06
  And they heard great things about the restaurant.
• 13:07
  And they talked to you for like 5 minutes and they're standing
• 13:09
  there with a plate and you're staring at them with a blank
• 13:12
  look on your face. And they keep talking and keep
• 13:15
  talking and you're like, where we going with this?
• 13:17
  What do you need? And after about 5 minutes they
• 13:20
  say so can I get dressing on the side or can I get the steak
• 13:23
  cooked more. And you're like all you had to
• 13:25
  say was I need to up cook the steak to well done, medium,
• 13:27
  whatever, whatever the case may be or all I need is dressing on
• 13:30
  the side. You don't need a 5 minute
• 13:32
  conversation to get to the point and I and I don't know why,
• 13:34
  that's lost on people. Kitchens are hectic and kitchens
• 13:36
  are busy and sometimes when you have a rail full of tickets you
• 13:40
  don't need the 10 minute explanation of why it needs to
• 13:43
  be done. You just need to get it done.
• 13:46
  The clock is ticking the guest to suffering and there's a rail
• 13:49
  full of tickets that need to be addressed.
• 13:51
  Practice brevity. The Jizza from the Wu Tang Clan
• 13:54
  has a lyric that I love, he says.
• 13:57
  Keep it brief. Sun half short and twice strong,
• 14:01
  meaning half short. Use half the words twice strong.
• 14:06
  The words that you use make them more impactful.
• 14:08
  Keep it brief. Sun half short and twice strong.
• 14:11
  And when allergens are on the ticket, we know how to identify
• 14:14
  plates, and there's a system in place for allergens.
• 14:17
  Maybe that's a different plate. Maybe you have a specific
• 14:20
  allergen plate in your kitchen. So you know, I'm just making
• 14:23
  this up. All allergen plates are black.
• 14:25
  So you know or all allergen plates are different colors.
• 14:29
  So you know, maybe you put a piece of tape.
• 14:32
  I know that's what I do. Whenever I have an allergen,
• 14:34
  I'll write the allergen and put it on a piece of green tape and
• 14:36
  stick it to the plate so the service team knows that hey,
• 14:40
  this is the gluten free one or this is the one with the dairy
• 14:43
  allergy or the no pork or whatever the case may be.
• 14:46
  Something not playing the guessing game right.
• 14:48
  Or if you have multiple state temperatures and all and you
• 14:51
  can't tell which one is which, five of them are well done and
• 14:54
  one is rare. Well, the one that's rare has
• 14:56
  the tape on it. So you know, right.
• 14:58
  Common sense. There's a procedure in place.
• 15:00
  People aren't just playing the guessing game and everyone knows
• 15:03
  the system. Now that's the system I use.
• 15:05
  You might use a different system.
• 15:06
  It does not matter. But in order to have a smooth
• 15:08
  service, everyone has to know the system and the system has to
• 15:11
  be used by everyone. There can't be people on your
• 15:14
  team that operate to a different system, because when it's busy,
• 15:17
  the amount of time that you have to make decisions is very short
• 15:19
  and efficient. And the fewer decisions that
• 15:21
  you're making, the better, because you want to be on
• 15:24
  autopilot, putting out beautiful food head down, beautiful food,
• 15:28
  smooth. When all the stars line up and
• 15:30
  you have all those things in place, that's when you're going
• 15:33
  to have a smooth ServiceNow maybe you're in a restaurant or
• 15:38
  you're in a kitchen where only some of those things are in
• 15:40
  place. Well, then it's your
• 15:42
  responsibility to get all those other things in place.
• 15:44
  And I'm sure I forgot some. Leave a comment.
• 15:47
  If I forgot something, let me know.
• 15:49
  But if you want to have successful services, start
• 15:52
  making sure that you have all those things and you plan
• 15:54
  accordingly. Because The Kitchen Art of War.
• 15:57
  It's about making sure that you have all your pieces in place
• 16:01
  and you have the right strategy plan to win.
• 16:03
  If you want to support the show, you know what to do.
• 16:05
  Go to chefspsa.com. You get all the books, all the
• 16:08
  merch. Make sure you leave five stars.
• 16:10
  Nothing less than five stars. Hit the subscribe button, Share
• 16:13
  the podcast. Tell everyone and hit the porno
• 16:16
  music. We'll see you next week.