Business it tough these days!
We are in a recession. There is a lot of competition and most of all, the consumer is always looking to the next best thing.
It’s not good enough to have good food.
It’s not good enough to just open your doors and think people will show up.
This is the story of the decline of a neighborhood restaurant.
I think we were all told early in life that we could never take anything for granted, and yet we do. Don’t we? At an early age, we make friends. Then, we assume that we can ignore them for a day or two and go play with the new kid in the neighborhood and our original friends will be sitting around and waiting for us to come back to them. When they go find a new friend our feelings our hurt. We took the friendship for granted. It seems that happens a lot in business.
Once upon a time a restaurant opens in a neighborhood and they serve good food at a good price. They put their heart and sole into the place, and people come. They pack the house, day and night, for years. The owners know most of the regulars by name. The restaurant gets written up in local newspapers and magazines and life is good. It is a dream come true for the owners.
Enjoying the fruits of their labor, the owners, spend less and less time in the restaurant passing the torch to their now, well trained staffs. As time passes, and the economy grows, more restaurants quietly open in the town, and the customer base slowly spreads out, and revenues slowly slide. Without notice, the business starts to decline.
Why did business decline? Your staff is trained, but guess what? When the cat’s away, the mice will play. You didn’t hire a master chef or a trained executive to direct the dining room. Your manager is your cousin’s neighbor from childhood with no prior experience and your chef is not a chef but a guy who can cook because you taught him to cook. It’s not their business, it is a job for them.
Your manager doesn’t greet customers like family. Service has lost its luster. The kitchen isn’t moving quite as rhythmically. Is that dust on the windowsills? The servers and bartenders chat, a lot. No one cleans the bathrooms, until you are due to visit, if someone remembers.
What do most restaurants do when business is slow? They cut costs.
OK, conveniently the recession hits and business is down and it’s time to evaluate what to do next to fix the business. No one will notice using lower quality ingredients, see through toilet paper, a skeleton crew in the front of the house or in the kitchen. Guess again!
The restaurants I am referring to have been established for many years and therefore are generally owned by, (cough), a more mature person. They are usually set in their ways and are not amenable to change, hence the reason they are in this position! It is difficult for them to assess what has caused the downtrend except for the economy. Their food is good.
So, here we are in a restaurant that has no staff so service is slow, although there is no one else here. There is dust on the shelves and windowsills because there is no staff to clean it. The bathrooms are dirty because there is no one to clean them. The menus are crusted with food, dried tomato sauce and I don’t even want to know what else!
At this point, we want to leave. There is no one else here. The place is disgusting. My once favorite place in town has gone from being the pinnacle of Italian Cuisine in our area, to a place I felt embarrassed to be sitting in with friends. I wasn’t sure if I felt more embarrassed for myself or the owner at this point. I’m not sure why, but we decided to stay. Maybe my friends felt sorry for all of us, collectively.
The food was still good, and that was the saddest part. The food was not the reason for the decline. What the owner does not realize is that the large garish signs on the door promoting coupons and online promotions that are “dumbing down” his once pristine business will not save him, but further hasten his demise.
You built your business on quality and service, not gimmicks.
Why do you believe that gimmicks, not quality and service will save your business now?
Related posts:
- The Weekly Rant – Serving Bad Bread The Weekly Rant is back!! We’ve been slacking lately, yeah,...
- The Weekly Rant – Poor Service Am I wrong? It was my understanding the servers in...
- The Weekly Rant – When The Hell Are You Open? Mon: 11:30AM – 11:00PM Tue: 11:30AM – 11:00PM Wed: 11:30AM...
- The Weekly Rant So, here’s the deal: We created The Best of Food...
- The Weekly Rant – Children are People Too Now before you dismiss this rant quickly because you...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I too, have been guilty of contentment. In business, as in relationships, you have to keep working at it. You are constantly adapting, exploring, and re-inventing and it can be so exausting, but only if you lost your drive and passion. It is only those who keep the fire burning that stay on top and once you lose it, it is hard to get back. This restauranteur needs to regain that passion, before it’s too late.