Now that I’ve covered why you should work on dealing with allergies, and I’ve covered how you can do so in the back of the house, there’s just one last frontier to deal with…though it’s the first frontier to face your guest. Your server. Or, well, at this point it becomes their server. And according to restaurant marketing firm You Got Meals, for better or for worse, to your customers their servers are your restaurant. So it’s absolutely no use taking the greatest of care in the kitchen if it isn’t reflected out on the floor.
Almost all critics and patrons agree that service will often prove more important than the food. A caring and passionate staff can even erase the memory of an overflowing plate of culinary missteps. So you can imagine how powerful that might make a problem-free kitchen! Moreover, that server pride usually ends up having a positive effect on customers’ financial appreciation as well. So it should be easy to convince your front of the house to adopt a positive attitude. According to the critics (and founders!) of ChefSeattle.com, a great site dedicated to food and foodservice in the Northwest United States, there are eight key tips to stand out, service-wise, from the rest of the culinary crowd. Here are the ones I think we most often forget, but you should definitely head to the article for the complete list:
- Your opinion as a server does matter: If the guest asks for your opinion they probably actually want it!
- Learn your wines; surprisingly, people drink wine without knowing that much about it, which means that they’re going to look to you for expert advice. Be ready with some.
- Learn how to handle the negatives. Lord knows that customers are going to complain, sometimes with validity, sometimes not. Handling these moments with verve and professionalism is the mark of a truly great server.
- Smile!
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