3 Meals Of Goodness

Dining out is a very common practice in our society.

Eating in certain dining environments doesn’t really qualify it to be a “restaurant experience”. Eating at a food court or a fast food establishment is a different style of dining, based around the principles of cost, convenience, and consistency.

Consistency especially applies when it comes to places like McDonalds. Their success is based around a formula. No matter where you are in the world, you know exactly what to expect.

This is always the risk when it comes to a restaurant.

There is nothing in theory to guarantee an experience in a restaurant.

A restaurant provides, for arguments sake, the following:

* A la carte service – that is, someone takes your order
* Food prepared fresh – well, as fresh as the quality controls that exist in a kitchen
* The presentation of a menu, as well as a beverage list

Generally, there is one indisputable fact that defines a restaurant good.

That is, a diner pays for ease and convenience, and to receive an experience that differentiates between eating at home and dining out.

Having said that, a paying customer would expect a certain degree of expectations. Here are some good examples.

When you come into a restaurant, you are greeted in some shape or form. So understated, it should be one of the key aspects of any service environment.

Basics are pointed out to you. Often this could be specials. Sometimes, to break the server/customer relationship ice, you could point out where the facilities are. But essentially, management should work out what might be confusing to a potential guest and explain it to make them comfortable.

A guest does not have to signal for attention. Ever. This is what makes great service. No matter what, there is just the right balance of service that you to be able to get what you want.

Nothing infringes on your experience. For me, one of my pet hates is finishing your meal, and having your dirty plate sit in front of you for more than a couple of minutes.

But most importantly,

If something does go wrong (such as human error) that the restaurant DOES NOT ignore the problem, apologizes, and in some shape or form, fixes the problem.

Also, little pieces of detail help.

You want to hear music that isn’t intruding. As I like to say to team, loud enough to notice, loud enough to muffle the next tables noise, but not so loud as to prevent conversation between a tables conversant.

A clean bathroom. Have team check on this regularly. Nothing is quite as off putting as to going to a toilet with appropriate paper, soap, or the like.

Overall cleanliness. But do it properly. For example, its good to clean tables (in the absence of linen), but advise team not to aim the spray like a gun and shoot the table so the cleaning fluid rebounds and hits other tables – and guests.

But above all, the experience is best when you are looked after.

When you are treated “nice”.

The industry is not called hospitality for nothing….

This is something a little different from my usual rant on food.

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What makes a good restaurant? From a personal standpoint …..

1. SERVICE
2. FOOD
3. AMBIANCE
4. OVERALL EXPERIENCE

Do note that of the lot, “SERVICE” is my topmost priority. Corporations worldwide spend billions of dollars annually to implement and upgrade customer service quality and yet, it saddens me to see companies, especially from the food industry being ignorant about this.

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Take a moment to look the the photo above. What do you feel?

Sad? Or angry? Perhaps even both. It’s a painful reality.

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DOES THIS MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU?

• Every year 15 million children die of hunger
• For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
• Throughout the 1990’s more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
• The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you’ve entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
• One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5.
• Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion – a majority of humanity – live on less than $1 per day, while the world’s 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world’s people.
• 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
• Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
• About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age.
• To satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
• The assets of the world’s three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
• Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.

Want to help ? All you have to do to help end world hunger is to join thousands of others bloggers on April 29 and write a post about world hunger.