I want to commend you on your June Editor's Space. Responsibility for a restaurant falls squarely on the shoulders of management. I agree that great people leave restaurants due to poor managers. I've been in restaurant management for 16 years and I've seen incompetent managers succeed because they make the numbers. While it's about meeting food cost, etc., it's also about cultivating your staff and the guest experience. We can't afford to lose guests during these economic times. However, there is another side — good managers leave because of poor upper management. I resigned from my last restaurant job because of upper management's inability to support me. Ultimately, there are three components to success: great food + great service + great hospitality = return business. Way to go!
Scott Richardson
Orlando, FL
Wow, did your article ring my bell! It seems every time I go out I'm usually irritated by the clumsy, who-really-cares attitude served by a majority of restaurants. Sometimes service providers don't seem to understand and sometimes they just don't care. Staff education and training are sorely lacking, and I think in many cases management doesn't know what they are doing, so they can't properly train their staff fully because they don't know how.
If we don't speak up, if we don't hold the operation to a higher standard, then they will never learn. Especially in these weak times, every manager or operator should be thrilled with any seat filled or any product sold. What is going to happen when we go back to busy, successful times? I'm afraid that concern for a customer's experience will lose even more focus once the till is full again.
Keith Coleman
Albquerque, NM RH