The Hidden Secret to Winning Customers: Is It Food or Service?︱Restaurant Roundtable S01E04

 

Balancing food quality and customer service has never been more critical in today’s fast-changing restaurant landscape. Which matters more to customers?

In today’s episode of The Restaurant Roundtable, we tackle a key question: Is great food enough to make up for poor service? 

Balancing delicious dishes and exceptional service is tougher than ever, especially with staffing challenges. Tune in to hear restaurant owners share their stories and game-changing tips you can start using today! Whether you’re a restauranteur, a chef, or just curious about what keeps diners coming back, this episode delivers real-life insights to help restaurants thrive! 

 

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Kraft Heinz Away From Home presents The Restaurant Roundtable

 

Being successful in the world of restaurants is incredibly hard. But what if it could be easier? The Restaurant Roundtable features accomplished restaurant owners along with special guests where we explore ways to build better businesses, healthier lifestyles and stronger communities. 

 

MEET OUR HOSTS:

Avishar Barua - https://www.instagram.com/dineatagni/ 

BJ Lieberman - https://www.instagram.com/eatchapmans/ 

Kate Djupe - http://instagram.com/heyacake 

Shanika and Jomar Sheppard - https://www.instagram.com/marlowscheesesteaks 

 

GET MORE FROM KRAFT HEINZ AWAY FROM HOME:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KraftHeinzAwayFromHomeUS 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kraftheinzafh 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kraft-heinz-away-from-home-us/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kraftheinzawayfromhome 

Website: https://www.kraftheinzawayfromhome.com/

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, so I was just out of town. The hospitality
was was iffy. They kind of called you a bit
when you came in, and.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm sorry the people at the restaurant for the redditches.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I said, oh really, how was the food? I went
there three times?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Welcome everyone to the Restaurant Round Table.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
Where's the part group for restaurant owners.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
By restaurant holders, brought to you by Kraft Homes.

Speaker 5 (00:25):
All season long, we discussed the challenges, opportunities, the good taste.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
And the bad taste within the industry.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And we're your hosts. I'm DJ Jamar, I'm Kate, I'm Abashar.
So if you're a chef, an owner.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Or spring to be one, you're gonna want to pull
up a chair to this round table.

Speaker 6 (00:49):
All right, friends, Welcome back to the Restaurant Round Table,
coming to you today from Aviashar's Lovely Joya's Restaurant here
in Worthington. Thank you for hosting us tonight. We were
brought to you by Raft Hinds Away from Home, and
we are a podcast for chefs by chefs, and we've
got a really fun topic today. We're going to be
talking about Jamar's favorite topic food versus service and we've

(01:12):
got a lot to dive into there. But first off,
we haven't seen each other in a little while. Let's
start off with our ketchup of the day, anything to
fill the group in on.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
So we just opened up our third Marvel che Steaks
congraduate inside the Nork Market downtown Columbus.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
How's it going so far?

Speaker 5 (01:31):
So far, so good. Just want to give a huge
shout out, you know, to the team. So it was
a lot to get done in the shorter of Malaton.

Speaker 6 (01:40):
I'm stoked because now you're located really close to my
house and really close to my work, so I can
have cheese steaks every day now every day.

Speaker 5 (01:46):
Well the wife a pri.

Speaker 6 (01:49):
No, but yes she loves your cheese steaks too, she
doesn't like what they do to my tummy.

Speaker 7 (01:58):
My ketchup with today is to craft Heins Home away
from Home for giving us this amazing opportunity. But also
because I saw my cellphone camera and my fat ass
got in the gym A lost about fifteen pounds since
the last week.

Speaker 6 (02:15):
But you look great, so well it's well done.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
So thank you Craft Highs for allowing me to see
how big I really was.

Speaker 6 (02:23):
All right, now, I feel motivated. You did a little
bit of a physical transformation. I think that I was
working on a little bit of a mental transformation between
these last two episodes and I deleted a bunch of
my social media. But since last time, we talked a
little mental health break, and it's actually been really fantastic. Jet.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
I'm just trying to figure out what my catchup is.
Nothing new is exciting, that sounds yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Having no news no news is good news. Yeah, no
news is good news.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
No news is good news.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I'll bear with man.

Speaker 8 (02:57):
We have a lot in here, But what was kind
of cool was here at Joyce we actually revitalize something
that was something that Kate and I are familiar with
was called Secret Kitchen Menu. So you know, we've been
up there for a couple of years now. We have
a lot of staples, and we have a lot of
regulars that are like, hey, we want to see some spiciness,
you know, a little bit a little bit of sauce
on there. So our Secret Sauce is our secret menu.
It's an Instagram page that you can go to and
see stuff that we have only limited amounts of that

(03:17):
we feel like excited by So all of our dishes
are going.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
To start to have alternate personalities.

Speaker 8 (03:21):
We think it's really cool because then you can be
the people that come new people, and then your regulars.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Can have some new stuff too. That's awesome. You want
to plug it? What's it called? How do we find
this secret kitchen menu? Your secret pitch? Minua kpe out
of the name? Yeah, it's on Instagram, all right. I
kept Instagram so I can see there.

Speaker 6 (03:35):
So remember, I go, the best secret is something you
tell only one person at a time. So today's main
segment is food versus service, and essentially, how do you
balance the act of providing a quality food while consistently
maintaining great service and at a more like molecular level,
will good service make up for poor food or will

(03:56):
great food makeup for poor service?

Speaker 3 (03:58):
And kind of where do you.

Speaker 6 (04:00):
Our our proclivities lie in that? One thing that I
thought was really cool a quote that we found for
Maya Angelou said people will forget what you said, people
forget what you did, but people will never forget how
you made them feel. And I feel like that's a
really awesome lead into our conversation for today. So Jamar
I wanted to kick it off. This was one that

(04:20):
you really wanted to do. So I had a question
for you, is a great dish enough to make up
for bad service?

Speaker 7 (04:28):
And I think I'm in the minority by saying that
the food is delicious, I'll take the bad service.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
I don't think that's the minority. I'm all there with you.

Speaker 7 (04:37):
Well, when I discussed this outside or this group, a
majority of people said they like, they'll take the service
and the food can just be marginal.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
But Nate, I'll take a shitty service for a great
a great Do.

Speaker 6 (04:52):
They have an example of the time the crappy service
and great food.

Speaker 7 (04:57):
Well, I'll just give you a crazy example. So I
was just out of town and the hospitality was was iffy.
They kind of called you a bitch when you came in, and.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm sorry at the restaurant, how are you doing bitches?

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Uh this name?

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Uh bitches? I said, Oh really.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
How was that food?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
I went there three times, so I was I was there, bitch.

Speaker 6 (05:29):
All that is positive for you that that that's how.

Speaker 7 (05:34):
A serious note as a customer, I would I would
take kind of mediocre service just to know that I'm
going to get that dish the way I want and
you know sometimes but I wouldn't say, like, maybe, you know,
fast food, you got an expectation of, you know, kind
of a high turnover, different staff there, so you might
not get the greatest service, but you know that burger

(05:57):
comes out the way you want. So but at a
at a more high quality restaurant. I kind of want both,
you know, for for my money. But on the other
aspect of a restaurant owner, I want the service. We
can have off days with food, but the service can
never be compromised.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
You've changed because when we first started out, you were
to reverse yes, because I said service over food.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
I said it was an argument, yeah, food, but that
was as a customers.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
As a customer, as older.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
We want to discuss this off camera right here in front.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Because I don't want to be sleeping on the sofa.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
That's okay.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
It's on us with us being open for We opened
in twenty two so with us being open for two
years and seeing the EBB and flows, is that what
caused you to change your mind?

Speaker 7 (06:55):
Yeah, because I've told you that kind of going back.
People will come back because they when we got our reviews,
they'll always say they've greeted this, this was great, and
we're just a fast casual and that's bringing people back.
Even though we have good food. Sometimes we have off days,
but they always talk about our service. Well even before

(07:15):
they say to this was a great cheese steak, they say, wow,
we can't believe we were at a fast casual. And
you know that's our policy is to greet the customers
they come in.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
I came up with that.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I came up with the state.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
Service state.

Speaker 6 (07:32):
Yeah, I mean I think that that was kind of
the big dilemma from you when we came up with
talking about this is to me, the food and the
service are.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Both really important.

Speaker 6 (07:40):
I have a few different ways that I kind of
want to think about that, but from a guest perspective,
kind of one thing that dawned on me is like
online reviews, like when we got like yelp in Twitter
or yelping and Google like those reviews. I started to
think about which ones like hurt more, like the one
star for the food or the one star for the
service ones. And I realized that it's the service ones
that really get me more, because I like the food

(08:03):
is a little bit subjective, right, Like what I like
might not be for every single person, but what should
be universal is that everyone feels taken care of when
they come into the restaurant, Like we're gonna make mistakes.
But my mom was a small business owner, not in food,
but she always taught me every mistake is an opportunity
to impress, and I feel like those are the things
that you can make up for, where maybe with the food,
people don't necessarily want to speak up or anything like that.

(08:25):
So I was really thinking about that, and like, the
reviews on negative service hurt way deeper.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Than the ones on negative food. How do you guys
feel about that?

Speaker 4 (08:33):
I know that I have often said around here that
I believe in humanity and I don't like humans, so
I don't So I don't think it should be a
big surprise that I will always prioritize good food and
I'm willing to accept bad service and exchange for really
good food. One of my most favorite restaurants, she made
fresh dumplings and the food was amazing. I ate there

(08:55):
all the time, but if you wanted any service, you
either had to help yourself. When you wanted to pay
the bill, you'd have to walk into the kitchen and
interrupt her to get her to come out so you
could pay, and it was uncomfortable, but the food was
so good. Now I also need to acknowledge that she
is no longer in business, so yet again I am

(09:16):
in the minority. But that said, if I go to
a place that townsend service or that I go in
expecting it, and if it's negligent or bad, then I
find it exceptionally disappointing and I find it harder for
the food to overcome that service.

Speaker 8 (09:32):
So hell a you abasor well, there's two ways look
at it. I think from a guest perspective, it's expectation, right,
what do you expect to do? You'll see a lot
of really cool food bloggers going to like Thailand and
going to the streets of Thailand, and there's a line
that's an hour long, and someone could just they could
be literally putting the middle finger at you and saying
it's you know, it's one cent that you pay and

(09:53):
you wait an hour and a half and you get
zero service, and you have a memorable meal that you
never forget your entire life, and you come back.

Speaker 7 (09:58):
Right.

Speaker 8 (09:59):
You could also ago and say they take that exact
same one and a half hours and you wait for
a place that's going to line out the door and
they don't even greet you. They don't say hello to
you here in the States at a restaurant that you've
designed or that you've been at, which one kind of
stings more. And I think it's just expectation, like if
you know what you're as signed up for, and I
think as a responsibility for some of us as multi
business owners or anything that involves people coming to us

(10:21):
inside of a place that has air conditioning, a bathroom, water,
and any service is offered, you already spend all the
energy and all the money to make sure the space
is safe.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
So why don't we have our staff carry that message forth.

Speaker 8 (10:30):
I think it's not a reasonable to expect someone to
walk through the door and be like, hey, you should
just understand me just based on that food, Like that's
very very aggressive one. What we're trying to do is
spread love, right, So I think they both go. And
I'm a back of the houstperson, so I love making food.
I love the power of what I can do to people,
But without the message being spoken, it's really like what
makes it honestly like it's you know, then you could say, hey,
our burger at mcgonald just shake shapeless. You can say

(10:52):
all these things. It's not just the quality of the food.
So a little bit of both, I think. And the
cool thing about what you were saying earlier about the reviews,
that thing is interesting is what is the review. It's
somebody giving you their opinion and their feedback. They're speaking
to you speaking of service. It's not they're not sending
you a burger back for a burger, you know, they're
exchanging how they feel as a response. Given that, I
think that there's pillars, right, you got to have all

(11:13):
the pillars. You have pillars service, You have to pillar
of food, and you have to have a pillar of
beverage because if one fails, the other two help. But
I find it very very challenging, Like if somebody leaves
them to have a bad food experience, whose job is
to make up for it? It is absolutely that the
service has to be so for that. You see someone
that's not liking what they're enjoying or uncomfortable and you
have to get over and say, man, that person look
at them at bad time and say hey, I'm so sorry,

(11:34):
is this not okay? And for them to say yes,
it's not okay. That's the most honest conversation you can
have and say, hey, I don't feel it, And what
can you say? Oh, let me get to give cardis sorr?
I think for trying it, I don't want you to
spend any money if you dodn't have a good time. Right,
you can always do these things, but if you just
take away service, what is your change that correctingvage it?

Speaker 7 (11:49):
Let me ask you this, as a customer one into
an establishment, if they give you bad food and great
service or great service and bad which one, as a
customer do you.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Go for it?

Speaker 8 (12:00):
I think it just depends on which which place I'm
going to? Right, if I had to do like a look,
five dollars spent here, Like if you're saying it's set
one thousand dollars and I got this burger, and this
burger was in my mind worth a thousand dollars, a
different conversation.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Right, will you ever go back to a place with
bad food but great service?

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Ever? I think my fallacy is going to give too
many people second chances.

Speaker 8 (12:19):
So yeah, maybe I have limited chances. Yeah, I don't
know any better because I'm on the other side of this.
But uh, I mean the reason that I'm in food
in hospitality is that I like to share food. So
the food has to the food has to be good.
But I'm you know, we're in a day and age
where you can pick up your phone and see all
the world information and communicate to anybody. You don't have
to settle for one.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
W can of both.

Speaker 8 (12:41):
So if we try to do both, it's a little
bit better. I don't think one should trade off or
the other. I think let's make a binary really quick.

Speaker 6 (12:47):
What if you're going out of town and there's two
restaurants that you want to eat at, and one of
them the food always gets crapped on the great service
and the other one has bad service but great food.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Are you gonna grasp a lawyer, there's us you still
haven't gave us.

Speaker 8 (13:03):
Yeah, it's like sometimes you got to work for it
if I just give it to you. I mean, generally
it's it's it's the food, right because well, because the
food is on my side of it, it is what
gets people like I can't just offer service and then
people like if I was this here and I was like, oh,

(13:24):
you know, I'm such a kind guy. I'm saying, I
just let me take a picture with you, but you
don't eat anything. And we can actually relate this to Yeah,
I've been on TV and stuff and you're Some people
are like, hey, Ibish, I want to take a picture
with you.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Right.

Speaker 8 (13:33):
It's really weird for me because I thought I was
known for my food, but I'm not known for the
that's more of a service aspect, right, I have to
do that. I prefer for them to be like, hey,
this murder is so good that now I want to
take a picture with you, Like that'd be really cool.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
But what here we are?

Speaker 8 (13:46):
You know, the food is what got me there to service,
what carries me Like it's if you happen to people
that make good dude, I think they happen to usually
actually be people inside actually, So I think that's the
hard thing to kind of reveal.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Which one would you pick if you, well, if tapped.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
On it, if everybody crap on it, then I do
just because I'm curious.

Speaker 8 (14:09):
I so I hate on me all the time. So
I was like, man, I'm the person that was hating around.
So I was like, why do people hate me so much?
And sometimes you want to know like is it true
that it's it's worth it or not, because I've been
to some places that are one starting to say the
food is terrible, and the food was just it was
honestly very very good at team with Atabatic experience, right,
So I it's hard to go off that, but I
would like to enjoy the food. So if I were
to go to Malaysia, for instance, I want to eat

(14:29):
Malaysian food, I don't want to eat Malaysian service, you know.
So it's a gotch part of mine. And I think
like the whole food thing is like it's culture. Right
when you make addition, you make it with respect everything.
You're respecting your ancestors service to feed you. So in
a way, it's full service, but it is a food.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
Now circle them back as a restaurant owner, now as
a consumer, which one would it be?

Speaker 6 (14:50):
So I've I will answer it, but I kind of
have two different answers. One would be going to like
more of a fast casual kind of place, like that's
the food for me, Like I'm going there for the food.
I'm not necessarily expecting the best service in the world. Well,
you know, I feel like I'm bey on some service
aren't necessarily the same thing, how much, how much thought
you put into I mean, I've walked into plenty of
holes in the wall that have an incredible dish that

(15:12):
I'll go back for time and again, but like a
fine dining restaurant, kind of an average arts point. When
he was saying a lot of times I'll go and
have like, let's call it a fourteen course tasting menu.
I'm not expecting every single one of those dishes to
knock my socks off, but I do expect to feel
taken care of. So I to answer your question, it
depends on what kind of meal I'm going for. I
will suffer bad service for a quicker, cheaper like I

(15:36):
just need a really good bite of food. I have
places in my neighborhood that I go back to time
and again that I don't expect a good service, and
I'm okay with that. But for like fine dining, if
I ever went into a fine dining restaurant they called
me a bitch when I walked into the door, we'd
have issues.

Speaker 7 (15:50):
If he wants to a fine dining spot in the
fourteen out of a fourteen courses.

Speaker 6 (15:55):
Top factor and the service sucked, I would probably will
you take that over over bad service and other food.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
But again, I think it's about expectations.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
I wouldn't even have sat through to fourteen.

Speaker 8 (16:08):
I would have got it. There's some places that are
kind of in between. There's some that are novelty bad service,
and there's some places that are understaffed or short staffed,
or it's a local business and they cannot afford to
have service. It's just their vision they want to carry right.
In that case, you might have somebody who is a
mean or aggressive owner to you, and then you go

(16:30):
there enough times that they're like ooh, I like you,
and then you feel like you really, like out of
all the achievements that have had in my life, to
like go to like a Chinese like hey you're Chinese,
is like yeah, I did it, Like you know, that
was so much cooler than anything else. But like you
you're one of us. Like that's that's bad service turned
good and it's because of the food. So I mean,
I think that's like that's like the second level of it.
I think it's just like when you go to a.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Place that has no service and then they're like, hey,
I got you, man, I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Depending on the type of restaurants. If it's fast casual,
the food is good, I'm not expecting like great service.
I just want to go and eat, like the wing
spot that we used to go to now fine dining.
I'm expecting to be taken care of if I'm spending
my money, like I want good service.

Speaker 7 (17:14):
No, I just kind of thought of something else, And
I want each one of you all to answer your
own restaurant now now you're the owner, if you can
have one or the other, I mean you can't have both.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Which one would it be? Service or food?

Speaker 8 (17:29):
I mean as a as a restaurant owner, I think
the only option is actually, dude, because if I don't
like what I'm gonna do, sell the service, like you
come here and I top them a therapist.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Here's twenty dollars.

Speaker 8 (17:39):
I'm gonna say, hi, welcome, all right, you give me
money because I'm a really strong personality. That's there's other
jobs that you could do that in right, not necessarily restaurants.
There's a lot of hard work that does behind the food.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
So I think, and I started, I sell things.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Through a vending machine.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Who is your vending machine?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
So don't limit the vendom machine, because the vendom machine
is providing a service.

Speaker 7 (18:05):
As I said, with the vendor machine, what would you
prefer to vinded machine to give good service.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Machine?

Speaker 8 (18:18):
Let's put a third one on what about So is
door dash a service because what you're doing is you're
pressing about to avoid any contact with anybody. But so
it is a service, right and you pay extra for
that service, And who's accountable for the food?

Speaker 6 (18:30):
Well, we are getting into the weeds now, but I
mean that is the front of the house end of
that bargain. The food still needs to be good, right,
But it doesn't matter if the restaurant's fault that the
food got delivered cold, or if it's door Dash's fault
the food got delivered cold. It's I think that that
still comes down to the service versus the food debate here,

(18:52):
and in that case that would fall into the former
where it's like, I want the food to be good
and hot. I don't care if the person didn't follow
my directions to ring the doorbell when he got there
or whatever.

Speaker 8 (19:01):
I do well with expectation then, because there's an expectation
that we have when we press that button, right, we're like, yeah,
convenient or oh I'm high, you know, I don't know, Like, yeah,
whatever I want.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I to press, it shows up, right?

Speaker 8 (19:12):
Is that what the average person who's using door ashes
thinking of to say, Hey, I want to imagine myself
sitting at this restaurant enjoying this nice walls, cleared water
like all these.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
They don't want to go out to go get the food.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Well, that's that's the thing. I mean.

Speaker 6 (19:24):
I've eaten a let's say, a Ramen restaurant before where
or even better, my wife was at a Ramen restaurant.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
She's like, do you want anything to go?

Speaker 6 (19:31):
And I'm like, yeah, I love a bowl of ramen
right now in the restaurant literally refuse to put their
food in the to go box. It's like it's not
going to be good when they get home. I'm like,
can you please put me on the phone with a
waiter so I can explain. I'm a chef. I fully
understand what it is I'm getting. Just want a bowl
of ramen. I don't care if I need the microwave it.
And I talked them into doing it, and it's like

(19:53):
and it's like we are now under the same expectation
that this is not going to be restaurant quality. Coming home,
I am just hungry and want something that I don't
have in my fridge. So like that expectation I'm really
happy with, and like where's the service come into that?

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Like I'm not really sure, But to.

Speaker 6 (20:08):
Answer the question about my own restaurant and what would
I prefer if I could choose one or the other,
I think that I'm going to be the opposite of that,
and I'm going to say that I prefer for my
team to provide good service because I think right now,
especially after the pandemic, I feel like a lot of
people want to feel taken care of, and like quality
of things has been wildly all over the map. But

(20:28):
I think to people feeling like they have a home
and their statistics about this too, that I don't have
it in front of me. But more people are shy
to go try new places right now, and they'll go
back to the same places regardless of how they feel
about the food because they already know what their expectations are.
They don't want to go and vote with their money
on something they haven't tried before. So I feel like
people feeling like we know who they are, like they're

(20:50):
taking care of.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
That pus into some facts that we were given just
magically appeared. Twenty twenty four, reports suggest that nearly half
of today's consumers are hesitant to spend freely, which means
that a great dish might not be enough to keep
them coming back, and that service helps elevate that perceived value.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, I don't actually have the data.

Speaker 7 (21:11):
I kind of think from our customers that come in there,
I kind of feel like the maybe the fifty and overcrowd,
they prefer service, they'll come back and get that same suit.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
And that it burns their mouth, they will come back
and and kind of.

Speaker 8 (21:37):
But what you just described is again it seems to
be the word of expectation, as you're expecting a fifty
year old to say fifty plus, fifty five plus year
old to say kind of team based.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
But you're making an assumption thing.

Speaker 8 (21:49):
You're talking about your guessed before you even knowing the guests,
before they even came to the door, saying this person
is going to want their spot, which is the service.
It's not even about to fit anymore. Right, So that's
very interesting, Like it's you can't have one with out
the other.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
You can't. It's impossible. You can't say, hey, here's a restaurant.

Speaker 8 (22:02):
I'm just going to make it for myself for one
other person in this room, and it doesn't need to
have any service like that's that's not useful to anybody.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
That's a hypotheticals. But you're a little too far.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Speaking the service real quick, Kate. Yeah, which you haven't
been the machines.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
What's service to you?

Speaker 4 (22:13):
What is service to me? A machine that works? And
I think if the machine works, I hope I've taken
care of everything else that could be perceived as service
with it. So it comes with the fork, it has
the label, it has some feel good stuff that really
is meaningful to me. It's got a poem from a
local poet on the label, like everything should be there.

(22:36):
So I feel like I have provided service in that
I've tried to anticipate all of the needs. So the
only thing that can fail other than someone not liking
what I've done, is the machine being broken.

Speaker 7 (22:48):
Well, let me ask you this, how do you get
feedback from you just having a machine from the people
lot harder? I'm just curious, like, how do you find
out that they like this problem or you know, they
weren't satisfied.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
I used to switch things.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
The honest answer is I don't. I don't unless somebody
actively seeks me out to find out how to give
that feedback to me. I do find out in return sales.
I do try to be around to hear. But I
got used to life during the pandemic when we switched
to everything being entirely take out and not hearing the
noises in the restaurant, not seeing the people's faces, not

(23:25):
seeing the dishes being empty coming back, And so I
have to a certain level, I have to assume that
it's making people satisfied, and I have to make sure
that I'm happy with the quality of the food. So
from there it's just and hoping that it works.

Speaker 8 (23:44):
I would say on it as a kind of point though,
in the pandemic, we got the most customer guest feedback
because we had an in front of the house, so
in the back we got we got Instagram messages, we
got people reposting pictures of dishes a thousand times more
than we did when we were like a full service restaurant,
because people, I would.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Say, we do the first six months to a year,
and then I felt like we were asking for feedback
after that.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
That was that was after twenty twenty one, when we
started going off that service spectrum, right.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
About the time we decided to close down.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Interesting. Yeah, but.

Speaker 8 (24:16):
At least I remember that I didn't have the same
Like I didn't get the rush from the guests necessarily
because that's the standard, but the noise and the standard.
But to see somebody reach out in a time when
there was as to your point, when there was we
didn't know what was going to happen, to say, someone
send you a fifteen page message saying, hey, we are
afraid to leave our house. This brought us We lost
our jobs, This meal brought us warm. I don't think

(24:38):
I've ever received that yeah in a restaurant as much.
And nowadays it does seem like that combination of both
because people seem to be more grateful about the services,
which is awesome, Like it's nice to have that interaction
because it really, like, when you think about it, even
if you completely think service is the worst thing the
tire world, you don't care about it. If somebody reaches
out to you as a guest and says, man, you
made my day, is that are you going to say, like,

(24:59):
not steak made the date like you know, like you
feel a little touched, right, that's like one because you
in the end the thing that you made, you made
it to do a service to somebody. I think that's
what we're trying to get at it. It seems like
to put a bow on this point before we.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
I'm sorry, food which one if you got to.

Speaker 4 (25:23):
Just piknswer service service fee.

Speaker 5 (25:27):
But the experience why because when they're walking into the door,
people want to feel her, they want to feel appreciated,
and they want to know that they're being taken care of.
It's the experience that's Food is a is a part
of it. But if we've trained the staff as soon
as they walk in, Hi, welcome to Marlow's. He goes

(25:48):
to menus, let us know if you have any questions,
how can you know? How can I how can I
help you? Here goes my recommendations, and then the average
ticket goes up two. So you can if you talk,
take the time to talk to somebody the right way,
make them feel good. Oh I'll take another drink, I'll
take the ordering more, ordering more. Because you're taking care

(26:10):
of them and you're making them feel welcome, and we
hear it.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
So I think I'm hearing everybody here.

Speaker 8 (26:16):
So we're saying that it's not about the food, it's
not about the services, about the friends we made along
the way.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
The journey is important, right, it's oh yeah, I just
by the way.

Speaker 8 (26:33):
For the record, if you look at all of our reviews,
and I am the person that makes the food, and
we want to make sure because the food is objective
to an extent, we're going to make this thing.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
It's going to be this way. It's correct.

Speaker 8 (26:41):
It's correct that we made it the way that's best
to be. But when we get our reviews and you
read them, the reviews that make us mi's excited when
like we walked in the door and somebody said hello,
because you are that person. And when you go to
a three star restaurant, when you go into a hole
in the adio anywhere, if somebody simply says hello, then
you have services. Just be sign service you want the hello,
Otherwise you would be using door Nash.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
There's one place that well you go to more than
I do. I like the food, but I don't I
don't go anymore because I go and sit at the
bar and it takes you six minutes to come over
and say hi. Yeah, I'm not saying the name. I
didn't say the name of the place, but it is

(27:25):
a well known restaurant, is a well known company that
pride themselves on customer service. But yet I go and
sit at the bar and I'm just sitting there waiting,
and I got up and left.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
With bad service if the food's not good, like if
I can't make it better.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
Now, this place says good, good food. They have a
few items on the menu that I absolutely love.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
But if you can't even order the damn thing, if
you're not getting the food.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
Money, and then I got to leave you a tip too,
Like I'm just.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
I sit there and wait. She gets up and hey,
six minutes.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Later, I'm there.

Speaker 6 (28:04):
There is I am definitely more uh forgiving with bad
service because I see everything in the restaurant too, and
I'm like, they just got triple sat or whatever it is,
Like I can say that they're still training or like yes, whatever.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
So it's so I'm understanding because I'm in it.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
So but if it's just me, but you don't have
a patients anyway.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
But if there's only yeah, and three people have been
serviced and I and I'm sitting down, and it takes
you five between five to six minutes to even come
over and give me a menu, and you're just standing
there not doing anything.

Speaker 8 (28:42):
I'm out of the ear expectation, right, because like when
you walk into spot like that, that's what do you
expect going into there? You're like, I need service. It's
not a place like it's like a little window when
you go to the wind in your order. And that's
also in the owner right to be like, hey, what
do we expect for when somebody shows up at the door.
What if there's no hello? What if there's just like
a tablet in the front where the tablet's brooken? What
if the machine is brooke?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
How do I get think?

Speaker 8 (29:00):
So, it's an expectation seems to be the thing that
brings all together, like whatever the person expects. If they
don't get what they expect, whose fault is it is
because the food was terrible? Or or was it because
no one understood was the food terrible because they said, hey,
I'm vegetarian, you just had the meat. It was pretty
I definitely want to ask a very specific question about that,
but first I want to give an anecdote of something

(29:22):
actually that you did for me once that you might
not even remember, but I do.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
And this is kind of the point of it.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
It was right after the pandemic started in what March
of twenty twenty brom when my wife's birthday is in April,
and we wanted nothing more than to like have a
normal night of some kind, and we ordered service bar
to go, and I said in the note that it
was her birthday, and we dressed up and like ate
the meal at our kitchen table, and you sent a

(29:49):
lovely note in it. You sent cocktails, like prepackaged cocktails
in the thing, and it was such a wonderful experience.
I always love your food, so just know that the
food was delicious, but that's not what we remember about that.
We remember the amazing service that you gave us. And honestly,
the food could have been like okay, and it still
would have been the fact that you put the personal

(30:09):
touches on it that I remember so much about that,
and that was something that a always endears me to you,
and it's why I always say that like you're the consonant,
the hospitality guy, but also like that made her birthday
really really special in the time. That was really trying,
and that's why to me, service in those ways is
super special. But going back to what we were just

(30:30):
talking about for a second, so I kind of now
know what your thing is where it's like, all right,
I'm going to get up and leave. Like what is
like the mortal sin for you at a restaurant? What's
the thing that you can't come back from service wise
or food wise?

Speaker 4 (30:40):
I guess for that matter, I think over promising and
under delivering. Like if a server comes up and says
you're about to have the best experience of your life
at the best restaurant in the city, and when it
doesn't live up to it, I talk like yeah, and
it made me so angry, Or somebody says I'm going
to I'm going to take that off your bill, and

(31:03):
then it's still on my bill, Like anything where they
promised me something even if I never asked for it
and then they didn't deliver it, I that's it. I'm done.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
I think the accountability and interaction is really important.

Speaker 8 (31:15):
And this is completely on the service side, but it's
like a subservice because sometimes you'll have a manager that'll
come to and be like, I'm going to make it right,
and I was like whoa, but I did, Like I
I'm kind of like already like shaken because you know,
I don't even know how to complain properly, because I'm
just like it looks like this is like I got
to the point where I said, its scared, Like I'll
go to a restaurant and it happened.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
I got like a steak.

Speaker 8 (31:32):
It's maybe it's the most expensive stake on the menu,
and it's way over cooked, and I'm not gonna say anything.
I'll just look at it and the service staft season
they're like, oh shit, you know, like that's that's ever
cooked and they'll be like everything okay, And I was
like I don't even want to say because I feel bad.
It'll be like what do you think and they're like, oh,
that looks overcooked. And then the manager comes down and
it will be like, hey, don't worry about I took
it off a Tabit like that's not listening. It's not

(31:54):
a conversation. That's not there was some two mistakes that happened,
and eat it. Yeah, once the food goes and I
think again the two pillars. Once the food goes in
a new direction that wasn't expected. If the service follows
and the bad service. It's really hard to guess when
to come out because that person's I think our job
in that side of it is to make sure that
everything goes well with the guests. And if it's gone
and you didn't do the damage control or the adjustment
or like the at least just listen them out, like, hey,

(32:15):
how can I make this better? Ask that question? How
am I going to come back? Because I don't feel
like anyone anybody's listening. If nobody's listening in the list,
why are I even valued? Like why am I even there?
Like you really don't care about me. You care more
about you and your business.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Than I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but like,
I don't need you to take the bill off my food.
If I'm here to eat, I need you to make
sure that the food is right and if it's wrong,
fix it.

Speaker 8 (32:39):
Well, that was my thing is I was like, so
you took this steak, you paid for the stick, and
I didn't get anything to eat for.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
The dinner because you're like, I might as well here.

Speaker 8 (32:46):
I was like, I came here to eat, so I
was like I would have eaten the and I also
said like I was like, I look, as long as
we come to acceptance, this steak is like yeah, objectively,
it's every cood.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
I'll still eat. It's not a big deal. But you know,
the next guests.

Speaker 8 (32:57):
As a fellow business owner, if somebody, if one of
my kitchen team ever took a stake, I want to know.
I want to know, like right away, and I want
to make it right before they even can think about it,
like before he gets a table. I want to make
sure it's correct because they paid for that and they're
using their time and their energy, and like I just
wanted to feel good, right, That's what we talked about.
So that was like three people missing, right, three four
people missing? And at that point it's like what's what

(33:18):
do you do? Like how how can you how can
you earn my trust back?

Speaker 3 (33:22):
So what acutely is your mortal sin? There? Like what
in like two two three words? Like what is what
is the thing that will cause.

Speaker 7 (33:28):
You mortal sin? Right here, I'm gonna give you an
exist this is an absolutely true story. Is seeknd testify
to this. I'm a roal forgiven person, a bad service
and all I left my card at a place at

(33:49):
an establishment pretty good food drink.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
They know me.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
No owner called my house at two o'clock.

Speaker 5 (33:58):
In the morning.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
It I had an open tap and you had my card.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Still, that's wild heavy ever gone back there?

Speaker 1 (34:05):
No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
We're not.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
Tell us I didn't yet mine would be Uh. I'm
a big steps to service person, and I truly believe
I don't care where I am in writing the order down.
Getting the wrong food or the wrong drink is like
my big time. I'm just like I'm I'm.

Speaker 8 (34:22):
Actually when you put the when you put the customer
copy on top of the merchant copy and you signed.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
It literally, I just thought, I can't do math twice.
Come on, man, I'll just I'll just leave the customer
copy there. I don't even care.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
You said that it hurts you, but you said it
hurts your feelings a lot more. When you see that
you get a really poor review in terms of service,
what do you do?

Speaker 6 (34:47):
I am a big follow up person. If we have so,
I've trained my managers at this point. But we have
a slack channel that specifically for service recovery, so we
got feedback in a lot of different ways. I've talked
about the email software the weaves before, there's a whole
review part of that too, so it amalgamates all of
our Rezie, Google, trip Advisor, just all that stuff in

(35:08):
the one place, plus our own internal.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Stuff so we can see the bad reviews.

Speaker 6 (35:12):
There's certain ones that our FOH managers know exactly how
to deal with, and then there's some that I'll be like, hey,
let me take care of this one.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
And if it's a long.

Speaker 6 (35:22):
If it's a long thing about our service, I mean,
those are the ones that I'll write like twelve paragraphs for.
If it's something where it's like I didn't like the stake,
I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm going to refund your
bill right now. I wish you'd send something when you
were in house so we could have fixed it. When
it's something like the server didn't come back to the
table for whatever, or like I said, mortal sin, I
ordered the flounder and they sent out the snapper, and

(35:42):
I'll be like, did they write it down? Like I'll
go back to the restaurant and be like, show me
your notebook from last night, like I want to see
what you wrote down for that table, and they're like, uh,
I didn't like that's that's suspension.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
So again with the facts that we were just magically
appeared right here, A notable thirty nine percent of restaurant
owners are hopping on the trend of using data insights
and technological advancements to better understand customer preferences. And that
sounds like what you're doing, So tell me more.

Speaker 6 (36:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think that we all have these
tools surrounding us, and I think that it's about how
we learn how to use them. And I think that
something good that fits very cleanly into what we're talking
about now is you can actually categorize those reviews about food,
about service, about I can't remember what the other data
sets are that will like automatically sort for you, but

(36:28):
you can even do it on a like per server basis.
So we've gone in and looked at each server and
what types of reviews they've gotten over the course of time.
Looking at one week is not a good way to
do it, but looking over the course of like two
months before we do a performance review, soone and I
never bring them that data, but it's kind of an
informative point about like, Okay, this server, this whatever is

(36:49):
the or even this dish is the most poorly reviewed
or the best reviewed, and it kind of gives us
a little bit of a guideline to start that conversation
through technology. But I mean it is interesting. I'm sure
you guys get this too. We get mostly five star reviews.
It's like the one star reviews and the sea of
five that you like laser focus in on. So it's only,

(37:10):
you know, once or twice a week that we really
have to do service recovery. But for the five star reviews,
if you actually read a lot of those, they will
mention negative things in those reviews. And the cool thing
about technology is it'll actually pick those things out where
it'll say, like, this was actually negatively reviewed. Even if
it's in a five star review, it'll say mention poor service,
mention bad timing.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
So that's why I like the technologies.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
It's like almost a sorting tool that helps you with that,
and then we can make bigger, sweeping changes in the restaurant.
For a minute, people are are servers. For whatever reason,
we're having real trouble acknowledging people's anniversaries and birthdays. People
will take the time to put it on their reservation book.
It's our birthday. I want our hosts as they're seeing
to say happy birthday. I want our server as they're

(37:52):
greeting the table, happy birthday. I want them to get
a candle with their dessert, if not a free dessert,
Like I want to acknowledge multiple times it's a special day.
Excuse me. And we're getting a lot of feedback that
people were missing those marks. But it wasn't necessarily in
bad reviews. It was like the food was excellent. I
mentioned my birthday didn't get acknowledged. So being able to
parse all that stuff out really quickly.

Speaker 7 (38:11):
Is when you said that we need to add that
even though our rewards gives happy birthday, we need to
start telling him to say happy birthday when they come in.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I never really thought about that. We just give them
five hours all, but now.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
We want to people want tonowledge. We want to make
them say happy birthday. Personally, I don't want anybody I
don't like when they come in.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
I don't want anyone acknowledging me.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Train the staff with that. Yeah, good, that was good stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
How do you I sorry to use any technology and
in your places to.

Speaker 8 (38:48):
Being born in the late eighties early nineties, technology was
kind of we came before and after a lot of
the big jumps. I think, just like the like cit
eat or anything else, technology is simply a tool. I
think that you sometimes we find these days is we
have a newer step and sometimes they find technology to
be the solution.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
It is not a solution. It is a pathway to
a more efficient solution.

Speaker 8 (39:09):
So if for instance, I have one hundred views, like
you said, if I just say well, the AI is
taking care of it, and you lose a personal aspect, right,
So it's not useful there where it is very useful
as to be like cool, so using our you know,
we use talk and we used to use both. I'm
kind of in conjunction. What I asked for is like
every guest that walks the down and me learn a
fact about them and write it in the guest notes.
So next time they come, because we want them to

(39:30):
come again, we remember that this person's lautenancy. But it's
over the legs.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Because you do these, or you.

Speaker 8 (39:34):
Watch the way to put their belt on, you can
you can even get it before. I like watching the
way people put their belt in.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
You can see the way that it's.

Speaker 8 (39:42):
There's cues and a lot of it has to do
with like again, like you can use the technology to
assist that the AI is not going to predict I
mean not yet. We can't, and we're going into AI
because it's necessary to use AI to parts things do.
I think it's completely necessary for somebody to go through
every five star review that has no feedback on it
and say, hey, I don't anything to go off and
so let me just say thank you.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
You can use the technolunchy for that.

Speaker 8 (40:03):
But if somebody leaves one and you just look at
it and you say, well, this person who left five
stars or took the time out of their day to
leave you a little bit of feedback, they don't hear
anything whatsoever. I feel like you lose what's called the
human aspect, which is why like a lot of what
we do is were small business owners were not necessarily
pass fit oring given giants, you don't have access to the.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Same tools as they do, YEA.

Speaker 8 (40:21):
What is really cool that we can do is make
it very personal and where we're like, the reason people
come to us is because to your point, they want
to see you, they want to talk, they want to
hear from you. So feel fee to steal this. What
we did is on our reservation as much we rewore
people for actually giving us the feedback section it says
p sst question mark, uh huh, and people, it's completely open.

(40:42):
It doesn't mean anything, but people all my stuff. Like
one version wrote like Jeff Globelum, and then every service
speel we had was a Jeff Globlom joke.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
And then we found out later that they didn't make
a redsission. Their mom did. So they were so confused.
But who's a connectible member?

Speaker 8 (40:53):
They were like, so last like, what did you when
somebody put banana banana duck or something and somebody did
two bana dishes and a duck, and we took it
a little little two far I would say it with
that one, but it was it was like those those
elements what it lets us do? I think for communication,
it's nice. So so if I saw that, it's cool,
but how does my entire staff know that this person
feels that way? So having it on your phone like
homebase things like that, you can use manager logs that

(41:15):
everybody can see all the actions over there, these hot schedules. Yeah,
and it'll like summarize the logs in a way that
it's like if I forgot to tell us what cause
you can't like, you know, we all have staff. Now
we have more than one person, we have like thirty
forty people. If somebody is new, you want them to
have the same tools to be able to do the
same decisions right. You want them to also be like, hey,
I remember if you can ask me like how how
do you know who I want? Like that mind reading
sort of esp thing like that's technology helps us in

(41:35):
that in that regard, But the fallacy of it that
I'm seeing people will use it to take short cuts.
If you're going to use something like AI, you have
to train the AI. You can't just say hey, AI
answer this because it actually does the best thing about
people that I realize is that people that have a problem.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
With how to use AI, they have a hard time communicating.

Speaker 8 (41:51):
With human beings because they can't even communicate your robot
what they want to say, because the robots like, hey,
I don't have your feelings, tell me what you want
me to say, and you can't tell them what you
want it to say.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
To your guest, well, something that you just say and
set off a big light bulb moment.

Speaker 6 (42:01):
For me, probably my biggest takeaway from this not to
step on our next segment, I only reply to negative reviews.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I never replied to the positive.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
I reply to both.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
You got to share it.

Speaker 6 (42:11):
The positive views, well, I will like screenshot a bunch
and send my social media team to repost. But it's
not coming with beforehand saying like, yeah, so much.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Do you if I use this feedback?

Speaker 8 (42:22):
My reasoning was just this is uh, and we can
go back to how our entire time station started. If
you were the guest, for you to write a review,
that's me asking you to take time out your day
that you didn't pet my restaurant. And that's really nice
for somebody to be like, hey, it's still in my mind,
whether it's upset or not. As you said earlier, it's
a chance for feedback and not. It's not just negative
feedback that's good. Positiveeedback is really nice too. So it's
nice to reinforce those things.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Rewarding people for positive behavior instead of rewarding people for
negative behavior. Because I get irritated in general when the
response that people seek, not all people, but some people
is I want it free. I want everything free. You
didn't give me enough free, and so I like the
idea rewarding positive kindness is.

Speaker 7 (43:01):
Free and some of the residuals of actually doing that
is staff sees that are you telling them and it's
kind of reinforcing positive behavior.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
You guys, just open up your third location.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
What have you taken into that location from a service
and food aspect that you learned from your first two
and how does this conversation apply to that.

Speaker 5 (43:23):
Making sure that each guest is greeted and welcome, that
you're engaging like with the guests, and that you lead
the conversation because a lot of the times people come
up and they're looking they don't know what they want.
That may be small, but I think in their mind
they're expecting it to be super complicated. So when you're

(43:45):
the cashier, you're the first person that the guests is seeing. Hi,
welcome to Marlow's give a recommendation if there's anything that
they want to change. We just have to build your own.
Just follow these steps, like you guide the conversation and
don't let the cost stomer got you.

Speaker 9 (44:01):
And how about food quality and the consistency and this
is something else, just to touch on something that you
were saying. It's a different aspect and you're not just
a brick and mortar, so we're in a food hall,
so it's it's super even though we're all families, super competitive.
So you just saying welcome hello as customers come by,
you have an advantage because most.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Food operators don't do that on the phone.

Speaker 7 (44:24):
They might not give me an eye contact, So just
that alone gives you a leap on on on on.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (44:31):
So, good example is this specific restaurant. This is a
fast casual with technically there should be zero service that
we offer here. The most difficult job that anybody has
in this entire restaurant is this order cutter, because you
are the pinch point of every single guests interaction and
when they get up here, they have a lot of
questions and it's very hard sometimes to fill the questions because, uh,
you're going to do both those things at the same time.

(44:52):
Yet when we opened up, we got a lot of
interesting looks from people because all of our staff is
trained to say hello, like hey, what's up? Before We're like,
we don't need anything, we don't needything. What how come
everyone saying hi to us? How come everyone saying hello
to us? But it's just like I think maybe there's
some societal commentary here where it's like we've come to
a place where you can't even say hello without expecting
some kind of interaction, and we're like, hey, our positive

(45:14):
interactions what brought us to this business. It's not like
our business, it's just it brought us to this Like
we're just kind people. So we can retain kindness even
in the setting that has no service. And if you
see somebody that needs a glass of water, pleads off
with them the water even though like it's back there
self served. We serve guests all the time because it's
like it feels like as to your point, you want
to feel daking care of You want to feel like hey,
I'm at my friend's house or like they care about me,

(45:34):
and I think like that's how you vote with your dollar.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
You're like, oh yeah.

Speaker 7 (45:37):
And the other thing is we're having we peak customers
that come from other establishments, so they have an expectation
of being greedy because we need that same consistency of
welcoming the guests no matter where we open.

Speaker 8 (45:48):
So that's impot lessons learn is what it seems like
that we had the same thing where we just had
no idea like how far would that take us, but
it looks like whatever it is. It's like people are like, hey,
your staff is on, say your staff is awesome. You're like,
that's the that's a compliment.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Look for you.

Speaker 6 (46:02):
All Right, we got a limited time left and we
have two more quick, quick hit things to get to.
But what is our biggest takeaway from this whole conversation.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Something that you kind of mentioned that I said I
was going to bring is and that's birthday.

Speaker 7 (46:19):
I loved it that we want to start saying happy
birthday to every customer that comes in because we have
the technology that already knows is their birthday to get
fought as Also, Yeah, that was that was great.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
I like the idea of just setting expectations but also
rewarding the positive. So I'm kind of in that same boat,
maybe not necessarily birthdays.

Speaker 8 (46:36):
But just I think the active listening seems to be
something that we could certainly work on, where there's like
listening where you're like procedurally you're listening like ah, yeah,
I hear you, of cour it's like, oh you didn't
like this, just repeating that back, like I picked that
up on everybody's just in our interactions to understand one
another and understand the guests.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
It seems to be a net positive way to do
the thing.

Speaker 6 (46:57):
And whether it's food or service, acknowledging the way that
someone's feeling and what it is and they're telling you
good batter difference, Yes exactly. I think that's so we
can certainly work on that because you know, with the
food thing, there's always an ego, so you know, yeah,
it's nice, nice to see that.

Speaker 5 (47:09):
Yeah, just asking the right questions, ask a question to
help avoid mistakes, to help avoid mistakes from mccarury.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Awesome.

Speaker 6 (47:18):
So we wanted to wrap up before we get to
our interview with a rapid fires segment of Overrated under Age.
Kate has been doing her homework on this. He has
at opinions, opinionated things to fire off. Let me quickly
say that Kate and I have been very much enjoying
texting each other pictures of cyber trucks every week since
we had that conversation. So if anyone on that, they're

(47:42):
they're welcome to join that text as well. Every time
I see one on the street, I'm like sending to Kate.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Okay, So just a quick review. We're just going to
go through a few things. I want to hear strong opinions,
overrated and underrated? How do you feel about it? We
were talking earlier and I absolutely want to ask how
y'all feel about dressing?

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Oh? Can I go first? Yes? I love ranch dressing
as long as it's homemade. It's my favorite. I know
it's childish, but I'll eat it on anything.

Speaker 5 (48:08):
Why is it childish?

Speaker 6 (48:10):
Because I ate a lot of ranch dressing as a
child and my son literally yeah, like it's a childish dip,
but like it is a if you make it right,
it is a good sauce. We feature it on our
menu at Chatman's all the time. If anyone asks for
it on anything, I have no qualms with that. I'm like, yes,
that was a smart decision by you to put ranch
dressing on everything.

Speaker 7 (48:30):
As a consumer underread, but as a restaurant older overread,
I don't want to hear range.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Dressing and cheese steaks.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Ever, I am a buffalo.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
They go crazy about asking me in the driving.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Chopped chickenish no sashido peppers?

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Do you how do you feel about them? I? Oh,
I hate seeing them anywhere because I just feel like
that they're treated poorly and I don't want to just
eat that.

Speaker 8 (48:59):
So there's a I have a breafrience ssheetos as a
dish as especial dish. I would probably agree with the
drum peppers are pretty cool. You don't see as much
as those any anywhere. But yeah, it seems like we would.
Would you also, in the same being, compare that to muscles,
where you're just like, here's muscles and beer, brought in
some bread.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
And I'm going to charge you money for this. I
would not compare it to muscles. I would eat muscles anytime.

Speaker 8 (49:21):
I mean it's like a cheat could for like, you know,
if you just if you just fry it and you
put some like, how can you charge for that restaurant?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
I feel likeios are overrated, Yes, I think so.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Free birthday desserts I think that if.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
They're used correct, I feel like it's probably underrated.

Speaker 6 (49:34):
I mean, you want to make people feel special, right Like,
I think that coming up with a special dessert that
not that everyone in the restaurant can get, that you
only get if you're celebrating a special thing is really cool.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
And we've done birthday ice creams that are only available
if it's your birthday. Et cetera.

Speaker 6 (49:49):
And you know, the whole point is to make someone
feel special. They're celebrating their special day with you.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Underrated. I think that we could do a better job
of celebrating people's birthdays.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
I think if you're making something special that's just for
birthday desserts, I'm on board. But if it's just have
a dessert from the menu for free, I think it's
too easy to take advantage of that, and I'm not
on board with that.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
What do you think about it?

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Undervalues it? For me? Why would I pay for it
instead of just telling you that it's my work?

Speaker 1 (50:16):
What is going to be profitable for your business?

Speaker 4 (50:18):
Guess as I guess, why would I? Why would I
pay you fifteen dollars for something that you will give
to me for free, like it has no value anymore.

Speaker 6 (50:28):
What do you think about a restaurant owner who brought
in a whole carvelt cake that they ordered from door
Dash for someone's birthday.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Because I as that for me, you got dairy queen
one yes, making my heart moist.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
Man.

Speaker 8 (50:44):
My opinion is that in the context, if we're saying
the context is rewarding somebody, it seems like it's been.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Really hard for the last like five six years. So
if you could give.

Speaker 8 (50:54):
Something to make somebody's day just a little bit better,
I think that's like we don't do that enough. So
I don't even care about the value anymore at this one,
because it's like all I'm trying to do and I
can control how you feel about it. But if I
know that I did my best to give you a
little bit of a boost.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Okay, we have family meal for your staff. Should you
offer or give a discount?

Speaker 5 (51:13):
Well, we give We give discounts one Foo Firs staff.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Underrated, Underrated. It's a big part of our salad underrated.

Speaker 6 (51:24):
It's a big part of our Slid Chapmans that we
all sit down for family meal every single day. People
don't need to clock out for it. It's just part
of the day. Everyone has to stop and they need
to sit down. We all eat a meal together, and
that's really important for camaraderie in the fact that you
know where one of your meals is coming from every day.

Speaker 8 (51:40):
Yeah, we underrated, like we no matter what, whether it's
the restaurant or somebody bag where it's just one of
those how do you serve somebody else if you can't
serve your own. We have noticed actually we did some
very casual studies that don't involve any scientific data whatsoever,
but moods, rating moods on a slider scale, and it
seemed like days where the staff feel was heavier, the
staff performed better and they were excited about their shifts

(52:02):
or as in though some of the days when it
was lacking in size or thought process, it seemed like
it certainly affected service.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
I would definitely apply just for the ache sandwich to
get a discount.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Added fees on tips, to separate out like wellness insurance
for staff.

Speaker 8 (52:22):
I feel like I need to abstain from this that
I think important transparency. Yeah, this is money that's going
to you, and you're going to be aware that it's
being charged. I get upset if I see a charge
and I didn't nobody, like, nobody said anything. It's just
like it shouldn't, just like we shouldn't give a gift
like a birthday desert for free with that year. I
think it's important to be like, hey, this percent is

(52:42):
year and we offer that will take it off. If
you don't want to contribute, it's no problem. It's really
no problem. The reason and we say why we.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Charged, So let's go overrated or underrated.

Speaker 8 (52:50):
I think it's underrated because it's it really has helped
a lot of our staff in ways that uh, we
couldn't alone. We know the margins of our business, and
sometimes it's nice to have the ability for somebody to say, hey, chef,
I want to go travel to New York like and
how would you like it if your owner was like,
hey man, we saved up some money for you to go, and.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
I'm gonna say it overrated? Okay, I'd rather be in
the bill and that you see it.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
You mean, like everything's just like a dollar more.

Speaker 7 (53:15):
Expensive and I'd paying for it.

Speaker 5 (53:19):
I don't want to.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
I don't want to see that.

Speaker 6 (53:20):
I think that we should legitimately do an episode on
the question is and it's like, then is it a
percentage based off and fixed rate? I think that's an
important one because this is where a different side of
service comes in. It's how we start our employees. And
I would love to dive deeper into this because I
have a lot of thoughts on it that I don't
feel like we have time to do right now. That
was an awesome episode, y'all. Thank you for joining us

(53:41):
a restaurant roundtable brought to you by Craft Times Away
from Home, and please join us again for your next one.
If you like this episode like follow all the things
and we'll see you again in a few weeks as
you might expect the opinions that we expressed on this
podcast or just that opinions and for entertainment purposes only.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
If you love this podcast, help us out give us
a thumbs up.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
Also, be sure to go to Craft Times Away from
Home dot com and sign up for our newsletter.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
So remember, if you like what you.

Speaker 6 (54:11):
Heard today, please head over to Krafttimes Away from Home
dot com and sign up.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
We have got all sorts of exclusives coming with special insights,
access to marketing, and a lot more.

Speaker 7 (54:22):
Of course, subscribe share like all those things, See you
next time.