Food and drink may be your products, but the social amenities and personal involvement called "Hospitality" are vital to the image you create in the customer's mind especially in these times of slow business. You are responsible for hospitality. The attention given to your customers' well-being and enjoyment will be worth thousands of dollars you'd have to spend in merchandising and advertising to bring these same people again through your front door.

Following is a list of circumstances that can be a way for your restaurant to go broke quickly. If a guest in your establishment encounters these conditions they are victims of what we may call "negative hospitality."

Does this list seem familiar?

• No one to greet or seat guests properly.
• Sloppy appearance of service personnel.
• Service people operating with frowns and poor attitudes.
• Reservations not honored promptly.
• Over sized portions and prices to match.
• Kitchen is out of the specials at an early hour.
• Cold food served "warm" and hot food delivered "cold."
• Servers ill informed about the menu items.
• Food arrives too fast or too slowly.
• Food lacks "eye appeal."
• Quality of the food served is erratic.
• Promotional materials are false or misleading.
• Over cooked vegetables and sauces held from lunch time.
• Loud noises and bad smells coming from the kitchen.
• Customers are served stale bread when fresh is on hand.
• Servers are guilty of "inattention" and disappear when needed.
• Employees engage in personal chatter among themselves in  public spaces.
• Employees fail to recognize guests as individuals.
• "Carry-out" food is poorly packaged and not checked for accuracy.
• Public spaces show evidence of accumulated dirt.
• Unkempt and poorly supplied washrooms.
• The physical appearance of the facility is shabby, in poor repair and unattractive.
• Patrons are left to wait too long for presentation of the guest check.
• Guests are not thanked when departing and are not invited to return.
• Customer complaints are ignored or handled with indifference.

Of course any of these problems may occur in your establishment. Try to avoid them by good planning, training and supervision. Train every worker that meets the public in what to do to prevent the customer from forming a bad impression of your restaurant.

 You must start immediately to recognize your restaurant's problems. If you can learn to see what your clientele sees in their first few minutes, you'll know more quickly how to start to improve your operation.
 
What do your customers see when they look at the exterior of the restaurant?  Can your signs be seen easily, and do they tell a truthful story about what you have to offer inside? Look at your building. Is the paint peeling, are the window panes spotless or spotted?  Is the garbage area well hidden and covered?  How about the grounds - do you step over pot-holes in the paving, are there gaping cracks with weeds coming through the sidewalks?  In winter is the snow shoveled off in a wide enough path?  In springtime does the rain form puddles in front of the main entranceway?  Are there cigarette butts and gum wrappers in the shrubbery?

Now enter as if you were a customer.  Is the main entrance door easily seen?  When you walk inside, can your eyes adjust easily so you can see where to go clearly?  Is there a sign telling you either to "wait" or "please seat yourself?"  If any of the following apply to your place, can you find the way to the host station, buffet line, or the order area for fast food?

If there's a crowd waiting to be seated, can you see empty or uncleared tables ahead while the crowd stands and waits? Is there confusion over reservations. Do you hear comments like "We've been waiting over an hour already."  Are the waiting people relaxed - or resigned - or angry? 

As you play a customer being directed to your table, does the carpeting look clean and attractive or just plain stained and shoddy? Start looking for things that will quickly turn you off as a customer.  Are the public areas neat and clean with adequate lighting?  Are your china, glassware and flatware sanitary as well as shining bright?  Bad sanitation can certainly affect your patron's trust and confidence in the wholesomeness of your food.  Washrooms are an immediate indicator of sloppy housekeeping which is usually associated by the patron with indifference in food handling and preparation. 

How about your menu?  Are there "typos" and write-ins inside and catsup and mustard stains on the outside?  Actually ask yourself, "Does my restaurant look first class or second rate?"

When you are finally seated at your table, look and listen.  Do the customers seem to be enjoying themselves?  Is there "happy noise" or do you hear clatter and clanging from the kitchen and service pantries?  Finally, watch your employees.  Are they working effectively as a team or are they "chasing their tails?"  Do they speak pleasantly to one another, as if they enjoy working together, or do they pass each other with indifference or with actual hostility?

By acting as your own customer you'll be amazed at what you'll really observe about you own operations.  You will be able to develop a long list of areas that need improvement.  This activity of "looking within one's own work space" is an activity often performed so well by an outside consultant who looks at your facility with "fresh eyes."  Whatever means you use to achieve the introspection for a clinical analysis of your operations, this is a first step in the recession in your business.

Then take the second step.  Keep everyone alert to avoid the "25 problems" and to strive to solve problems promptly, handle complaints without disturbing other guests, be consistent in the techniques used in serving your menu properly and strive to keep the restaurant's appearance in top form.

If your management team is trained to be sensitive to the needs of your customers and everyone in your restaurant pulls together to prevent problems like these just described from arising, you will have taken bold measures to successfully combat the recession.

Mr. Lloyd M. Gordon, President of GEC Consultants, Inc. has an MBA from the University of Chicago. He has concepted more than 390 restaurants and has been consulting for over 44 years. He helps people enter the restaurant industry, points the way to profitability, and helps keep them successful. To discuss "How You Can Fight Back To Minimize This Recession" he can be reached at 847-674-6310. www.gecconsultants.com