Top Of The Table

Jim Wade

Dec. 1, 2001

Details: They'll Make You or Break You

When you eat at a restaurant, do you look around at your surroundings? Do you look for dust on the windowsills? How about dirt on the silverware? Glass marks on the tabletops? What about the random crumbs, straw wrappers, napkins, and debris that can collect on a floor during the course of a day? You can rest assured that whether you see these things when you eat out or not, you will have customers who pay attention to these details when they eat at your restaurant.

A lot of people in the industry know that customers eat first with their eyes, and then with their mouths. This does not start when the food hits the table. Rather, it starts the moment the drive up and see the restaurant. It can actually start when they see an ad in the paper and start to decide if it is the kind of place they want to eat at. Then, when they choose to take a chance and check you out, they will be soaking up everything they can and, consciously or un, making a judgment call based on what they see, regardless of whether the food is any good or how prompt the service was.

Granted the first impression they get is going to be of the outside, and unless you are an owner or regularly sweep the parking lot there isn t going to be a lot you can do about this. But what is the customer going to think when they pull up and see a waiter smoking a cigarette out back, and then a few minutes later that same individual is serving them salads he made and chances are he didn t wash his hands?

Once the customer gathers up the nerve to actually enter the establishment the trick is to at least give the ILLUSION of cleanliness and professionalism. If the diner comes in, sits down, and can order dinner without seeing a fist sized roach or a drunken waitress this is a good thing. Of course the diner must first pass the host/ess stand, and God willing he/she is an ambassador the restaurant can be proud of. Clean, smelling, well if not good then at least without an excess of b.o. Hopefully said person is smiling and inviting and generally making a decent first impression.

If the customer can then be seated at a clean table with all the table accompaniments placed appropriately and not scattered all over with the crumbs from the previous occupants like some alien chess board, this would be a good thing. From there it is the servers job to keep the magic alive. If he/she can show up to the table promptly, clean, without a hint of alcohol, and not chewing anything, this would be perfect. They can continue the trick by bringing beverages without lipstick marks or bits of foreign substances stuck to the inside of the glass. These are things you have to just be aware of. You may not be looking for these truly minute details all the time, but if you just keep your eyes open and focused on what you are doing you will probably catch them all at one point or another, if not every time.

From there as long as the food is edible and they don t run out of water the customer will probably stay pretty happy. They will leave you lots of money and tell all of their friends to come see you and ask to sit in your section so they can give you lots of money too. The restaurant will flourish, you will be rich, and all will be good, because everybody paid attention to the details.