HOTELS

Bob Puccini

Don't Overlook The Obvious
August 26, 2008

I was visiting a client recently on the East coast and was asked to comment on a restaurant that we had conceived several years ago. It has done very well, but in the last year or so sales had started to flatten and then decline. As I met with the hotel GM, chef and others to investigate the problem we started to talk about what had changed. The GM mentioned at one point how popular the mini burgers were with the bar guests. They were so popular, in fact, that the kitchen could not keep up with the demand and so they decided to remove the popular "sliders" from the menu altogether.

This week I want to talk about the obvious, and how not to overlook it. The problem with life is that we see it the way we want to, through our own personal filters, and it isn’t always reality. That is why it is valuable to have people on your staff that can be a little rebellious, or at least not afraid to have a different view point as yours.

As we look at this example it seems clear that the clientele at this restaurant, a hotel restaurant mostly attended by locals as well as hotel guests, was saying something in their choice of foods. Not to say it should have been a hamburger joint, but it said something about how they saw the restaurant and how they wanted to use it. In restaurants, it is important to know your market and accept what it wants and then give them more of what they want. Don’t fight against it to keep a rigid concept that you or your management want-—well, that is if you want to make money, which most of our clients do.

Interestingly enough, most things in life are judged not by what is, but by the way others see them. Heroes seldom think of themselves as heroes as much as those that see them as heroes. Your restaurant is defined not by you but by your guests. My old dear friend Bill Kimpton used to tell me to watch people’s feet. People vote with their feet, he would say. If you noticed where people were going you were sure to understand what they wanted. People will frequently tell you one thing and do another, and it is only with looking at the obvious that we can really make good decisions whether about menu design, falling head counts, personnel or love.

Posted by Bob Puccini on August 26, 2008 | Comments (4)