PUBLISHED April 20th, 2016 07:00 am
Everyone goes out, and everyone goes out to have a good time. Every bar, restaurant, and café genuinely wants customers to have the best time at their venue. The responsibility, however, doesn’t fall solely on the F&B establishment – patrons have a part to play too. So, here are a few tips to help everyone have the best night ever!
Food and beverage venues are businesses.
F&B venues are fantastic businesses and contribute greatly to the growth of the economy. Being an inclusive industry means that anyone, regardless of background or social standing, has the opportunity to be successful.
When we’re sitting in a restaurant, it’s easy to forget that people invest in and build these hospitality establishments to make money, or at the very least, sustain itself financially. Without money, stock cannot be purchased, rent cannot be paid, and staff cannot be hired. Worst of all, your favourite watering hole would no longer exist.
It’s not difficult to, for instance, ask for discounts or free BYO. However, every time a restaurant acquiesces, it eats into the success of the establishment in the long-run.
Choose your experience.
Be it a world-class cocktail bar or a street food cart, both provide a unique, well-thought out, and skilled experience. The people behind them have tailored them for the enjoyment of their patrons – thus the first step to having the time of your life anywhere is choosing the right experience.
Four executives out on a business lunch making multi-million dollar decisions won’t choose a hawker center; peckish shift workers wouldn’t choose a Michelin star restaurant to fill their bellies at 4am. These are extreme examples, but it is a common mistake.
There are quiet restaurants with great food and beverage options for catching up with your friends and there are vibrant venues for people watching. The outcome of “THE BEST NIGHT EVER!” scenario begins with choosing the right experience for your social or business gatherings.
Plan ahead.
The newest, hippest restaurant with the most talented chef paired with the world’s best bartender is definitely going to be packed on a Friday night. Make a reservation to guarantee a table or (if they don’t take reservations) turn up early to snag a table.
These are good plans to avoid disappointment and ultimately, an impatient night of waiting and pestering the host with, “Is our table ready yet?” or “How long more, we’re hungry!” When the restaurant is full, the host won’t be able to do much.
Having no plan is sometimes a plan in itself. For the best experience, remember our second point (choose your experience). Be sure to pick venues that can easily accommodate last minute walk-ins. It also never hurts to phone ahead.
Manage your expectations.
Very few bars and restaurants can accommodate last minute walk-in groups of 10 (or more) straightaway. Having to wait for tables to be freed up or set up is a certainty. Expectations need to be managed and the venues will take every opportunity to accommodate where possible.
This also applies for last minute changes. 100% of the time F&B establishments work with the latest piece of information they are given with extremely little or zero room for flexibility. The more flexibility a restaurant gives means more costs that the venue has to bear and remember; these venues are trying to earn money.
For example, a restaurant receives a booking for a table of four on a Saturday (a prime night for F&B everywhere). That restaurant would make sure that there’s a table comfortable enough for four people available at the time of reservation. Other bookings will also be managed such that everyone can have an equally good time. The table of four turns up, and has now surprised the venue with an increase in numbers. Hospitality venues, being hospitable, will do what they can to accommodate where possible. Since it’s Saturday night, it’s likely that all seats and tables are reserved or taken. Restaurants and bars have only so much space and limited chairs.
These things are fixed, but expectations can be changed, managed, or lowered. In the best case, it may even be surpassed.
The metaphorical handshake.
A customer wants something, the venue agrees they can make it and then delivers on that agreement – this is the metaphorical handshake. When you order a “Milo Dinosaur”, it’s the establishment’s responsibility to make you an iced Milo with delicious Milo powder smothering the drink. If an iced coffee is brought out, the order is clearly wrong but then, who is at fault?
In most cases, the miscommunication is due to the establishment, but there are rare occasions when the customer may have forgotten their order or incorrectly signaled for the wrong item. It’s the responsibility of both parties to make sure that everyone is on the same page, which is why most service staff are trained to repeat the order.
This applies to many other situations from ordering your first drink all the way through to asking for the bill. The entire drinking and dining experience is a series of small agreements and “handshakes”. Everyone has a part to play in “THE BEST NIGHT EVER!” scenario.
Organised chaos.
Most restaurants and bars work amidst what is known as an organised chaos, a series of operation systems and executions that are used to manage the venue. Any unexpected change from anyone (customers included) can throw this very fragile ecosystem out of whack.
The best example of this is reservation timings. Being early is the most difficult to recover from. The bar is full and a table of six has just arrived 30 minutes early. Attention must now be spread across all the guests currently in the house as well as the six new guests who were not expected to arrive until later. A full bar that has planned to serve 50 guests perfectly now has to serve 56 guests with the same perfection. Something will definitely give and the organized chaos will most likely become just chaos. So we’d highly recommend being on time – you’ll get better service and even greater hospitality!
The sequence of service.
All food and beverage establishments have a sequence of service (SOS). Which means that there’s a plan for when a customer makes their initial contact with the establishment, to when they walk through the front door and until they leave the premises. Some establishments even have plans to follow up with guests days or weeks after their visit.
For the best experience, allow for the SOS to unfold. The entire experience has been taken into account and everything that is needed would come out when it is required, and in the best cases, before it is even needed.
Every establishment knows that guests need three things when they walk through the doors…a comfortable space, a menu, and a drink. All venues would eventually offer these to their customers; but sometimes, people walk in unannounced and before their waiter can usher them in with a smile, they would ask, “Can I have a menu?” before the waiter has a chance to provide the full experience of the establishment’s service. So, embrace the SOS.
Share and share alike.
If something does not meet the expectations of the guests, F&B establishments would do anything (within reason) to make it right by the customer, or, in the least, explain to them why the product is so. However, the venues wouldn’t be able to take action unless these expectations are shared.
The venue needs to be informed that things aren’t quite up to standard there and then. A Facebook post or a review on a website after the event is not the best way to help a business improve. There’s always a plan to solve a particular problem that the guest has encountered, but if the establishment knows nothing about the problem, they can’t fix it and thus missed out on a chance to impress and enhance the experience. Share thoughts right away, good or bad.
The bill.
The evening has almost come to a close. The bill arrives. There are so many situations revolving around this little custom. Nothing is worst than closing a wonderful evening with a calculator and a pen, and discussing how to split the bill.
If a group is the type to split everything, make sure the group brings cash. It’s simple and easy; and the restaurant will be happy to break notes if they have the float to. Alternatively, split the bill equally over the same mode of payment, like “can you divide this by four equally over these four credit cards.” There is a certain limit for how many credit cards a venue will accept for one bill, but this is entirely up to the establishment. If the restaurant is busy and you require a six-way (or more) split, it’s going to take some time.
Discounts and freebees are rewards, not entitlements. Establishments give things away to enhance the experience and discounts can be offered for any number of reasons. If discounts or freebees are expected, guests could be primed for disappointment. On the other hand, if everyone goes into the experience with an open mind, it’s highly likely that the venue would impress.
These are just a few tips from many years of working in the hospitality industry, and more importantly, as a customer. Give them a try and you’re pretty much guaranteed the best night ever!
Top Image: Alan White
