GUESTS: When Holiday Cheer Turns Ugly [How Hollywood Sees Us]
With the holidays upon us, we couldn’t resist including the famous bar scene from this Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart plays the down on his luck protagonist who is seeing what the world would look like without him in it. When he enters the local watering hole, Martini’s, he is treated to a harsh reality that many bars present of cold indifference because they don’t recognize him.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Stepping Down
Chipotle founder Steve Ells has stepped down as CEO. He will, however, remain part of the company as its executive chairman. The company is looking toward new leadership blood after two years of food safety woes and lawsuits piled up.
Is Cocaine Vegan?
File this under things we never thought of. But Munchies as a whole post whether or not cocaine is vegan. Their conclusion? Depends on who you ask.
Accusations Piling Up
Pastry chef & TV host Johnny Luzzini has been accused of sexual harassment by four former employees. The former employees, two pastry chefs & two externs, described the work environment as rampant with sexual harassment. The four women claim Luzzini verbally abused staff, saw what “he could get away with,” make sexually explicit remarks, and demand shoulder massages at the end of shifts.
AT AMAZON, IT’S ALWAYS FRIDAY’S
Why it matters to you: TGIFridays embracing Amazon Alexa and Prime Pay is a big deal, why?
Branding is everything if you are a national company. That’s why TGIFridays continuing commitment to the Amazon ecosystem is significant news. TGIF announced that they are expanding their existing partnership with Amazon to include Alexa voice ordering and Amazon Pay to its internet based offerings. The operator has seen a doubling of their off-premise revenue with 70% of online orders coming from new customers. While you may not be able to follow suit with Alexa ordering, you certainly can accept Amazon Pay both online or in store.
As we have asserted in past posts, tying your restaurant to a national brand is a really good idea and Amazon is trusted consumer brand. There is no question that carryout sales are a wonderful opportunity to grow sales without disrupting your business. They are entirely incremental, especially if you haven’t focused on it previously, and require little or no front of the house commitment to serve. This is especially true if you engage an online ordering app. We have seen the same attention paid to delivery, and now carryout may be the next growth track especially with your Millennial guests.
SAFETY FIRST
Why it matters to you: You can always do a better job making your restaurants a safe place to work.
Food safety, risk mitigation, and responsible alcohol service are the things that keep operators up at night. While there are myriad ways to maintain safety and security in your building, some are more obvious and easier to achieve than others. Kitchen safety standards are among the most obvious needs in many restaurants. Thoughtful policies like requiring proper footwear or teaching knife safety standards have instant results and greatly reduce the most common causes of employee injuries (slips/falls and cuts).
The same applies to equipment maintenance. By addressing your plant maintenance as well as having the necessary emergency equipment you can mitigate and even eliminate claims and lost staff hours due to injury. We encourage all operators to survey their own buildings to review their safety standards, execution and overall policies. The old cliché applies: “an ounce of prevention…” You know the rest.
Use this issue to grow your manager’s awareness by assigning the review to a junior manager and then discussing their findings as well as proposed solutions. You kill two birds with one stone (yes, the clichés are flying today) and protect your business at the same time. Win-win!
