Blues Brothers Restaurant Scene

When you think classic ‘80s movies, you don’t have to work too hard to get to the Blues Brothers (1980). This scene comes as they are recruiting their friends back into the band.

One of their former bandmates now works in a luxe restaurant and they invade the joint to horrify him into joining them…and it works.

A little-known bit of trivia associated with the Blues Brothers movies is the number of cameos. In this scene, the boys are served by none other than Pee-wee Herman himself (Paul Reubens). He offers them the Dom Perignon expertly and they indulge in that and shrimp cocktail, much to the dismay of their neighboring diners.

What this reveals about our industry is a fairly accurate belief that friends of the manager always get better treatment. It’s something you may want to consider when assessing your assistants and their guest service. Do their friends come often expect special treatment and then receive it? Does that special treatment rise to the level of appropriating services for free that should be delivered to your other guests?

If so, then you have a loyalty problem. While you won’t win a loyalty contest with the friends of your managers, you can make clear what your expectations are to avoid problems. By simply making it a policy to never allow discounts to the friends without your specific authorization, you make that issue disappear. You aren’t saying no, just that it needs to be justified and you are the only one whose opinion counts on that score.