CASE STUDY PHASE 1

Situation

  • Hotel restaurant - operations expanding, occupancy up to 50 persons
  • generally captive audience (local restaurants hard to get to)
  • currently break even
  • long term non-professional staff with minimal management
  • owners desired to improve consistency and raise standards of food prep, cooking and service in order to improve profitability

Prior to commencing this phase we looked at a number of different areas. The one that is most likely cause of failure will be staffing and how the kitchen/restaurant is managed.

Review Staffing

Whatever we do on a visit will be of no avail if there is nobody to carry forward the changes. Our efforts will at mi nimum help clarify the current staffing situation and needs. A new person was previously hired with some public restaurant experience and the hotel owners decided to "bite the bullet" and use the restaurant makeover as a reason to reorganize and promote the new person to manager.

 

 
Any restaurant can be improved somewhat, many restaurants can be improved greatly. According to a recent survey this is a short list of the supposed top guest turnoffs in restaurants:
  • Dirty environment and contaminated dishes – bathrooms, tables, placemats, glasses, cutlery, waiters clothes, bad smells, hair in dishes, gritty salad etc etc etc
  • Over or under seasoned food – failure to taste everything before it is served, poor sauces
  • Over cooked or incorrectly cooked food – tough proteins, slushy veggies
  • Bad service – slow service, no food introduction, cold food, un-cleared tables, apathy, no checking on table after service
But these cardinal sins are NOT what we experience mostly in some Costa Rican hotel restaurants – in our experience of hotel food service in Costa Rica, the biggest challenges are:
  • Staff knowledge, creativity, experience, reliability etc - mostly the staff have not been exposed to anything except the dishes of the hotel
  • Dull and uninspired dishes and food presentation
  • Perfectly good food assassination
  • Waste in the kitchen/kitchen disorganization/labor waste – caused by a number of factors such as buying, storage, slow or inefficient prep, menu problems, organizational and process issues (lack of lists for example)

These may not be your particular problems but in our travels to over 300 eating places in Costa Rica (including all of the best places) we have been regularly disappointed with at least some part of the experience.

In talking with small hotel owners we understand the difficulties of running a small hotel without a professional staff where the food is “as good as it can get”. We disagree – whatever all of us are doing (and this includes our own restaurant), we can always do something better.

  • Tonight for example can we choose a more challenging main course – if we start service a little earlier?
  • Tomorrow can we find a better way to store fresh vegetables so we can improve the flavors and textures in between deliveries?
  • Often we can take the exact same dish and upgrade the recipe to turn it into a real delight instead of a “tired dish you served last week”.

We think we can do at least Step 1 with your own staff and your existing dishes. You may choose not to do Step 2 or 3 – if you are satisfied your restaurant has made some progress.

During each step (from initial visit to final check up visit) you have access to the trainers by phone/email to assist you.

Call us today to book your starter visit 2430-2929 or info@puravidahotel.com.

To quote a good friend, Nanami, a sushi master, who helped us improve our own food offerings, "It's all about the fish". By that he means the condition of the food, the freshness, the origin. If you start with great food, you should end the meal with something wonderful. But you can't start unless you have the "good fish" and an idea of what to do with it.


"If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves." Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and other masterpieces of humor and irony. "That fails to work stupendously in some hotel kitchens however", Berni noted with a grin.