Your Customers Will Love Your Restaurant if You Follow These Best Practices
By someone who has spent the last 20 years of his life as a frequent restaurant and bar patron
I am so incredibly proud of my restaurant and bar service-industry folks as we come out of the COVID pandemic.
You were hit with reduced seating, limited hours, mandatory food purchases with alcohol, and all sorts of regulations that targeted your industry. You faced surprise inspections, sometimes multiple times a week. You lost employees to jobs in other industries.
And yet, you survived. You’re still here. That’s amazing. I want to see you do really well this year. I want it to be your best year ever.
Recently a general manager of one of my favorite restaurants asked me, “Paul, tell me honestly… what could we be doing better?” It’s a question I wish more GMs would ask their regulars.
It’s a question I’m going to answer here, not about any one restaurant or bar, but about all of them. I live in an urban downtown neighborhood with many restaurants within a 4-block walking radius. In my nearly 20 years here, I’ve seen it all — what keeps customers coming back, what drives customers away.
