During my month in Thailand, I came face to face with the reality of how many things about American life are not conducive to true happiness.

This is the closest thing to paradise on Earth I have experienced. I wanted for nothing, except possibly a wife to share it with. I will be back. I hope you too will experience the magic of Phuket for yourself.

Any foodie should have Berlin’s KaDeWe high on their list of travel destinations. Opened in 1907 by Berlin merchant Adolf Jandorf, KaDeWe is the largest department store in Europe. Up to 180,000 customers visit daily and make their way through the 7-story shopping paradise. The store is 60,000 sm (approximately 650,000 sq ft!).

The top two floors are dedicated to food. During my trip I spent 3 hours mulling around in fascination. I don’t think I was nearly as amazed as a kid on my first trip to Toy’s R’ Us as I felt to walk around KaDeWe as an adult.

Surely we can all agree that the real value of Coca-Cola isn’t in the recipe. After 100 years, a better tasting sugar-water could have been invented. The real value is the brand and the bedrock of the brand is “genuine” and “authentic”. Or, as they sum up in a successful campaign “The Real Thing”.

The book The Experience Economy has been around for a while and I’ve long recommended it (we even did a book report on it). The follow up book by the same authors is titled “Authenticity”. It also is a must-have in your personal library.
With 1,000,000 restaurants in the United States alone, differentiation is a key tenant of successful restaurant marketing. At the heart of differentiation is authenticity and being true to what your company stands for.

I found this clip for you of the author of Authenticity and Experience Economy. These principles are essential components of restaurant marketing.

“The only true disability is a crushed spirit”, Amiee Mullins

Preparing to meet adversity rather than avoiding it is a powerful distinction Aimee Mullins made in a recent speech for the renowned TED Conference. Being born without shin bones she gives a very inspiring talk that I hope you will watch and reflect upon. Her message: Adversity is a shadow that’s always with us, and its ability to embrace adversity that that helps shape who we are. Certainly this is a message that can resonate with all of us in these challenging times.

My mother always told me, “It’s the fire that tempers the steel.” I have to say I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment. Truth is, the most challenging and difficult times of my life have turned out to be the ones that best helped shape me and instill in me characteristics and values that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

For those of you that have been through The Landmark Forum, you understand the power of language. The language we use is about more than a spoken word and communicating a need or emotion. The language we use is a capsule that encases our values, perceptions and outlook. Our unconscious choice of words can define our conscious beliefs of our own abilities, worth, contribution and most certainly our mood and emotion. This short 20-minute speech gives new depth to the influence of language to shape how we see ourselves in the world and the potential we use or lose.

Aimee’s message is also about the power of opening doors for others. This is a critical concept for the restaurant industry as we consider our approaches to recruiting and retention of the best talent.

I always appreciate comments on my articles – whether or not you agree with what I have to say. But many of the responses I got to my Le Bernardin story were troubling to me – because of what they revealed about certain attitudes in our industry toward customer service.

Let me re-visit this story and further explain why I wrote it – and why I think my experience offers important lessons for the broader restaurant industry.

It’s not just about a cup of tea.

I totally understand that restaurants (especially the “high end” establishments) might be hesitant to allow outside food and drink. And it’s true – it was a cold day in New York, I needed some caffeine, and so I bought a cup of Starbucks tea to bring with me on my wintertime walk to Le Bernardin. In hindsight, I suppose I should have guessed that they wouldn’t want me to bring my tea into the restaurant – I wasn’t aware of their policy and it caught me off guard. But still, even if I was wrong to bring the tea, the restaurant staff shouldn’t have turned me away so carelessly.

Here are three options for what SHOULD have happened at Le Bernardin when they saw that I had a cup of tea:

Option 1: “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we cannot allow any outside food or drink into the dining room. Would you be willing to spend a few minutes finishing your tea outside, and we will have a table ready for you when you’re done?”

Option 2: “I’m sorry, perhaps you were not aware of our policy. That is OK. I’m sorry that you won’t be able to finish your tea – but please come to your table and we’ll provide a fresh cup of tea on the house.”

Option 3: “Please let me pour your tea into one of our mugs and you can drink it at the table – I’m sorry, but we just cannot allow any other restaurant’s packaging into the dining room.”

But the staff didn’t do any of those things. Instead, they were completely inflexible and did not make any effort to explain their policy or think of alternatives to accommodate me – a new customer. Yes, I had a cup of tea from Starbucks, but in that situation it’s not my job as the customer to figure out what to do with my cup of tea. Instead, they should have discreetly and courteously found a way to resolve the situation and get me seated for lunch.

And not only did they not do that, but they acted with haughty elitism and condescension. They acted as if I had committed an unforgiveable transgression against them and all the other patrons of Le Bernardin, as if I was unworthy of even setting foot in the building. Their response made me feel disrespected and embarrassed – and this should never happen to any restaurant customer.

We are in the “hospitality” business.

As restaurateurs, we are part of a noble tradition. The word “restaurant” comes from the French word for “restore.” Every visit to a restaurant is meant to be “restorative” – people are hungry, and they come to us. We feed them. And more than just providing food, we offer them an experience. Eating at a restaurant should always be a pleasant experience – whether it’s a crowded, boisterous deli at lunchtime or a Fast Casual place full of rowdy kids and families, or a quieter, more contemplative fine dining establishment.

Most of all, no restaurant customer should ever be made to feel inferior or embarrassed or intimidated. This is one of the fundamental aspects of restaurant service – as members of the hospitality business, we restaurateurs are humble servants to those who choose to dine at our establishments. Customers are our lifeblood and our reason for being. People are hungry, and they come to us. We need to remember to be humble and ready to serve.

But what about creating a “brand image” of exclusivity and prestige?

I know, I know – Le Bernardin is a high-end restaurant, one of the best in the U.S., if not the world. They have to maintain certain standards for what to allow in the dining room – after all, what if some tourists walked in with a bag from McDonald’s and wanted to bring it in with them?

This argument is valid to some extent – but even the best restaurants in the world need to treat their customers with respect and a spirit of humble service. No restaurant customer should ever be made to feel intimidated by a restaurant. Even if you’re a naïve high school student or a tourist from a remote part of the country who’s never eaten at a really nice restaurant before and who doesn’t know which fork to use, that restaurant should do everything possible to make you feel comfortable and confident and cared for. Remember the old saying, “the customer is always right?”

Of course, there are limits to this.

I’m not arguing that restaurants should be forced to serve anyone and everyone. If a restaurant customer is belligerent or berating the staff or creating a public disturbance, then of course, that person should not receive service.  But I was not causing a scene or being rude to the staff – I was just a hungry lunch customer who wanted to drink some tea after a bone-chilling walk through New York in February. And they treated me like I was the stupidest person they’d ever seen.  The harsh and mean-spirited remarks left both to my post and on blogs throughout the New York dining scene were even more pointed and inhospitable.  I was called a “fool,” “tool,” “idiot” and nearly 30 other names which can’t be posted due to the vulgar and obscene language.  Several insulted not just me, but all Floridians and “tourists” that make their way to New York City.

It’s not just about one person’s bad experience at a restaurant – it’s about the U.S. (and our industry) as a whole.

My intentions in writing that article about Le Bernardin were not just to complain about one bad experience – I wrote it to highlight some ideas and insights and trends that are affecting the restaurant industry as a whole. I wrote it because I care about our industry and I’m concerned about where it’s headed.

You will not find anyone else on this planet that loves and cares about the restaurant business more than I do. I’m a third generation restaurateur – I grew up in this business, learning from my father and grandfather, and I have a whole circle of friends in this business who are like family to me. I’ve worked at every restaurant job imaginable, from dishwasher to line cook to general manager, and I’ve consulted with mom-and-pop restaurants and emerging international chains all over the world. I’ve traveled to over 40 countries and I eat in over 300 restaurants a year worldwide – everything from Michelin-starred fine dining to street food in Southeast Asia. I have fought for this industry and advocated for greater respect and public appreciation for the millions of hard-working people who make their living in professional kitchens and restaurant dining rooms.

So when I see comments (including some from people in the restaurant industry) who think that complaining about a bad customer service experience means that I am arrogant, or ignorant (or both!), I worry for the future.

You see, the U.S. is becoming more and more of a service-based economy. Much of the future job growth in this country will be in the service sector. If our country is becoming more of a service economy and we have standards of service that are declining – especially compared to the service economies in other competing countries – then I fear that we as a nation are losing our competitive edge.

Most of all, I think we need to remember that people are still people – even when we passionately disagree, even when others are outspoken in their beliefs. We need to be able to debate and discuss the issues that affect our industry (and our country) without resorting to personal attacks, rage and vitriol. We are tearing our country apart from the inside. We are allowing our worst instincts to dominate the public debate. It doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have to be this way.

The end of entitlement

Finally, let me close with one other idea that ties into a lot of the feelings that this recent experience has dredged up.

Here in America, we’ve had it pretty good for quite awhile – not just in the restaurant business, but in our lives as a whole. And the recent economic downturn has reminded everyone that the future is uncertain, there are no guarantees, and maybe some things aren’t going to keep getting better and better – maybe the future is not going to be a straight line of progress going ever-upward

Before the crash, I think a lot of Americans were starting to feel an air of entitlement. We expected the value of our homes to keep going up, our 401(k)s to keep going up, everything was supposed to keep getting better. In the restaurant industry, a lot of people in the industry started to get over-confident. Working in a restaurant took on less of an air of service and became more of an ego trip or a path to fame – this is where customer service starts to suffer. And I think there is a lot of frustration in our industry right now – people are struggling, the boom years (for a lot of restaurants) have come screeching to a halt, and yet there’s still this mentality of entitlement at some restaurants – the attitude that we can treat customers with condescension or disrespect, because they need us more than we need them.

In my travels, some of the happiest people I’ve ever met are food service workers in some of the world’s poorest countries. When you travel to Southeast Asia, to places like the Philippines, or Indonesia, or Thailand, you can enjoy some of the most amazing food – but it’s not being served in three-star restaurants with white tablecloths. Some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten were served from a food cart on a dusty street – doled out by family members working together at family-owned small businesses that go back generations. These people are happy to serve – they work with a welcoming spirit of humility and generosity and gratitude.

I think there’s a lesson there for all of us. Be humble. Be happy to serve.

Ever since my days at The Breakers Palm Beach – a Five Star, Five Diamond hotel with a Five Star, Five Diamond restaurant – I have wanted to visit Le Bernardin in New York City.  During my stint at The Breakers I was responsible for marketing the $50 million food and beverage operations at the hotel and off-site venues.  We hosted the very prestigious and elite Mobil Awards honoring the top 50 restaurants in the United States and Le Bernardin was a recurring winner.  Le Bernardin was also a case study we considered as we created our own new fine dining venues.

Le Bernardin, in case you are not familiar with it, was Zagat’s Top Pick for 2007, has been awarded 3 Michelin Stars as well as the New York Times’ very highest rating.  In all, the awards bestowed upon Le Bernardin read like a checklist of the restaurant industry’s most coveted accolades.

During a recent business trip to New York City (February 7-9, 2010) I made it a point to finally check Le Bernardin off my list of must-visit restaurants.  I checked in to the Westin Times Square and gleefully marched the ten blocks down the road in 18 degree weather to try my luck without a reservation.  I suspected that it might be hard to get a table, even in this recession and on an off-night, but I was so excited to finally eat at Le Bernardin that I was willing to wait or reschedule if they could not accommodate me.

With a big smile and fully loaded credit card I made my way to the maître d’. “Can you accommodate one this evening?”  I inquired.  With an indifferent, sarcastic and almost insulted tone, the thin French maître d’ said with a chuckle, “No sir, we cannot accommodate you.”  Fine. I knew they would be busy and I knew the odds were against me getting in without a reservation. So instead, I paused, waiting for him to ask to schedule me for another evening or time.  That didn’t happen.  Rather, he stretched his insincere smile a bit further and squeezed his face as if he was at once humored I was still in his presence and disturbed that I had bothered to find my way there. Apparently this was the end of our conversation – with no further effort on his part to help serve a hungry customer.

I ended up at Charlie Palmer’s Aureole back near Times Square and my hotel.  Equally famed and comparably priced, Aureole graciously and warmly welcomed me in – even without a reservation.  Their dining room seemed more bustling and lively.  My meal was superbly cooked and the service was professional, experienced and very accommodating.  From my table I sent tweets (www.twitter.com/qmg) out to nearly 8,000 Twitter followers with a play-by-play of my meal.  Several people tweeted back to me with all sorts of positive remarks and more than a few said “I’m adding Aureole to my list of must-visit restaurants.”

After a satisfying meal I slid into my Westin “Heavenly Bed” and started flipping channels.  As fate and irony would have it, one of the guests on Jimmy Fallon’s show that night was Chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin!  I almost couldn’t believe it!  Chef Ripert was funny, charismatic and his appearance convinced me that even with the bad experience I had with his maître d’, I should give him and his restaurant another shot.  Every restaurant deserves a second chance – especially one as famed as Le Bernardin – and given this new “sign from above” I decided that I should return.

So the next day I walked back to Le Bernardin, figuring that I would try their $55 prix fixe lunch.  I ordered a hot tea from the Starbucks near my hotel and started the march in the freezing headwinds back to Le Bernardin.  (Did I mention that I’m from Florida? Making another wintertime walk in New York City was a sacrifice for me.)

This time, I was greeted with a less restrained and not so seemingly forced smile and told that I needn’t have a reservation and could be accommodated immediately.  One catch – “Sir, we will dispose of that for you, but you cannot bring it inside,” the hostess said, referring to my Starbucks tea, while looking at it as if I was holding a bag of freshly scooped dog poop.

“Um, yeah, but I just bought it and it’s only now cooled to the point to drink…I’m happy to buy another here in addition to this one, but I’m suffering from a bit of a caffeine headache and would like to finish it,” I said, while my eyes scanned for a manager that might see to my rescue.  As my luck would have it, the same maître d’ from the prior evening was on duty for this shift too, and with an even more prejudiced, marginalizing and catty-cheerleader smirk said, “Sorry sir.”

I tried to appeal to their senses. “I’m in the restaurant business, I have had this restaurant on my list for years, I tried to come here last night, walked back today, plan to order an expensive tasting menu and you are honestly going to turn me away if I want to keep my tea?” I asked.  “Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”

I can fully understand a restaurant turning away a patron who is trying to bring in alcohol, or a movie theater refusing to allow outside food and beverage.  I cannot, however, understand why such a highly rated restaurant would turn away lunch business in the middle of a recession with such careless abandon.  The point wasn’t to keep the tea.  It was the rudeness and disdain of the door-cop.

Not only was I extremely frustrated by the situation, I immediately shared this experience with my nearly 8,000 Twitter followers (most of whom are restaurant industry professionals and media).  I vowed to never again attempt to return to Le Bernardin and – no matter the company or occasion – if the name Le Bernardin comes up, I plan to deliver a very passionate message about why I am boycotting their restaurant.

So, what can a top 50 restaurant teach us about bad service?

Lessons:

1.    Don’t Believe Your Own Hype – While publicity can be worth its weight in gold for a restaurant, vanity and “celebrity” can be its downfall. When a speeding locomotive goes off the tracks, it still maintains forward momentum for quite a while.  Similarly, when a restaurant reaches its pinnacle it can fall into the “too good to fail” mindset.  When this happens, standards drop, customers are turned away as if there is a never ending supply of them, and a kind of resentment can build that turns the tides on the restaurant’s success.  Chef Ripert seems to be on television more than in his own restaurant these days.  Sure, they still are winning the awards and can afford to turn away customers like panhandlers today, but it’s that exact sort of taking your eye off the ball that leads to people saying, “That place sure isn’t what it used to be.”

2.    Boycott & Protest – As diners, when we receive bad service, it is not only our “right” but our duty to complain.  And when complaints fall on deaf or indifferent ears, it’s our duty to boycott.  It won’t be until Le Bernardin starts to notice an empty dining room and falling reservation count that they take complaints and issues like this seriously.  For more, also read this article on your duty to complain.

3.    Everyone is a Critic with an Audience – There was a time when restaurant critics could make or break a restaurant with a review.  In those days, Siskel and Ebert could also make or break a movie with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.  These days, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton sways moviegoers with his film reviews and it’s the modern day food blogger that carries the power to influence the opinions of restaurant customers, not the local newspaper restaurant critic.  The power to influence customer opinion is more diffuse – instead of relying on a few central opinion leaders for restaurant reviews, people use Urban Spoon and other user-generated sites where “average” restaurant customers post reviews from their laptops and cell phones. Not only is the power of restaurant reviews changing and evolving, but the new universe of social media makes it possible for word of mouth to spread faster than ever: if Facebook were a country, it would be the 5th largest in the world.  Twitter has made instant news and communication a global phenomenon and within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection.  Before I even stepped onto the sidewalk after my disappointment at Le Bernardin, I had tweeted my frustration to my personal audience of Twitter followers – and many of them promptly forwarded my story on to their other friends in the restaurant industry.  In the past, an upset customer would tell 10 friends; today they can tweet 10,000 from their table.  The stakes have grown.  Everyone is a critic and has an audience.  For more on that, also read this article on restaurant social media.

4.    Don’t put Cops in Charge of the Door – We’ve long heard how important it is to make a good first impression and how you never get a second chance – especially in the restaurant business.  While generally few would disagree with this adage, it’s painfully surprising to me how many restaurateurs still put the least hospitable people they have at the door.  For instance, bouncers at night clubs or a stuffy and indifferent maître d’ in this case.  Why spend so much time, effort and money to get customers if you have a maître d’ that greets them with a shin-kick at the front door?

5.    Remember Acquisition Costs – In business to business marketing, the typical cost to gain a new customer is $170 each.  A study has not yet been conducted to accurately estimate this cost for the restaurant industry, but I would suspect that this dollar amount wouldn’t be far off.  With this in mind, it seems hardly worth chasing away customers over a $3 tea.  Keeping a $3 cup of tea out of your dining room isn’t worth ruining a new customer’s first-time experience (and throwing away their lifetime value to your restaurant).  There are only four ways for a restaurant to increase sales – New Trial, Frequency, Check Average and Party Size.  For more in depth descriptions, please take a look at this article on restaurant sales building strategies.  Of those four, the most expensive and least effective is New Trial; a new customer coming in for the first time.  I was “New Trial” business for Le Bernardin.  Not only will I not be back, but since my previous positive impression of Le Bernardin was so carelessly shattered, I will probably carry the experience and comments about it around for quite a while – being sure to share my story when the occasion arises.  Was that worth keeping out a cup of Starbucks tea?  Nope.  Do you think their maître d’ cares?  Nope.  Ultimately it’s the restaurant’s investors that get burned.

6.    The Restaurant Industry Need a New Awards System – Fine dining doesn’t always mean it’s the best dining experience.  I’d rather have street food in Thailand served by someone that loves what they do than be treated like a vagrant in a stuffy Manhattan eatery – no matter how good the food is.  The service was far better at The Spotted Pig (where I ended up the second time Le Bernardin turned me away).  Anthony Bourdain seems to be one of the few media commentators in the restaurant world who truly tries to highlight the best food and the best dining experiences – which doesn’t necessarily mean the high-end stuff.  In fact, with the rare exception of his friend Chef Eric Ripert, Bourdain usually shows his disdain for the boys club of slick celebrity chefs.  All in all, my recent experience at Le Bernardin leads me to believe that we need a new awards system for our industry – one that makes it possible for prestigious industry accolades to go to restaurants for reasons other than nepotism, large wine cellars, expensive décor, and a chef that cares more about television appearances than the daily grind of running a successful restaurant. Is it coincidence alone that Aureole is directly beside the goliath Condé Nast headquarters?  Or that Le Bernardin is just two blocks from Rockefeller Center where Chef Ripert frequently makes appearances on NBC Shows like Jimmy Fallon and The Today Show?  Many awards are political and have as much to do with proximity as substance – if your restaurant is in the same neighborhood as the media elite, then you’re more likely to get noticed by the people with the big media megaphones. But that doesn’t mean your restaurant is truly “the best.”

7.    Fame Precedes the Fall – Le Bernardin was no doubt once a world-class restaurant, and in many ways I’m sure it still is – although I didn’t get a chance to eat there.  However, the siren call of media opportunities, TV shows and licensing wealth has led many well-known restaurateurs and chefs away from their core businesses (just look at Rocco DiSpirito and Gordon Ramsay; Rocco is getting to the point where he’s best known for his appearance on Dancing With the Stars, and Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants are closing faster than a bag of fresh scallops).

8.    Never Hire People Who You Would Not Want to Represent You in Your Absence – The television persona of Chef Eric Ripert is very different than the real-life persona of the man hired to represent him (the maître d’).  As a rule, you should never hire someone who you would not willingly send to represent you in your absence.  I have not met Chef Ripert in person so I do not know if his on-camera persona is the same or very different than the man is in person.  I do know that the maître d’ does not represent the restaurant or Chef Ripert in a flattering way, and that is all I have to judge the restaurant at this point since that maître d’ was the extent of the experience that I was able to have at Le Bernardin.  Every well-known chef is a brand – and the more famous you become, the more vigilant you need to be in protecting your brand. When Chef Ripert goes on TV and appears to be a charismatic, funny, warm person – all while his maître d’ is being rude to customers – that creates a damaging disconnect in his brand image. Every restaurateur should take this lesson to heart – your staff is representing you to your customers every hour, every day. Hire accordingly.

I don’t hold a grudge toward Chef Ripert.  In fact, I believe he must be a quality person if he’s endorsed by Anthony Bourdain.  I do however hold a grudge toward the restaurant and especially toward the arrogant mindset that would allow such things to happen.  We’re in the hospitality industry, and we need to be humble and welcoming and solicitous toward our customers – not turn them away like bouncers at an exclusive nightclub. I guess I should be mostly thankful though, as being turned away twice from Le Bernardin turned me on to two other restaurants that I now highly recommend – Aureole and The Spotted Pig.  I am thankful also to have been reminded of several “what not to do” guidelines for successful restaurant management.

UPDATE TO THIS BLOG HERE.

•    Restaurant Consultants – Aren’t Created Equal – There are so many quack restaurant consultants on the Internet today that it makes my head spin.  Actually, it makes my stomach turn.  I’ve given serious consideration to getting out of the profession all together; or at a minimum, inventing a new terminology.  Abe Lincoln once said, “Associate yourself with men of good quality, for it’s better to be seen alone than in bad company.”  It seems these days there are fewer and fewer restaurant consultants showing up high in the search rankings that I want to be associated with.  Seems there are plenty with just enough knowledge of search marketing to show up high in the rankings but then not sure what do for the prospective clients they actually get to call them.

•    “International” – I’ve seen “wherever there’s a need” as the stated place of business for a couple of restaurant consultants.  It made me chuckle because when you look at their client list, they don’t show any international clients.  Check their passport.  Are their clients paid clients or just website visitors?  You’d be surprised how many “global restaurant consultants” have never even left the country (at least not on assignment – maybe a cruise or something).  Having worked abroad on actually feet-on-the-street restaurant consulting assignments isn’t necessarily a prerequisite of consulting, but it is an indicator of smoke and mirror approaches when someone claims vast international knowledge and experience but doesn’t actually have any.  It should be a red flag.

•    Consultant Versus Employee – Check to see if the experience they reference is actually restaurant consulting experience or if it’s past employment.  One consultant claims to be the “operational mind behind The Cheesecake Factory”.  I’ve consulted at an executive level for The Cheesecake Factory (the entire senior staff of The Cheesecake Factory) and can tell you first hand they aren’t the kind of company to turn over the reins to Johnny-come-lately restaurant consultants.  It’s more likely this “consultant” worked as an employee for The Cheesecake Factory in an operations capacity, which is far different than working in an executive consulting capacity.  Being good at your job doesn’t make you a good consultant.  There is a technical skill required to be great in restaurant operations, but you need that requisite knowledge and an additional skill set in executive-level consulting to be considered top of class in the world of restaurant consultants.  It’s like the difference between being a good waiter and being a professional wait-staff trainer.

•    Portfolio – Ask to see a portfolio of completed restaurant consulting projects.  It’s one thing to drop names of big restaurant companies; it’s another to show the actual completed work.  Sure, there may be restrictions on showing some work due to confidentiality agreements with the client, but I am surprised how often restaurant consultants show off big company logos as clients but didn’t actually complete meaningful work for them.  You’d be surprised how often the logo they use and experience they have was working as a waiter for that big company, not serving as an executive-level consultant to them.

•    Full-Service or Limited-Service – There are many restaurant consultants on the web that have niche experience, but not exposure to a wide range of complex restaurant industry issues.  There are restaurant operations consultants, and restaurant marketing consultants, restaurant social media consultants and restaurant franchise consultants – it goes on and on.  There are a lot of types of restaurant consultants.  Not only are there distinct disciplines, there is the exposure to different cuisine types and boots-on-the-ground exposure in different markets and geographies.  Even if your restaurant chain is regional, restaurant consultants with a global perspective can be worth their weight in gold; especially for the aspiring restaurant chain.

•    Quality – Another thing that cracks me up and is a sure giveaway of wannabe restaurant consultants is poor website design.  There are more than a few groups out to claiming to be top restaurant marketing consultants and design advisors, but with websites that look like it was created their nephew.  Common sense says that if the corporate website and professional marketing materials are less than quality, so too might be the firms advice and capabilities.  If a restaurant marketing consultant isn’t able to produce a WOW website for themselves, how can they produce wow results for your restaurant marketing efforts?

•    Not all Restaurant Consultants are Quacks – Admittedly, I am venting some frustrations I have with the shady practices of some unqualified restaurant consultants; quacks can give a bad impression of an entire industry.  Does that mean me or my firm are the only ones qualified?  Absolutely not.  In fact, there are some restaurant consultants in the field that I highly admire.  They don’t market themselves too much though.  They are good enough that they have robust consulting practices through word of mouth alone.  When they are not consulting, they are probably CEO of a major restaurant chain.  Actually, they probably don’t even want to be called “restaurant consultants”, even if they do provide the service.  Who are a few of the ones I admire?  Lane Cardwell is one.  Phil Romano is another.  Brad Blum is high on my list.  These are the guys with credentials and track records.  There are several more.  Credentials matter, but also important is to have a personality and philosophical match.  First you have to cut through the clutter of who is for real and who is out there just because they thought it would be fun to be a ‘restaurant consultant’ after getting canned from another job.  Once you weed through that though, you have to make sure you’re going to enjoy working together and see eye to eye (for more on bringing out the best in restaurant consultants, see: http://aaronallen.com/articles/great-clients-are-made-not-born).

Bottom line…

You’ve worked too hard for your money to blow it on quack restaurant consultants.  Don’t be “sold”.  Ask to speak to the person that will be working directly on your account; the day-to-day person, not the CEO or figurehead.  Ask for their credentials.  Interview them.  If you feel warm and fuzzy about it, that’s a big part of the decision-making process.  If it doesn’t feel right, no matter what their credentials, don’t do it.  You have to really trust in the consultant you choose to get the most out of them and the engagement.  It becomes a bit intimate and you want to be sure you’re partnered up with someone that’s not only sharp, qualified and experienced, but also someone that you want to bring out the best in and have them bring out the best in you.

Personally, I refuse work that doesn’t inspire me and pass on anything that doesn’t feel right.  You should do the same.  Don’t get lured in to working with someone just because they showed up high in Google.  Ask the tough questions too though.  Make sure you’re not dealing with a quack.  The signs are there if you look for them.

Oh, and please leave a reply on your experiences and thoughts regarding the above.  I’d love to hear from you.

Best of luck!

The restaurant service you receive today is a direct result of our collective willingness to complain yesterday.

The United States of America was founded on complaining.

In the American Revolution, ragtag bands of complainers came together to shape the future of our country and our culture.  In those days, “Taxation without representation” was the call to arms.  13 colonies united in complaint that it was unfair to send the fruits of our land to a foreign nation.  It was in this spirit of complaining that Americans overthrew a monarchy and established a democratic system of government that was unique in all the world.

Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi – all complainers. The U.S. Civil Rights movement was a righteous complaint that was finally heard, and that helped amend more than a century of injustice.

Every inventor, innovator and entrepreneur who has ever brought something new into the world was ultimately acting out a kind of complaint – saying, “This isn’t right – the world needs to change!”

Despite this proud history of effective complaining, it seems to me that today in our experience as restaurant patrons, Americans have lost our will to complain.  It’s become almost impolite to complain when we have a bad experience at a restaurant – as if, as customers, it’s not our place to judge. We have become a nation that hugs failures (like a mean ol’ grandma) because it’s more in fashion to swallow down bad service than to complain about it.

There was once a time that restaurateurs shivered at the thought of a complaint.  A complaint, in those days, like a virus, could multiply.  A complaint that was left unaddressed could metastasize into an incurable cancer on the business.  The mere threat of receiving a complaint from an unhappy customer kept service people on their toes.  My, how faint of heart we are today.

Complaining in a restaurant today may get you looked at like you’re a grumpy old man who is too uptight.  “Just relax…it’s no big deal,” your faint-hearted friends will say.

But here’s the problem with that attitude: if you’re a customer at a restaurant, and the restaurant provides you with an egregious service failure, you are perfectly right to complain.

If a waiter spills food on you, or your entrée is served at an unsafe temperature, or your salad is wilted and drowned in oily dressing, or you have to wait a ridiculously long time for a table with no communication from the surly hostess – all of these situations are well worth complaining about.

Not only do you have the right to complain, but I would argue that all restaurant patrons – especially the ones who genuinely care about the restaurant business – have a duty to complain.

That’s right: you as a restaurant customer have a duty to complain when your experience is anything less than satisfying.

When you complain about a bad experience at a restaurant, you are not being rude or “high maintenance” – you are actually doing that restaurant a favor. Every smart restaurant manager wants to hear from his/her customers – and real restaurateurs aren’t afraid to hear some less-than-positive feedback along with the cheery compliments. After all, if they don’t hear the complaints, how are they ever going to improve?

If you have a bad restaurant experience and you decide not to complain, you’re not being “polite” – you’re actually participating in keeping that restaurant from being all that it could be. By choosing not to complain, you may actually be contributing to the restaurant’s eventual decline and failure – which would ultimately mean the loss of jobs for everyone who works there, and the loss of investment by the restaurant owner. Don’t you think the owner would have rather heard some complaints along the way – that would have helped the restaurant improve – rather than only hearing niceties (“Everything was just great!”) and then losing the whole ship?

Whenever you complain, not only are you doing a favor to the restaurant, but you are also fulfilling a responsibility to the other diners who will come after you.

Tonight, as I write this, I am recovering from a ridiculous drinking experience inflicted on me by an F&B manager at a prestigious hotel in Dubai.  The manager insisted, rather belligerently, that a martini was made from a “mix” and that it should be four (4) parts “mix” to one (1) part liquor.  He thought that Martini & Rossi was a “mix” and didn’t realize that Martini & Rossi was just a ”brand” of vermouth, which is only a minor ingredient in the modern day martini.  Any current or former bartender in the world knows that a martini is more parts vodka  (or gin) than it is vermouth!  And certainly anyone in the beverage business would know that there is no such thing as “martini mix.”

So I complained to his manager, who needs to know about his employee’s cluelessness and belligerence toward a paying customer. If it were not for my complaining, this same manager would be the man to place final judgment on your issue.  So unless you want to be drinking a vermouth martini and choking down poorly cooked steak, surrounded by shabby décor and indifferent service, I strongly encourage you to join me in embracing our collective responsibility to complain.

It’s not rude, it’s not petty, it’s not “picky” – complaining is honest, honorable, and ultimately helps to create better dining experiences for all of us.