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Our Recovery Starts With Hospitality and Service
Bar Mechanics Editorial
smokey@BeverageUnderground.com
You won’t need statistics to know that our area is the poster child for ‘It’s bad out there’. Recent closings and layoffs this early in the off-season are indications that more establishments will be throwing in the towel before this hurricane season is over. Some of the closings are truly sad and unwarranted and even shocking, but let’s face it…some of them just had to go.
During the ‘good times’, food and beverage businesses were opening at alarming rates, restaurants seats were multiplying and the quality of service and the presence of hospitality became rare. It was no secret that the owners and operators were really ‘investors’ and that most of them had no knowledge of a clue of what it takes. They didn’t realize that a restaurant, bar, coffee shop or even a smoothie franchise is a living and breathing thing, and it takes much more than a catchy name, a PR firm and ‘location, location…location’ to survive in the most volatile industry in a seasonal market. Too often the ‘real owners’ were ego driven to the point of hilarity and proceeded without industry knowledge and often without caring about their employees or repeat business. The best owners, operators and certainly successful managers are the ones that somewhere along the line bussed tables, washed dishes, carried ice, worked ‘doubles’, and every holiday just to earn the chance to serve, cook and tend bar. You see, it’s about the combination of passion of knowing ‘the business’, seeking information on how to be better, as well as the intangible ‘education’ that came with working ‘early bird’s’ and our true ability to cope with, and get ‘out of the weeds’.
The future of our industry will be the same as it always was…supposed to be. The best jobs and the best places to ‘get a bite’ and ‘have a drink’ will be the ones that stress warm hospitality, professional training and efficient service. Only then will the dazzling marketing work, and the name…and the ‘image’ mean something. Promotions that work are the ones that have staffs that greet their guests, inform the consumer and appreciate every single customer. Our world, the world of the Hospitality Industry Professional, has a stage, and the guests are our audience…and no one like playing to a small audience.
