Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, restaurant owners. You tired of finding your staff on their phones back in the coffee station? You tired of having to scoop out your restaurant managers from the back office to tell them to get back on the floor? They're in the coffee station and they're in the back office because they don't know where else to be. They don't know what they're supposed to be doing. Today we're going to talk about the power of figure eights. What is a figure 8? How you can implement that in your business to keep your people on task, to provide better service and, yeah, guess what?
[00:00:26] Drive more revenue.
[00:00:28] There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
[00:00:59] Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. Appreciate you guys being here each and every week. The whole point is to help you increase the profitability of your restaurants, meaning giving you a way to make more and work less. If you want help specifically doing that beyond just the free content that I put out Here, that's the P3 mastermind. It's a group coaching program that I founded almost five years ago.
[00:01:23] Over the course of the year, over the course of those years, we've put hundreds of people through the program. There are almost 150 people currently enrolled in the program, spread across four different groups, two calls every single week. The bottom line is the program works. We do not try to change everything about your restaurant. In fact, we're going to assume that you do 98% of it absolutely brilliantly, really well. Otherwise why would you still be in business, but that maybe you're missing that last piece, the last piece to the puzzle, which is, I got a good restaurant, good food, people love it. You know, we provide great service. We just don' the money that we should. That's what we're really good at helping you do. Getting your finances in order, putting systems in place to help you make consistent, predictable, automatic 20% profits. Go to restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. Grab time on the calendar. You'll chat with me or someone from my team. 30 minutes, zero pressure. We just get to ask each other a lot of questions and we see if it's a good fit. If it is, we'll talk about next steps. Again. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com schedule. As always, that link is in the show. Notes now, what's the food cost for your third best selling entree? With Margin Edge, you could know instantly. Margin Edge is a complete restaurant management software that I recommend to all of my clients, especially when they're looking to improve profitability. With Margin Edge, you just snap pictures of your invoices. You get real time data for every area of your business so you can see plate costs in real time. You get a daily P and L. Your inventory count sheets are automatically updated. It saves you a ton of time and lets you make informed decisions in real time. My client, Gather Brewing started using Margin edge and within one month, their food costs went from 38 to 28%. Serious savings. I'm telling you, there's a reason I recommend Margin Edge to so many of my clients. It's because it works. I know it works. If you're interested in learning more or you want to see how Gather Brewing specifically went from 38 to 28% food costs, head over to margin edge.com chip. They put together an awesome video so you get to see Mike and Rachel. You get to see the inside of their operation. Again, margin edge.com ship. Go watch that quick video. As always, that link is in the show notes.
[00:03:34] Okay, let's talk about how you keep your people out of the office, out of the coffee station, on the floor. The reason they are not on the floor is because they're not sure what to do on the floor. So let me talk to you about the power of figure eights. The best way I can explain a figure 8 is by explaining how we train busers. So a figure 8 is an infinity symbol. Literally. Take an 8, put it on its side, it's an infinity symbol. It goes round and round and round and round and round. What you're doing is you want to give every single member of your service staff. So your cooks, your servers, your bussers, your runners, your bartenders, even your managers. You want to give them a series of tasks that they continually do so that they never run out of things to do. They do number one, two, three, four, five. Then they go back to the beginning. They do one, two, three, four million five. You know who does this brilliantly? McDonald's does this brilliantly.
[00:04:26] Starbucks has done this brilliantly for years. Guess what? You can also do it brilliantly. You can build a figure eight for your staff. So again, I told you, best way I can describe this is how we train bussers. No, I've been running restaurants for years and years and years. Bussers are almost always the greenest, newest People in a restaurant, they don't have a lot of experience. And so how do we train them to do what they need them to do? Now, I've been in fine dining for years, and especially in fine dining, my bussers are young, and they usually don't have a lot of money and experience. So they haven't been to a lot of restaurants, dined at a lot of restaurants like the ones they're now working in. So how do I teach them to be successful in a restaurant or in a level of restaurant that they've never been to? Well, I teach them figure eight, of course, Figure eight that we teach bussers. Back when I was a service director running restaurants, right? It was bread, water, clear, reset, help. So I teach a new busboy bread. First thing you need to do is make sure everyone in your station has bread. If they don't have bread, go get more bread. Either a new bread basket or get the bread bowl and bring them, scoop them out more, right? Make sure everybody has bread. Make sure everybody has water, meaning everybody's water cups are full. Bread, water, clear. See if there's anything I can clear. Either dead glassware or sugar packets or straw wrappers. Or maybe a course needs to be cleared. Or maybe the table needs to be cleared so we can then reset it for the next seating, right? Bread, water, clear. The next one is reset. So if we've cleared something, maybe they need to be marked for a new course, set up for their next course, or the table needs to be reset for the next seating.
[00:06:00] Bread, water, clear, reset. And then if all that stuff's done, then they go offer help, right? Bread, water, clear, reset. They go offer help to this person. Bread, water, clear, reset, help. They go offer help to the service bar. Bread, water, clear, reset, help. They offer to go run food. What happens is 20% of their night is dedicated towards teamwork. This is how you actually get people focused on teamwork rather than walking around going, hey, guys, come on. I really want to see some teamwork out there. Instead of that, you give them the figure 8. So 20% of a busboy's job at any given restaurant that I've run, 20% of their night is spent focusing on help. How they help their neighbors, the other departments, the host stand, the service bar, the kitchen. Bread, water, clear, reset, help. And when they're done, they go back and they make sure everybody has bread. Everybody has water. See if anything needs to be cleared. See if they can reset anything or mark anything for the next course. Then they go off for help. Again and they come back and they check on bread, they check on water, they see if anything needs to be cleared, anything needs to be reset. And then they go off for help all night long. And I do this for my hostesses, my managers, my servers, my cooks, everybody in the restaurant, they have a figure 8. They always know what comes next. And guess what? Sitting back in the office is not on the figure eight, right? Going back to the coffee station to sip on coffee and scroll through Instagram is not on your figure 8. There is always something to do. So when you find somebody back in the coffee station, instead of yelling at them, you just say, hey, where are you in your figure eight? They put down that thing, they put their phone away and they get back on the floor because then they remember where they are in their figure 8. You see them, you don't have to yell. Everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. If they do need to step off the floor to grab a sip of water, if they go need, need to go use the restroom, if they go need to go text the babysitter or the nanny or whatever, they can do that, say, I need to step off the phone and use my phone for a minute. Okay? It's meaning I'm stepping out of the figure 8 momentarily to accomplish something that needs to happen right now that is aside from my job. And I understand that and I'm making, I'm acknowledging that. Right? And I'm letting you know.
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[00:08:50] You build figure eights for every single position in your restaurant. Again, for managers. I used to train young managers. How do we walk through the night? You go to the front door, the front podium, to the bar. You check in with each and every server, you check in with the kitchen. You come up and you do it all over again. And sometimes, you know, the last restaurant I worked at there was the bathrooms were downstairs by the kitchen. So it was Front door, podium, bar, all the servers, kitchen. Check the bathrooms. Come on, back up. Front door meaning see if there's any crap or trash outside. It was in New York City. Make sure there's no, like, homeless person leaning up against the front window. Do the windows need to be Windex? Is there trash in front of. That's the front door. Then I go to the podium. I make sure is there. Are we out of time with any tables? Do you need me to seat any tables or anything you need? Right? Then I go to the bar. I make sure all the table, all the chairs are tucked in. I clear anything that needs to be cleared. I get rid of glassware. I check in with guests there. Then I go check in with all my servers. I walk through the dining room, I'm clearing dead glassware. I'm topping off wine. I'm folding napkins, I'm tucking in chairs, right. I'm doing what I do on the floor. Then I go check with the kitchen. Where are they? They're getting backed up. Are they need me to run?
[00:10:03] I'm their eyes and ears on the dining room often because it's not necessarily an open kitchen. And then I check the bathroom because keeping bathrooms clean and clear is really important. Then I go back to the beginning. Usually for a manager, let's say that was like a 20 minute cycle. So when you give your people figure eights, they always know what comes next. There's no guessing game. There's no. There's no reason for them to go into the office, right. If you want them on the floor during service, you give them things to do, and that's how you do it. Again, guys, appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. I will see you next time.
