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The early diners are dawdling, so your 7:30 p.m. reservation looks more like 8. While you wait, the last order of the duck you wanted passes by. Tonight, you'll be eating something else — without a second bottle of wine, because you can't find your server in the busy dining room. This is not your favorite night out.
The right data could have fixed it, according to the tech wizards who are determined to jolt the restaurant industry out of its current slump. Information culled and crunched from a wide array of sources can identify customers who like to linger, based on data about their dining histories, so the manager can anticipate your wait, buy you a drink and make the delay less painful.
It can track the restaurant's duck sales by day, week and season, and flag you as a regular who likes duck. It can identify a server whose customers have spent a less-than-average amount on alcohol, to see if he needs to sharpen his second-round skills.
So Big Data is staging an intervention.
Both start-ups and established companies are scrambling to deliver up-to-the-minute data on sales, customers, staff performance or competitors by merging the information that restaurants already have with all sorts of data from outside sources: social media, tracking apps, reservation systems, review sites, even weather reports.
Because most restaurant goers eat at the same place often enough to generate data sets with statistically reliable predictions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:15AM (7 children)
I know a few local restaurants turning to the old and time-honored "improving the service and the food" tactics.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:25PM
Hopefully that stupidity won't last long. They need to get on to making REAL profit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:54PM (5 children)
Don't keep me waiting to sit.
Don't squish me into a horrible table that shouldn't even exist.
Ask me about my drinks straight away, get me ordering a starter straight away, bring it straight away (the whole point of starters!).
Now you have quite a while to take my mains order, cook it, and bring it. That's the bit that I'm happy to wait, because I'm comfortable, not hungry, not thirsty.
Don't make me spend 20 minutes trying to catch your eye to order the mains because I took so long I gave up with the idea of a starter.
Don't make me wait when I want to pay the bill - other people could use my table.
Don't spend an hour cooking a steak.
If you can put on a smile, that's almost secondary to just honest basic service.
P.S. Why can I summon the attention of just about everyone professionally, from hotel staff to receptionists to airline hostesses, but I can't have a little button on my table rather than having to catch your eye / wave at you like an idiot / get walked past three times each time being told "I'll just give this to that table and I'll be right back".
To be honest, I really want a local restaurant when I can just walk in, sit down, press a screen on the table and order my stuff in seconds, and then it all gets paid for immediately (if I want) and just starts appearing.
It's the human element that lets restaurants down nowadays. If I said well-done, the meat should be well-done. If it's not, and it's not just a simple "mistaken table" confusion, then I worry about your kitchen process.
To be honest, if you want to make money, stay open later and advertise that fact. Have one crew for lunch, another for evenings rather than trying to jam both into the same shifts. And make it so I don't feel out-of-place using some part of the place as a cafe. If I only walk into your place when I want to spend £80, but you have lots of spare seats every time I go in, it's time to rethink your business model. Wifi and a coffee would plug some of that gap, even if only in a little sectioned off area.
But restaurants are horrible to make money in. They only really operate at scale (i.e. if you guarantee you'll be permanently busy) or as family businesses where the hours / seasons / pay can be highly variable).
And as most of those "fix-up" programs demonstrate - simple menus with basic foods done to a decent standard will make you more money than all the pretentious shite in the world on a busy menu, unless you're a celebrity chef.
To be honest, I've eaten in a few celebrity chef restaurants. They are generally quite lacklustre and make up for it in name and/or gimmick (e.g. serving food on planks/slates, etc.).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:58PM (3 children)
Oh,
And have a website, with directions, details about parking, a copy of the up-to-date menu (WITH PRICES), opening hours and any "special events" (no I DO NOT want live music while I eat, thanks).
If you padded it out with a bit of blurb about your historic premises / current staff, that might even go some way to making it seem like a nice place with nice people. Places that don't want to name their waitresses / chefs because they need a new one every month really make me worry about eating at them.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 30 2017, @12:00AM (2 children)
I see you seem to want to eat at the restaurant.
Next time, try, if you're not stuck at the Escherian table, to enjoy a relaxed evening in nice company at the restaurant, complete with occasional food. Most of your issues will be irrelevant.
It is a different experience, for sure, but on ne vieillit pas a table (you don't age at the table).
And, for the love of all that you hold holy: well-done? Really? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday August 30 2017, @04:55AM
This. Unfortunately the OP seems to be a product of the modern service economy, where people are dining out not because they want a special experience with friends, but because they are in a hurry and don't want to take the time to prepare their own meals.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday August 30 2017, @07:17AM
Because you think it's profitable for the restaurant for you to stay there and chat?
This is about restaurants not making money, from people who want to give them money.
And I'm sorry but what makes you think I don't do the above. 10 people arrive, we're going to want a drink almost immediately. Then we're going to want you to go away so we can talk, until our food is ready. Notice the almost unlimited amount of time for you to do this.
Then we want to pay, so you can go away again until we're finished. Hey, if only we could split the bill easily without having to rely on the waitress to have enough fingers and toes to work it out! Why can the card machines / POS not just "divide this bill by 5" or whatever as a button?
We're talking optimisation of the restaurant business, and the one thing you can't control is how long people linger and talk without ordering. That time is all waste, and there's nothing you can do about it without upsetting them. But there are plenty of other places you can optimise to increase your profit, decrease the bother to your customers, and keep out of their way rather than "Oh, sorry, I've just been in the kitchen for the third time, the duck is actually gone, could I interrupt you and all those who ordered duck re-order? Oh, so if you're not having the duck you don't want that wine, right, okay, hold on...." when you could have known that from a pad you were putting the order into at the table the first time round.
It's a service industry. And often in service industries the best way to optimise profit is to stay out of your customer's hair and make it as easy for them as possible. It frees up your staff, stops replication of effort, allows your customers to do what they want (socialise / eat) and that all increases your gains in reputation / service / saved profit.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:14PM
You don't need a buzzer, the restaurants just need competent management. There is a very large restaurant near my house (it also has a large bar section), it is busy (the very large parking lot is always full) from 8AM to 2AM every day of the week. I never have to wait to be seated, never have to wait for a bill, the food is excellent, and the prices are great. The problem with other restaurants is that they lack competency in management, which trickles down as serving staff and kitchen are uncoordinated, overworked, and undertrained.