Waiter training seminars for your restaurant wait staff. Newsletter

Like the movie from which I stole my title, “Must Love Dogs,” when you hire new staff, I think you should make love of food a requirement for employment! We all have to eat to survive, so it’s fair to say that all of us like food to some extent. However, not all people love food, its nutritional values and how it’s made. People who like to cook and experiment at home are excellent candidates, as well as the adventurous in culinary chemistry. You know – the people who will try anything once: fried octopus ice cream or chocolate-covered grasshoppers!

I’m not suggesting you hire people with the capability to gross out your clientele; I’m suggesting that you hire those with an adventurous spirit and can smoothly ooze that quality onto your hungry guests.

Part of my training courses include a section on “painting a picture” for our guests. I like to ask the servers what descriptive words they can use to describe items on the menu. After the question has been posed, I usually hear quiet, shy responses like this: “Fried?” “Uh…pan-seared?” “Sauces?” And then some bold new guy asks, “What is pan-seared?” And the descriptions float around the room, hovering somewhere between strange fiction and a near miss of truth.

So the question that hangs out there now is: “What is my staff saying to my clientele?” Just a thought.

You can always tell who the food-lovers are. They’re the ones who know AND understand what the cooking terms mean. They can tell you how delicious it is when it’s pan-seared because of the way it holds in the juices and the flavors and on and on and on…they make the entire class ready for lunch.

When asked how they describe dishes and wine to guests, they use their own descriptive words and they might use their hands to indicate flipping something in the pan. What is very clear is that they love food and they enjoy creating a dining experience for the people they’re serving. Their passion for food comes through in their sometimes very original descriptions!

These are the people who also know wines and how they pair with food. They aren’t necessarily sommeliers; in fact, they aren’t even close! They just understand the basics and they love wine as much as they love food – a perfect match!

It’s the fifth paragraph and I haven’t made my point yet! Actually, I have made my point. You all know exactly what I’m talking about. When you’re interviewing potential servers, you want to make sure they like people and they have great personalities and all that grand stuff.

What about food? Do they like food? Do they love food? Are they interested in learning more about food and wine?

It’s in your best interest to have a training program in place that ensures every new person is given the same opportunity to understand the menu the way your chef prepares your food. Give tests on the menu and its ingredients; understand that all people don’t learn the same way and give tests both in written and verbal formats. Testing will ensure new servers know and understand cooking terms and can talk about them intelligently to your guests.

Most importantly, look for the passion and the fire when your potential servers talk about food and how it’s prepared. These are the servers that understand the money will follow their passion and love of food. They may not ask about tips; they know they can make whatever they want.

Training and information is the key! Contact me, Susie, at Waiter Training, either by phone or email. My business number is (720) 203-4615, and email address is Susie@waiter-training.com. Web address is http://www.waiter-training.com.

Excellence is an act won by training and habituation.
We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have those because we have acted rightly.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.

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