About Waiter Training - Susie Ross

Susie Ross

 Susie founded Waiter Training when she realized that restaurants could benefit from her extensive background in successful sales in the restaurant industry and as an instructor. She obtained her degree in Speech/Communications, with an emphasis in Theatre, from Metropolitan State College of Denver and made a successful career in the restaurant industry.

 Her background in the restaurant business runs the gamut from fast-paced, breakfast and lunch service to a more formal, evening and dinner atmosphere and spans nearly 15 years. Being a wait person was a very profitable career for her, which prompted her to start a restaurant training business, focusing on personal accountability and confidence among staff, which increases sales and customer satisfaction.

 Building confidence in restaurant staff has become her trademark. Susie believes servers must approach the table with confidence and an ability to sell the menu, irrespective of the type of restaurant. Personal accountability and ownership of the job are important aspects of her restaurant training.

 Experience in the restaurant market, casual, up-scale casual and fine dining, enhances her ability to create a warm, welcome and sophisticated atmosphere in retirement dining communities, as well.

 Classes are conducted with fun in mind. It has been proven that people of all ages learn better when there is fun, laughter and games involved in the learning process. Susie brings fun and creativity to her "suggestive selling," or "recommendation selling," approach to serving guests in a restaurant or retirement home community.

 

Chef Rodney White

Rodney White has succeeded in turning around a number of businesses where he has been Restaurant General Manager and Director of Food and Beverage in the hospitality industry, featuring free-standing restaurants, resorts and a private country club.

Some of the operations Rodney inherited as a manager had not been making money, were losing money and/or had a high percentage of disgruntled customers.  His most recent successful turn-around tenure was as Director of Campus Cuisine in Portland, Oregon.

Originally as an owner and operator of his own natural foods restaurant, Rodney exercised his skills and knowledge as a self-taught chef.  He has successfully built and managed heart-of-the-house culinary teams within high volume and fine dining food and beverage operations while generating excellent net results for the customers, staff and owners.  Rodney continues to draw from and expand his culinary expertise and management experience.

His experience also includes complete start-up operations for a 40-seat café and a 170-seat restaurant.  Rodney's start-up responsibilities and accomplishments included hiring 100% of all staff and the training of them.  Menu composition with targeted percentages and position allocation, ordering all food and beverage necessary for daily operations from day one, start-up and beyond were also his responsibilities.  All of these tasks were executed while supervising business operations in both front- and back-of-house on a daily basis.

Some of Rodney's strengths are operations efficiency, solution finding skills, controlling of expenses and maximizing of sales-net profit potentials while achieving excellent comments of satisfaction from guests and customers.

Rodney White is results-oriented and specializes in product and menus, wine knowledge and food pairing, culinary/chef and kitchen management.  Banquet operations management, high volume and fine dining food production, human resources recruitment and staff development through customized training programs are also within Rodney's vast scope of talents.  He also has big picture leadership, as has been shown through his management of multi-unit facilities and maintaining fiscal responsibility. 

(720) 203-4615
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