Service Operations

Preparation

Preparations for service are ongoing. One might make useful preparations months, weeks, days, or minutes in advance.

  • Familiarize yourself with staffing, reservations and/or events to anticipate service vulnerabilities and make a plan.

  • Make DUS for the pre-service meeting filling out the following categories:

    • Reservations / events

    • Staff assignments

    • Menu changes

    • Service focus

    • Other notes

    • Communicate with staff to notify management of low inventory items to reorder before running out.

    • Mine future BEOs or programming run sheets at least 1.5 weeks in advance to be aware of special orders for linens, beverage selections, or other special requests.

Execution

Ideally, you should not have an assignment that keeps you from having an awareness of all the factors affecting service.
There are times when you may be tethered to a certain task temporarily, but you want to have the freedom to make adjustments and influence the operation.
In other words, be where the guests are!

  • Check that FOH staff have properly prepared for service and are in place ready to welcome their first guests of the shift.

  • Be aware of upcoming reservations for the entire shift/evening so you can plan accordingly for table turns. For bookings 30m out, you should memorize names, plotting, and party sizes so you can be an impressive host without touching an ipad.

  • Our timing and urgency are as impactful as the products we are serving.

    Review the Service Timing Standards for CH linked here.

  • Awareness of table statuses:
    Be aware of the step of service for every group in the club (needs to order, needs to clear, waiting on food, check dropped, etc.)

    Awareness of workload of individuals:
    be aware of the workload spread across the entire team, and make adjustments to equalize labor distribution.

    • Modify sections if necessary.

    • Reassign staff to help each other.

    • Train staff to be able to work harder or ask for help to equalize the labor distribution themselves.

    • Assist as much as necessary, but stay in control.

    • Staff will take advantage of you if you help too much. Push your team to be better conditioned, but don’t let them fail.

    • If a table wants to order something from you, of course take their order.

    • Some guests will hesitate to order from you because you have more authority. Always make them feel comfortable to order from you so they don’t have to wait!

    • Inform the server of everything that happened. You might input the order yourself in the POS or you could give the written order to the server to input.

    • Touch each table

    • Be aware of the emotions of visitors and direct your attention accordingly.

    • Give extra attention to big spenders, regular guests, VIPs, and anyone who needs it.

    • Communicate to staff

    • Send extras!

    • Make notes in 7R about what you sent so we don’t repeat

    • Review the guest relations page for more information!

    • Consistency and logic is key to keeping morale high.

    • Find out who wants to be cut and who wants to stay.

    • Priority: overtime risk / double into AM / double / PM into AM / PM only

    • Be mindful to reassign closing side work if necessary.

Closing

A good close is an easy way to make all your peers respect you more. Envision the morning team feeling thankful it was you closing the night before.
You must be consistent, methodical, and comprehensive. 

    • Drive closing side work with staff right as the dinner rush is fading.

    • Use the side work checklist, physical or digital, everyday, every service.

    • Have the dishwasher run racks of glasses so they don’t accumulate.

    • Walkthrough twice:
      the first time is to identify areas of attention, which you will delegate to your team. Then, walkthrough again after staff has completed their closing tasks, but before they leave.

    • Always check in with staff before they leave (don’t accept their word). Find something they missed. “You cannot expect what you don’t inspect.”

      • Expo: restock ketchup / ticket time log / glassware / tidy station

      • Server: stations / tables / side work / polished glasses

      • Bar: Restock, date BTG wines, organized cabinets, glasses polished

    • Servers/bartenders should be collecting payment before members & guests leave. As a manager, you should be monitoring your team’s diligence and pos maintenance.

    • If there are open checks at the end of service, close them out to the card on file. If there are multiple cards or gift cards, check any notes to make sure you are using the preferred card.

    • If the card declines, and it is a member, re-create the itemized check as an invoice for the member through the Square dashboard. The invoice must be itemized to account for inventory.

      • Never use “custom amount” since we wouldn't be able to categorize the transaction into food or beverages, and the recipient will want transparency.

      • Once the invoice is created, void (not discount) the original check. If you discount the original instead of voiding, items will report as being sold twice. Service charges are able to be added to invoices.

    • If the open check is not a member, and we cannot associate them with a member, and we cannot email them and they do not have a card on file, we must discount the check to “walkout.”

  • Ensure all doors, gates, liquor rooms, etc. are locked.

    Turn all lights off.

    Turn music off.

Daily Log SOP

  • Who reads the log? All managers, admin, and investors.

    The log is used in three ways:
    1. Most people read it the next morning to learn about any issues to help be prepared for the next service.

    2. A year from now, when forecasting sales or volume.

    3. The GM uses the log to record dining guests counts to report certain metrics for the monthly recap presentation.

    When should you complete the log? As staff is doing their part to close up the dining room, vulnerabilities are low, then you may cut the concierge and start with closing paperwork which includes the daily log.

  • Use the “Log template” associated with your Common House.

    • Get the numbers. All cells with a darker shade are ones you need to fill out. All the lighter colored cells contain formulas which populate automatically. You only need to fill out information in darker shaded cells.

    • Club Visits: Seven Rooms covers

      • Make sure all seated parties are marked as “left”

      • Desktop: reservations / covers (bottom of screen) or...

      • iPad app: the number in parentheses noted as left.

    • Dining covers:

      • Since we have guests who use the club for coworking only, we want to understand what proportion of club visits order food. This is different than the total in SevenRooms, which is the total club visits. We need to manually track dining covers at the kitchen pass.

    • Counting tickets:

      • Orders before 11am are breakfast, after 11am and before 5pm are lunch, and after 5pm are dinner.

      • CH1: Sous Chef completes the Dining Cover Count Worksheet

      • CH2: No worksheet. Square / Reports / Section Sales / Cover Count

      • CH3: Expo completes the Dining Cover Count Worksheet

    • F&B Sales: Square: Dashboard / reports / category sales.

      • Food: food sales

      • Beverage tallies up 4 categories at the bottom of the log: Beer, N/A, Spirits, and Wine.

    • Event Sales: Tripleseat + Square

      • Food and beverage from the BEO

      • Enter the subtotal (no taxes or service charges) into cell B18.

      • Occasionally there are additional consumption charges that wouldn’t be on the BEO, such as “on consumption” beverage options. This total is noted in cell F18.

      • The manager supervising the event will ring in consumption items, discount them, and send to the event director for billing. This total goes in F18.

      • If the event opted for beverage package pricing, it will already be in the BEO and cell B18 should be empty.

  • General:

    • Only write facts. Avoid “I think” or “I feel.”

    • Be mindful of the audience. Since investors and owners receive the log, always maintain a voice of professionalism and control.

    Service:

    • This is a summary of what happened that day. The am manager should send the closing manager notes from the morning.

    • It helps to have a formula: A sentence about special guests. A sentence about club volume for breakfast, lunch, mid day, and dinner. Mention challenges and successes.

    Notes:

    • Note anything you might need to explain about numbers (a huge retail sales day, for example)

    • A quiet day that had big sales from virtual dinner pickups.

    Staff:

    • Staff issues for the record

    • Sickness, injury, conflicts, first and last days.

    • Examples: “Sam was late but called” ,“Jill called out sick, and provided a doctor’s note”, “Jack’s 3rd day training. Needs to work on menu knowledge”

    Maintenance:

    • Any building related maintenance issues.

    • Examples: “lightbulb changed at the desk lamp”, Ice melter sprinkled on front sidewalk”, “coffee station fridge running warm”

  • Reread the log. Correct any typos.

    Call a supervisor and ask for help if you need. It is better to ask for help than to send an incorrect log. Remember everyone reads it!

    Once complete, copy and paste it in a new email. Recipients should be the all-team email group specific to your house and any appropriate ownership groups, which will automatically distribute it to the right audience. The subject line should read: “CH(1, 2, 3…) Log”.