Going green

From pop-up restaurants to rooftop gardens, the restaurant scene is turning eco.

Pop-up restaurants have surged in popularity in Australia in recent years, having already been successful overseas for a decade or more.

As the name suggests, the concept behind pop-up restaurants is exactly that – they pop up, remain operational for a period of days or weeks and disappear again as quickly as they were set up.

As the phenomenon becomes more widely spread a new wave of restaurants is set to take the dining world by storm – by ‘going green’ and encouraging all of us to be more mindful of how we impact on the environment every day.

And, pop-up restaurants certainly seem a good place to start – with non-permanent infrastructure they have less impact on the environment from the word go, with a low carbon footprint and increasingly conscientious ways of sourcing, preparing and serving food they seem to be leading the way.

Greenhouse, a restaurant concept initially conceived by Dutch-born artist and environmentalist Joost Bakker is at the forefront. And it has also managed to make the switch from pop-up to permanent without losing any of its environmental integrity.

As co-owner of the Greenhouse restaurant in Perth, Paul Aron states they were drawn to going ‘green’ for their restaurant as: “Hospitality can be a very wasteful industry, so what better place to start?” And, it seems, that philosophy has paid off.

In 2008, the original Greenhouse by Joost was constructed in Melbourne’s Federation Square. The temporary restaurant was constructed entirely of sustainable and recycled materials and was open between November 2008 and January 2009. It attracted 1000 visitors per day and the attention of the global media.

Hot on the heels of this success, the concept moved west with a permanent restaurant, Greenhouse St Georges Terrace, opening in Perth in December 2009. This restaurant has since gone from strength to strength, being awarded Restaurant of the Year in Perth in 2010 and attracting between 800 to 1000 visitors each day.

Aron feels that one of the main selling points for their restaurant is that “the customers are fascinated by the building design which is definitely a drawcard.” He also goes on to say that as a team “we thought that Perth was the best place for the first permanent Greenhouse, the city is really forging a new and unique identity and the people here are very eager to get involved in something new.”

In February this year, the success was again replicated with the opening of Greenhouse Sydney – a pop-up restaurant that has attracted excellent reviews and masses of media attention. Scheduled to be open for business for just six weeks the success has been such that there are rumours abounding of a permanent Greenhouse destined for Sydney.

According to its website, www.greenhouseperth.com, the Greenhouse St Georges Terrace in Perth “hopes to be one of Perth’s most exciting destinations, with the emphasis on tasty, honest food and drink, and some simple ideas for a considerate and non-destructive lifestyle.” Co-owner Aron says: “The concept was to create a hospitality environment that challenged our customers to think about the building materials they use and why.”

And force you to think it does − the restaurant is built entirely from recycled or recyclable materials, including straw bales (locally sourced) for insulation, recycled plastics and raw plywood. The exterior of the building is clad in corrugated iron, covered by a vertical garden – with about 400 terracotta pots filled with strawberry plants and ivy.

There is a rooftop garden that not only provides a relaxing place for customers to take a break from it all, but also provides the restaurant with much of its fresh produce. A worm farm used to recycle kitchen and bar waste to use on the garden and a water recycling system also provide the team with further proof that they are leading the way with their green ethos.

The use of recycled materials doesn’t stop there though, with various items used throughout the restaurant being rejuvenated into ideas far from their original uses, such as the ice buckets made from old gas cylinders and the light shades fashioned out of fencing wire.

Due to demand, Aron says: “Our rooftop garden cannot sustain our restaurants requirements, up there we grow micro herbs for garnishes, some interesting varieties of heirloom veggies and plenty of herbs − all of which we use in the bar and kitchen.”

The other important facet of this rooftop garden is to provide their customers with an experience. Aron explains: “It is more of an educational tool for our customers, they see the vegetables coming into season and then that reflects in our menus.”

For produce that is not sourced from the rooftop, Aron says the restaurant supports local growers by sourcing the freshest local seasonal produce direct from the farm and from the market. Also, he says: “We have strong relationships with local farmers like Dale and Terri Lloyd from Eden Valley Biodynamic, who grow amazing wheat, barley and oats. We are trying to go back to basics with our food. We mill our own grain and make our own wood-fired sourdough for example.”

The menu reflects this with some of the dishes on offer, including sashimi of kingfish, sushi rice, avocado and wakami; or coconut jelly, pineapple granita, mango and lychee – all sounding delightfully fresh and contemporary!

So, aside from housing the restaurant in a building that is unique enough to initially draw customers in, the aim is then to provide a truly organic and seasonal dining experience that will bring those customers back time and time again.

And the future for Greenhouse? Aron advises that the pop-up Greenhouse is set to embark on a European tour and that there are future permanent Greenhouses planned for capital cities, so keep an eye out in your city. If a Greenhouse was to come your way, it would certainly be worth a visit!

As the green trend gathers momentum in Australia, there are also the charity pop-ups taking off overseas. The concept is simple enough – a celebrity Chef (the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein have already lent their support), a temporary location, a charge per head and the profits donated to a worthy cause.

Yet another way for us to ease our social consciences by eating good food and drinking good wine. Cheers to that!

First, let’s get totally dispassionate about your kitchen — it is a food production facility, a factory of sorts. It’s efficiency is determined by similar rules and principles to those that apply to any engineering factory manufacturing any kind of product. Sure, there are differences; for instance your stock is decomposing rapidly and your environment must be near enough to sterile, but the basics are the same.

Your products must be well designed to start with. Each menu item must be saleable, able to be produced with the skills and equipment available, and it must be profitable — it must ultimately be popular and deliver a good margin. The standard recipe is the design tool which governs food production. This document details all the materials specifications, portions, preparation method and presentation of a menu item. Without standard recipes you have no control over cost and quality.

It’s one thing to have a good design for a product and entirely another to ensure the product is produced according to that design. I often go into commercial kitchens and find a pristine set of recipes that no one seems to use. Meanwhile the kitchen staff are ‘winging’ it by the seat of their pants as the chef fends off the calls for reduction to food costs with dazzling displays of smoke and mirrors. Good design and strict production control are the first steps to quality and efficiency.

Next, we should consider your purchase and receipt of raw materials. Are they well managed? If not you will be out of pocket before you even start. Are you actually receiving what you pay for? Are you paying the right price for it? Is the quality excessive for the end use? Is there a stock ordering system which is based on projected usage, or is your ordering hit and miss? Have the staff who receive goods been trained to do it properly, or are they just robotically signing dockets without checking? Finding out the answers to questions like this could lead you to a rich raft of opportunity.

Moving on, let’s have a look at production efficiency. Engineers who are engaged in the quest for production efficiency draw elaborate flow charts that follow items right through the production process. Every time the item gets handled or moved there is an opportunity for gain or loss that the engineer considers in the quest to keep the costs down.

Just imagine if we produced a flow chart plotting the travels of the ingredients in a popular menu item in the average commercial kitchen. Would there be clean straight lines from the delivery bay, through the storage areas, the kitchen and out to the front of house? Not likely, I’ve done the exercise. The subsequent flow chart ended up looking like a plate of spaghetti. Unnecessary movement, double handling and doubling back were rife. Every time a person moves from point A to point B, you are paying for the time but not getting anything of economic benefit in return.

The issue here is ergonomic efficiency. Architects, designers and chefs seem to very rarely consider this when they decide where they put storage areas, coolrooms and equipment. Looking at this issue from another perspective, you might be able to run your kitchen with less staff if you give some serious thought to where everything is located. There is also a good argument here to suggest that all kitchen equipment should be modular and movable and capable of being rearranged to reflect changes in menu mix, design or staff skill levels.

You may not be able to do anything about the general lay-out of your kitchen without considerable expense, but the next time you do kitchen renovations this issue should be at the forefront of your thinking. In establishing a new kitchen you should weigh up carefully the up-front construction costs of the various kitchen configurations possible against the ongoing labour costs in running that kitchen, particularly if you settle on a design with permanently fixed equipment.

Staff productivity is the next issue on the list. Here I could probably write a thesis, but we haven’t got the space.

Is there a well considered recruitment system for kitchen staff? Is there a system of induction/orientation and skills training for kitchen staff? Do your key kitchen staff have appropriate communication and leadership skills? Are there standard times established for all routine, recurring tasks, so you can control productivity? To focus your thinking, consider the fact that if you have six staff and you increase their productivity 20% (which is easily achieved with proper training and supervision), you can now get the same work done with five staff — a 16% saving in labour cost.

Lastly, I look at the management of kitchen overheads. Is there consideration of energy management, proper control of cleaning chemicals, a proper repairs and maintenance schedule covering all kitchen equipment, etc? Broadly, is the chef accepting the responsibility for controlling the cost of running the kitchen environment as well as the food production?

I was taught as a manager to audit kitchen operations at least once per month as an ongoing duty. Consider the amount of money flowing through your kitchen (add your kitchen wages together with food costs and energy if you would like to focus on the requirement for a good manager in your kitchen). It’s way too much money to leave to chance. The efficiency of your kitchen is such a key element in running your business profitably, it should be a management priority to make sure your chef is accepting appropriate responsibility. If your chef is not tackling these issues in a logical and orderly manner you probably have a cook, not a chef, in charge of your kitchen, despite what they call themselves.

By Hospitality Management Specialist,
Tony Eldred, http://www.eldtrain.com.au

A good example of an effective campaign is #CrustFreePizzaFriday – a Twitter campaign where consumers retweet the words “I’m entering @crust_pizza #CrustFreePizzaFriday to be in with a chance of winning.” The cost to the business is a free pizza or two but the clever campaign has boosted Crust’s Twitter following by keeping the brand front of mind with consumers on a weekly basis.

See it trending right now on the map! http://trendsmap.com/topic/%23crustfreepizzafriday

The purpose of the Working Holiday-Maker programme  is to encourage cultural exchange and closer ties between arrangement countries by allowing young people to have an extended holiday supplemented by short term employment. Work in Australia must be secondary to the main purpose of the visa holder’s visit. The Working Holiday Maker programme comprises the Working Holiday (subclass 417) and the Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visas.

Can Working Holiday-Makes  fill long-term vacancies in the workplace?

No. Working Holiday-Makers  can only provide a source of short-term labour for employers. They are not able to fill longer-term vacancies.

What should I consider before employing a person who is a foreign national?

Are there any Australians citizens  or permanent residents who can do the work?

If you are seeking a skilled worker for an extended period and there is no available Australian citizens or permanent residents  to do the work, then employers should consider the Temporary Business Entry ( Long Stay) Standard Business Sponsorship (subclass 457) visa programme. Visit www.immi.gov.au/skilled-workers/sbs/for more information.

If you are seeking low-skilled seasonal workers for horticulture work, you may wish to consider the Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme. Visit www.deewr.gov.au/Employment/ProgramsPSWPS for more information.

Foreign nationals working in Australia are entitled to the same pay and work conditions as Australian residents and citizens.

How do I know if a foreign national holds a valid visa with work rights?

A foreign national working in Australia without a visa or in breach of their visa conditions is an illegal worker. It is a criminal offence to employ an illegal worker, so it is important that employers check the work entitlements of non-citizens they wish to employ.

Not all visa holders have their visa details recorded in their passports. The best way to check the workers entitlements  of non-citizens is via the departments Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) and Visa Entitlement Verification Faxback services. The services are free and  VEVO  is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

For more information visit www.immi.gov.au/vevo or phone the Employers’ Immigration Hotline on 1800040070.

What should I consider before hiring a Working Holiday-Maker?

Work should not be the primary purpose of the stay.  Any work that is undertaken should be secondary to the main purpose of the stay – a holiday.

The visa holder can only work with the same employer for a maximum period of six months.

Additional visa conditions may be imposed and a breach of any condition could result in the visa being cancelled and the visa holder having to leave Australia.

Where licensing or registration applies to an occupation (such as health and trade occupations), or other certification is required, you should check the  visa holder has skills to the Australian standard. Employment in an occupation in a foreign country does not guarantee skills to the Australian standard.

Where should I go for more information?

For more information on the WHMP visit www.immi.gov.au or phone 131881.

To find out more about the department’s VEVO sevice visit www.immi.gov.au/vevo or phone the Employer’s Immigration Hotline on 1800040070.

But while claiming to be “kid-friendly” is easy, being known locally as a true family destination requires true investment and commitment. Still, the financial return can be well worth it – especially in the form of patronage at slower times, such as mid-week and in the mornings, as well as via group bookings and an increase in bistro business.

So, how to realign a business? Well, offering family-friendly facilities and scrummy children’s menus are good ways to go.

The Ettamogah Hotel in NSW’s Kellyville Ridge is one example of such a venue, particularly menu-wise. Its range of children’s meals tantalise the taste buds, while still being a little outside the norm.

Dubbed ‘Tin Lids’, the kids’ menu offers humorously-named dishes like Hold My Handles (two lamb cutlets – with their own ‘handles’), Stick ‘Em Up (two kebabs, filled with cubed chicken breast and cherry tomatoes), and Slippery Salmon – Can You Catch It? (grilled salmon with rice).

Kids also have an option to ‘supersize’ their dishes with inventive sides, like sweet potato wedges, potato mash and seasonal veggies. They also get to eat free with every purchase of an adult main meal, Monday to Friday.

Facilities-wise, the hotel also offers a children’s play centre and a weekly jumping castle, face painter and pony rides, helping to keep them entertained beyond meal-time.

Another venue that also offer dishes for the kids – though prefers to keep things fuss-free and stick to kids’ faves – is the Ocean Beach Hotel in NSW’s Shellharbour. Its kids’ menu includes popular dishes like hamburgers, fish and chips, chicken nuggets and ice cream. And, best of all, children eat free with every purchase of an adult’s main meal.

When it comes to kid-friendly facilities, the Everton Park Hotel in south-east Queensland seems to have it all. Its features include a children’s play centre with its own carousel, a playground featuring swings and slides, an air-conditioned DVD room, and a PlayStation room.

Parents can rest assured as well. The children’s play centre is shown on closed-circuit TV inside the venue, so they can keep an eye on the kids at all times. Plus, safety is paramount with all children’s play equipment safety-certified by engineers, with safety checks made at the beginning, end and during all sessions.

Brad Hines, the business development manager at Spirit Hotels, which runs the Everton Park Hotel, says the family-friendly factor is a real part of its commercial success. “The front bar and gaming room are important to the business, but positioning ourselves as a family destination has allowed us to expand our market base. The EPH is a gathering place for mothers to meet up for coffee during the week. We also get a lot of party bookings and, come weekends, the venue is packed with kids and parents.”

The hotel’s kid-friendly features are also supported with other activities on weekends and in the holidays, such as face-painting, roving clowns, jumping castles and even Zumba dancing.

Saturday afternoons are the busiest period for the hotel, with 50 to 100 kids in the play areas at any given time, according to Brad. “Parents want their kids entertained, but there is a real emphasis on health and exercise [too]. We did some ‘focus groups’ with mothers and found that it is important to offer an entertainment package that promotes health and exercise, along with the fun aspect. A lot of our activities are outdoors, so that’s another bonus.”

Once again, the bistro is also an integral part of creating an ideal family destination. The hotel’s menu is strong on kids’ healthy options, with the five food groups well-covered. If a child has special dietary needs, all efforts are made to accommodate. And, kids’ meals are wallet-friendly too, priced around the $5 mark.

Another great example of a venue with cool facilities for kids is the former Gladesville Hotel in Sydney, now known as the Sawdust Hotel. It has a large playground area, including a tunnel slide. There are also arcade games like two-car racing, plus it’s about to introduce XBox and Wii games too. The hotel can also cater for events such as birthday parties and christenings.

John La Forest, Licensee, enthuses: “The parents can have a drink on the balcony, which overlooks the play area, and keep an eye on the kids in a very safe playground environment.”

Backing it up is a fab bistro menu for the kids – and their parents. There’s a large choice of kids’ meals priced under $5 (chicken nuggets being the most popular). And, with every kids’ meal, each child receives a free soft drink and ice cream. Many of the adult meals are also priced under $10 and there are also weekly and daily specials.

When it comes to kid-friendly facilities, John says there is an ‘age ceiling’ on them. “If you are considering a kids’ play area, you should target the under-10s. Older kids will tend to get bored with these type of facilities very quickly [while] the younger ones can have hours of entertainment.”

Indeed. With the right children’s facilities, tantalising kids’ menus and options to help parents relax, being family-friendly can be a boon for business.

Be holistic

Consider all aspects of your restaurant as ‘brand opportunity’. Work out what makes your food offer special. Is your identity and interior style distinct? Do your staff deliver a particular style of service? How do you deal with customers when things go a little wrong? The more specific you can be when answering questions like this, then the easier it will be to manage and expand a brand – you will have a framework to judge when things are right and when things aren’t.

Know your market space

Create a brand that appeals to your target audience. Are you selling attitude or authenticity for example? Do you target a niche, local custom or transient commuters? Think about where you want the brand to be in five or 10 years. When noodle restaurant Wagamama launched, it started with premium architect-designed London locations but the plan was to expand to the ‘three W’s’ (Wimbledon, Watford and Woking). In other words, retain the essence of the brand but broaden the appeal to commuter towns.

You don’t own your brand, your customers do

Successful brands live in the hearts and minds of people, so make them advocates for your brand. Starting with your current staff, make them part of the branding process – in a service industry your staff deliver your brand. If they don’t get it right, customers won’t come back.

Cookie-cutter or customised

Dream about the future. Do you intend to replicate a consistent experience in many locations – where customers know what to expect from the menu, the price, the interior and the service? Or do you want flexibility? Size and format opportunities should also be considered. For example, you may operate a restaurant seating 50 people but could the brand work in a radically different, small-format style in the future?

Get external help

If you have the vision and the rigour then you can create and manage the brand yourself, but it can sometimes be tricky to have an objective view. Working with a professional brand consultant will bring fresh sets of eyes and often design capability. Brand consultancies range from one-man bands to huge international firms. Find a consultant who you think will be easy, fun and inspiring to work with. Expect to be challenged along the way, but above all work with people who understand you and your vision.

Why do some businesses manage to stay contemporary and fresh, while others seem to become locked in the past? I’ve been concerned with the problem of how to teach business owners and managers to stay ahead of the market for some time. A spate of distressing phone calls from troubled business owners have prompted me to write about this issue.

For a business to remain healthy, it must be in a state of constant evolution. If you freeze your system, your business will stagnate and eventually die. Imagine if you had the best hospitality business in the universe and you said: ‘This is it — perfection. Don’t change anything.’ What do you think would happen? Your competition would still be innovating and they would catch up and pass you, eventually making your business a ‘dinosaur’.

There are three ‘states of change’ a business can be in. They are: no change, sometimes called stagnation; unplanned or uncoordinated change, or chaos, which is just as bad as stagnation because it leads to extremely inconsistent quality and service; and planned and coordinated change which we call ‘progress’. It is part of the proper responsibility of an owner or manager to ensure that their business is progressing — by constantly evolving and moving with the times.

Human nature often works against the need for change. We have an unfortunate tendency to cling tenaciously to behaviour patterns that have been successful for us in the past, even though they are no longer appropriate. I saw plenty of this behaviour in 1991–92 when the global recession hit hard here. A disturbing number of the old, established hospitality operators in my area failed to recognise that the market had rapidly changed and sat on their hands waiting for the good old days to return. They assumed that what had worked for them in the past was still valid. A lot of them went bankrupt.

We’ve also found that there is a direct relationship between a persons’ intelligence and their comfort creating and working with change. Bright people can assimilate new things quickly and welcome changes as a challenge. People who are not so bright have to work hard to learn new things and regard change as a threatening burden — to the point where they will resist or sabotage changes and subconsciously fight to keep things as they are. This has led me to set a minimum, measured intelligence level for all our management recruitment in environments where innovation is particularly important.

A further problem is that our ability to innovate seems to slow as we get older. I believe that most innovation is the province of the young. I tell my management students: ‘Your job is not necessarily to innovate yourself; it is to make sure innovation occurs. Most of the valuable ideas that will advance your business will come from your staff and your customers’. A constant trickle of young, new blood into a business is a distinct advantage — provided you listen to the new people and are prepared to patiently sift the practical from the impractical ideas.

A few years ago I had a discussion with a well known chef and restaurateur, who had asserted that he was the only one in his business who had the skills to create the menu that his restaurant was famous for. I told him I believed that his staff could relieve him of the burden of creativity if he went about it the right way. If you visit either of his restaurants today you will find that his cooks and chefs are required to submit dishes for assessment at regular intervals. The owner still maintains strict creative control, but he delegates most of the menu development to his subordinates. Some of the best ideas come from relatively junior members of staff.

Truly innovative people are quite rare. I see this demonstrated in commercial kitchens all the time. The majority of cooks are capable of fashionable production if given creative guidance, but without it they are lost and tend to produce stereotyped food. About one in ten cooks seem to have the ability to innovate to some degree, and only about one in fifty is gifted artistically. I suspect that the same ratios would be found in other occupations. For the majority of people innovation seems to consist of plagiarising and developing other peoples’ ideas. Observe how quickly an original idea from one of the ‘gastronomic gurus’ appears on menus elsewhere.

I’m not putting a value judgement on pinching ideas and inferring that it is wrong, by the way. It seems to be normal, human behaviour. After all, isn’t that what fashion is? Copying someone else’s ideas like a bunch of lemmings?

If you’re gifted and can innovate yourself, that’s fantastic. You are special and you should develop your skills. The remainder of us need to develop some mechanism to stay in touch with the rest of the world and to stay ahead. This usually means getting out of your business and going around checking out your competition at regular intervals, getting a feel for what is happening and what the public are responding to at the time.

I’m surprised how many business owners don’t do this. It’s not unusual for me to strike someone who has become so involved with the demands of their own business that they have not taken the time to assess the market for some years. The top restaurateurs evaluate each other constantly — that’s one of the reasons they stay on top. Others assume their initial success will continue on into the future and bog down into stagnation and decline. Once this happens it’s usually too late to save the business.

Hospitality Management Specialist, Tony Eldred

I was visiting one of my alpine clients when one of those totally unexpected disasters happened. We were driving along a winding, narrow road and had a nasty head-on accident with one of my client’s 4wd vehicles. It was one of those unfortunate situations where nobody was really to blame. We both got caught with minimal steering in black ice. All I saw was a massive bull bar coming at us at a frightening pace.

My beloved BMW sustained major damage. We were not hurt, thanks to effective German engineering, but I was shocked and angry. After all the steam and smoke died down, the staff in the 4wd were treated to the highly amusing sight of their communication skills trainer (me) leaping out of what remained of his car, losing it in a big way, and soundly abusing the other driver who just happened to be their ‘safe driving in the snow’ instructor. After I calmed down, even I could appreciate the irony.

A short time later I rang my insurance company, who organised to pick up the wreck and transport it back to Melbourne. ‘This is good service’, I thought to myself. ‘Thank God I had the means to afford top dollar insurance’.

The repair shop was brilliant. They lent me a near new car (not required under the insurance policy) stripped my car immediately and prepared a quote — $20,000 worth of damage! They even invited me in, and explained that they were going to replace the whole front of the car with new parts. Great! They commenced the repair immediately, before approval from the insurance company came through.

I went about my work with minimal disruption and congratulated myself on my choice of insurance, and my luck at having the world’s best repair shop. Five weeks went by and things were going along nicely when the phone rang. It was the son of the repair shop owner: ‘Mr Eldred, could I get you to ring your insurance company? We still haven’t got approval for your repairs and the job is three quarters complete — this is unusual.’ I had that sinking feeling you get when you realise something is wrong.

I rang them straight away, and was referred to the claims manager. ‘Mr Eldred, I have to inform you that we are rejecting your claim for the accident and returning your premium to you.’

‘Why?’ I asked, in a state of shock. He replied in an officious tone, of a kind normally reserved for criminals and lowlife scumbags: ‘Mr Eldred, you did not disclose your driving history to us on your renewal form. If we had known the full picture we would not have insured your car’.

I began to see red. ‘I did disclose it to you, and besides, I’ve got a good driving history.’ His reply was steely and precise: ‘I’m sorry Mr Eldred; we’ve made our decision. You only returned a cheque each year to us, and not the disclosure form that came with your annual renewal. I’m not going to argue with you. Your claim is denied. You will receive a letter from us confirming our decision. Good day, Mr Eldred.’

I was dumbfounded. I was suddenly up for twenty grand I thought I was covered for. Oh Jeeeeeezus. I searched back through my memory and was sure I’d completed their stupid disclosure forms — but not sure enough to swear on a stack of Bibles. I just had this nagging recall of writing something on an insurance form about two years ago. A search through our files only yielded the insurance certificate. I was at my wit’s end and spent the next two days in a state of high anxiety.

The insurance certificate remained on my desk to haunt me. I’d been paying $1,200 a year for the damned thing and now it appeared to be part of a corporate bad taste joke. I re-read the details again and again — and suddenly a thought raced through my brain. I reached for the phone and asked for the claims manager. He took my call with a resigned sigh of irritation.

‘Are you still maintaining that all I sent you was a cheque, and no other documents?’ I asked as assertively as I could. ‘Yes, Mr Eldred, that’s correct,’ he replied. I took a deep breath — this was a $20,000 conversation, and I didn’t want to screw it up. ‘If that’s the case, how did you find out the name of my partner, who is named on my policy certificate as a nominated driver of the car? Are you people psychic? I believe you could have only got that information from the forms I returned to you, and I’m placing the whole matter in the hands of . . .’ (and I named a particular gung-ho legal firm, known for their hatred of insurance companies).

There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘I’ll get back to you Mr Eldred’ Click. Dial tone.

The phone rang a couple of hours later and a soothing, grovelling voice oozed from the receiver. ‘Mr Eldred, we’ve made a terrible mistake. We’ve found your forms, and you did disclose your full driving record. I will authorise the repairs to your vehicle right now.’ I went on the offensive: ‘Hang on a minute. Are you telling me I did disclose my driving history and you still chose to insure me? A few days ago you tried to get out of paying on the grounds that if I had disclosed, you would have declined the policy.’

‘It appears we have made a mistake’, he whined. ‘Bulls**t’. I said.

Keep copies of all your correspondence with insurance companies, folks.

By Tony Eldred, Eldred Hospitality

wine sales

It is not a secret, pubs are becoming less of a local boozer and more of a place to enjoy a fine meal and a drink with your friends and family. And with customers becoming more value-savvy after GFC, the majority of drinks sales are taking a hit.
Mark it up

To start with, the pricing of your drinks offer will no doubt be more profitable than that of food, but operators need to be smart when marking up their offer.

The secret to doing this is to not be greedy. The consumer is more value-savvy than ever and can tell when he is being charged too much. It is smart to consider what product you are pricing and who are your clientele base, before deciding on a margin.

Just marking up wine by a certain percentage will give you all sorts of silly results – you’ll end up with some really expensive wines and others that are too cheap. You have to consider all the ‘local’ factors, well as the product.

For example, CBD located operators often mark their wines up by 100-200 per cent. You might get away with it in CBD but certainly not in the suburbs. And of course, you may have priced your drinks perfectly but without a team of knowledgeable staff that knows your products inside and out your sales will never reach their full potential.

Train to gain

Those restaurants, pubs and hotels whose drinks sales are flourishing will most likely have trained their staff to understand each beverage, be it a bottle of their wine or beer. If your staff don’t know what they’re selling, how do you expect them to do a good job? They need to know where the drink comes from, how it’s made and how it works with food.

While operators don’t necessarily need to have a sommelier, they do need to have someone that knows more about drinks than the customer. Their knowledge can then be filtered down through the rest of the team. Lastly, waiters should also be trained to understand the art of the upsell, which is an art of extracting profit out of a customer, without ripping them off.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

A cautionary tale. Recent events have highlighted some of the hidden traps you can fall into in this industry . . .

It all started some years ago. I was called by one of my clients to help with a problem with her Chef. My client has worked very hard over a number of years to establish her restaurant as one of the cutting edge places to eat in town. I have always found her to be a very nice person, and the feedback I get from her staff is that she is really good to work for. Her Chef had the reputation for being very creative but not very bright. Unbeknown to us he had decided that he deserved a better deal than he was getting and started to sniff around elsewhere.

What we hadn’t counted on was his way of approaching the whole issue. Out of the blue my client received a phone call from another leading restaurateur that ruined her whole day. ‘Your Chef has just phoned me and offered to come over to work for me and bring the whole kitchen staff with him,’ she related. ‘I just thought you ought to know what was happening in case someone else decides to accept his offer and you’re left in the lurch.’

It’s nice how the professionals in the industry stick together. I gave our kind hearted tipster a big brownie point when the conversation was related to me. My client then asked me if I would talk to her Chef because she was not sure how to handle the situation. Normally I draw the line at counselling staff for my clients, but in this instance I was so incensed that someone would behave this way I thought a game of hardball might make an entertaining diversion.

We arranged a time and had a ‘chat’ with our friend the Chef. We gently pointed out the error of his ways in our own caring manner and explained the damage he had done to his reputation and the destruction he would do to his career if he persisted. After some full and frank discussions he agreed to stay and work hard to redeem himself.

Things seemed to calm down after that but I still had some nagging doubts about the lad. What kind of twisted morality would allow a person to do this? His intended action could destroy the business and cost my client everything she’d worked hard for. I kept an eye on the situation for a while to see what would happen. The Chef seemed to settle down but never quite earned an elephant stamp from me after that. He did, however, have the foresight to request that I not be present for his next pay review, so he isn’t that stupid.

His food was very good and costs were OK so we left him alone despite strained relations with front of house, a lack of menu development and a general reluctance to develop kitchen staff. We even exchanged the odd pleasant word at social functions, in the way you do with old adversaries.

Everything cruised along fine until a couple of months ago when our Chef suddenly asked to see the owner and gave two weeks notice. She rang me and we discussed the situation, coming to the conclusion that it was time for him to move along, and that we should accept his resignation and find a new Chef. He told her that he was going to a new, secret project; so we figured that he had accepted another job offer.

The time for him to go came along but he made no real move to leave, saying that he would stick around and ‘help out’. His version of helping out consisted of coming and going when he pleased and generally being destructive and vitriolic towards the owner in conversations with the other staff. It began to dawn on us that he didn’t have anywhere to go and that his resignation was probably a strategy aimed at another pay rise (this was an inspired negotiation tactic if ever I saw it). The owner was adamant — she had suffered enough of him and was well down the path of replacing him, and had no intention of turning back.

It got to the point where she had to retrieve her keys and tell him not to come in any more. The front of house staff breathed a collective sigh of relief and we all figured that was the end of it — until the kitchen staff refused to divulge the recipes for the food on the menu, and a couple of the kitchen staff resigned to follow the Chef into his next position.

The Chef had made all the kitchen staff pledge not to reveal the recipes to the Owner claiming that they were his property, not hers. Legally, he was about as wrong as can be. Being a permanent employee anything he created at work or in his own time that was related to his occupation belongs to his employer, not him.

That’s all well and good in theory, but what do you do in a real situation if the recipes have not been documented and the staff refuse to divulge them in a fit of misguided loyalty? Beat it out of them perhaps? It could have got really ugly. It was only the hiring of a talented new Chef who created a new menu that saved the situation and kept the show on the road.

This brings me to the $64 question. Are all your recipes properly documented so that if your Chef gets hit by a bus your business doesn’t suffer?

By Hospitality Management Specialist, Tony Eldred, http://www.eldtrain.com.au