Saturday, September 26, 2015
I have always had the pleasure of being able to work for numerous amounts of teams over the years. The teams that have been the most successful would be the many restaurants that I have worked for over the years.
When it comes to a fast-paced restaurant, everyone has to be on their A game or the entire operation falls apart. Everyone has to be in sync, knowing exactly what the next move of every other team member is going to be. I see this a lot at one restaurant in particular, the restaurant that I work at now, a stir fry restaurant in downtown business district of Champaign called 301 Mongolia.
The structure is built up like any other restaurant. At the top is the owner, Amit, he runs and oversees everything that is going on in both 301 Mongolia and the restaurant that he also owns next door called Dublin's, a five star Irish Pub. Under him are the front of house managers, as their title states, they oversee the front of the restaurant, making sure that the servers have everything they need in order for the restaurant to run smoothly. Under them are back of house managers that take care of the kitchen and help with anything that the cooks might need.
Then come the servers, even though we make the most money, we do not have as much power as the managers and honestly, I like it that way because it gives us more time to focus on doing our jobs right because we do not have time to make sure that the rest if the restaurant is running smoothly like the managers do. I say we make more money because we make tips every night after our shift that only get taxed 10% (cash tips are not taxed, only credit card tips). The managers on the other hand make a salary that does not match the amount of money we make. That is not really important but I thought it was relevant to share simply because servers usually do not make the most when it comes to a restaurant, besides the owner of course.
This system works because less money is coming out of the owner's pocket when it comes to paying us, most of our money, like I said before, come from tips from the customers. This works well because if a server is not performing to the best of their ability, it is reflected on how much they are making in tips. This provides incentive for the servers to do the best they can possibly do by providing excellent service while also up-selling customers on drinks, appetizers, and desserts because the higher the bill, the higher our tip, and the more money the restaurant and the server makes.
With the combination of the servers, hosts, cooks, and managers, the restaurant always runs smoothly because it is never understaffed. I have worked at other restaurants in the past that have half the amount of servers that they should have and as a result, that team becomes stressed, resulting in a lower quality product (meaning the food, drink, and customer service). When this happens, as you might've guessed, sales are lower and the recurrence of regular customers drops due to a bad experience.
When it comes to working as a team, the servers at this restaurant all know exactly what is going on with the other. This is great because if one server starts to get overwhelmed, the others can help them (ie. bus their tables, run their food, etc.) until the server that is behind catches up. The reason we are all so good at reading each other is because we know each other personally. When there is down time, we talk to each other and get to know exactly how each other operates. So when we do see that one of us is showing signs of distress, we know exactly how and what to do in order to help them in the best way possible. And when we bring that team member up, we all benefit from the easy flow of the restaurant.
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This is the IRS Webpage on reporting tips. What you said is wrong. What you may have meant in what you said is that absent such reporting the IRS can't track cash tips, so your incentive to report them is minimal. That is true. But you are legally required to do so.
ReplyDeleteNow let's consider the restaurant activity from the point of team production, considering more how the staff collaborates than worrying about the structure. Are all tables preassigned to particular waiters or might it be that if one waiter is particularly busy with some party that he asks another waiter to take over at another table? Similarly, what about the busboys?
I've noticed that at some restaurants the person who takes your order in the not the same person who brings out the food. I'm not sure what that is or if it happens at your restaurant, but you might want to comment on whether those activities should be done by the same person or not.
Then there is the relationship between the waiters and the cooks, and the relationship between the waiters and the bartenders. Can there be a lack of coordination there? What makes it work smoothly. You said it does work smoothly at the place you work, but you didn't really say why that is. Tips happen at every restaurant. Good functioning of the staff does not. Something else must be going on to explain it.
You are right when it comes to reporting cash tips, usually at our restaurant we only report 10% of our cash tips because we make enough form the credit card tips that the IRS isn't going to come after us for not claiming enough tips (sorry forgot to include that part).
DeleteTo answer your other questions. No, the tables are not preassigned to specific waiters, we rotate the tables so we all have an even amount of tables. But even with that system, we each may have the same amount of tables, but different numbers of guests we are attending to (one waiter could have 3 tabes of 2 while the other has 3 tables of 6). And as for the busboys, there are none, we are our own busboys so we do not have to worry about tipping them out.
To answer your question about wondering who that person is that takes the food to the tables, that is usually called a food runner and like busboys, we do not have any food runners at our restaurant. This leaves us responsible to run all of our own food and work as a team to run all the food we possibly can. Going back to this idea that we are all a team and if one waiter is busy dealing with a 6 person table, the other can run his or her food out.
As for things running smoothly between waiters and bartenders and waiters and cooks, we do not have any bartenders because we make our own drinks and then with the cooks, since it is a stir fry restaurant the grill is out in the open, this makes it really for us to see exactly when our food is ready so that the cooks an only focus on cooking. Other than easily being able to tell when the food is done, we can see if the cooks are getting stressed out and much like other waiters, we are free to help them finish what they are doing by restocking their ingredients, cleaning/organizing their workspace, and even cooking if they are really behind. I guess you could say our restaurant is a little different than others because the rules on who does what is sort of relaxed. This is great because it gives everyone the opportunity to help out with any task that needs helping.