It’s just a fantasy It’s not the real thing Sometimes a fantasy is all you need —Billy Joel, "Sometimes a Fantasy" Fantasy? You are probably wondering how this relates to food, cooking and the foodservice industry. The places we work and own ...

Last month I blogged about how bad phone manners by your staff could cause the loss of sales. This blog was well received and I not only got a number of e-mails, but people even called me as well to tell me they could relate to the article. I was...

A key part of my position as a culinary arts instructor at JobTrain is to get graduates jobs. To do this I literally make over 100 phone calls a month to kitchens, offices and chefs. I am always shocked and amazed at how badly phones are answered...

Many restaurant owners tell me they are afraid of leveraging strong offers such as free items. But if you are confident in your restaurant, and are convinced that you will get repeat customers once they have discovered your business, then the pot...

High employee turnover is one of the most persistent challenges for restaurant owners and managers. A majority of restaurants see seasonal spikes in employees, but there is only a small core group of employees who will be there year round. The nu...

In my last blog I wrote a very personal case study. To briefly reiterate: I had just been hired as the chef of an unprofitable restaurant that was set to close in a few months. I was relying on the sous chef for everything since I had no previous...

From 1975 to 1979 I was a business administration major at California State University at Fullerton. One of the popular—then new—techniques in studying business management issues was the case study. Case studies then were real-life horror studie...

A selfie recently posted on LinkedIn made its way to my page. It had a headless picture of a woman with this description: “Female Line Cooks are Bad A__.” I posted the following comment: I teach students to put passion and pride and love into ea...