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...
Many in the restaurant industry are familiar with the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants involving Chipotle and Pei Wei in 2011. Chipotle fired 450 employees in several Minnesota locations and also received Notices of Inspection for sev...
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...
I am not what anyone would call a heavy drinker. Maybe a couple of glasses a wine a week, and maybe one drink a week. I tell you this so you can understand where I am coming from with this blog.
Several weeks ago I was asked to lead a roundtable...
One of the first steps for any new business is to figure out its value proposition. In other words, they need to agree on how they are going to position themselves and the product or service they’re selling.
The value proposition is, by definiti...
Hashtags might have begun life as easily referenced Twitter subjects, but they do more than merely function as the punchline of a Jimmy Fallon video. They have evolved into a unique communication platform that can serve as the connective tissue...
Last month, I talked about how adding an element of competition to your marketing could help you generate activity and increase engagement for your restaurant.
Responding to the article, one restaurant manager asked if similar tactics could be u...
On the third day of class my students are greeted with the above riddle. The answer, no surprise, is “Unemployed.” My students then ask, “Well, what if he owns the place?” My response: “Unemployed and bankrupt.”
Of course, we as chefs know this...
