Restaurant

“Restaurateur” is defined as a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of the restaurant business. Restaurant business belongs to service industry where producing and delivering services to consumers happen at the same time. For that reason, managing a restaurant is a little bit more difficult than managing other tangible products, such as clothing or fixture and furniture, etc. It is a critical combination between food and people because most people are very sensitive about their food – a necessity in the past time and now it has become a luxury when living standards are rising. They not only like eating but also like eating well, or even eat “beautifully”. And to manage and operate a restaurant successfully, a restaurateur must possess many characteristics as well as skills. In my opinion, the most importance trait a restaurant owner should have is the ability of selecting and managing human resource. Managers have special abilities in evaluating people. They understand who are suitable for their business. And making right decisions to hire employees is a critical task of any manager, especially in the field of service industry. Restaurant’s staff should be “clean, honest, quick workers, quick thinkers, nondrinkers, mathematicians, technicians”. “Clean” appears both in back stage and front stage of a restaurant to ensure food safety and hygiene. In addition, cleanliness of staff may create the very first impression to arriving guests. Honest employees will not find the way to steal restaurant’s properties to pick into their pockets Restaurateurs who have honest staff trust in them and do not waste their time to keep careful eyes on them. Quick workers make customers feel comfortable and happy because it does not take too long for their orders to be delivered. When a problem arises, if staffs know how to solve the problem quickly and efficiently, their boss does not need to appear and he can spend time to do more difficult and complicated tasks. Besides, restaurant’s staffs are considered as representatives of their boss. People can know about the restaurant manager when they communicate with waiters or waitresses. For that reason, the manager must ensure his employees to know exactly what to do to reach their business objectives. Employees are not only “on the boss’s side” but also “on the customer’s side” to satisfy them even when they behave impolitely. One important thing service staffs have to remember is that they never get drunk on duty because they are the restaurant’s image. Therefore, they “must stay outside the bar”. A good restaurant manager is the person understanding most clearly about his products and services so that he can allocate workforce and assign right tasks to the right personnel. If so, the operation will run smoothly and the cooperation among departments within the restaurant will be efficient and sufficient (kitchen – bar – table setting). Before the opening hour, manager comes first and check everything to ensure they are all ready to fulfill all guests’ requirements (keep the bar full, the house full, the stateroom full, the wine cellar full) and make patrons feel comfortable (keep the customers full). The manager ensures to keep everything full except him. He devotes a lot because he comes to the restaurant first but leaves last. He thinks about other people rather than himself. That is one of characteristics helps the restaurant manager be successful in his career. A person who wants to become a restaurateur must have worked in many positions in restaurant industry for several years and obtained a variety of knowledge in many aspects of life. However this is not means that he must be an expert in many subjects. Importantly, he knows how to approach to guests at the moment they enter the restaurant, find the best appropriate way to communicate with them to make them reveal their hobbies and favorites. Because not many people are so friendly and sociable that they can talk to strange person about their private things. Moreover restaurateur meets and communicates with many kinds of people everyday. They arrange from high positions, such as presidents, princes of industry, to low positions in society, for instance pickpockets, panderers, etc. Anyway when they come to the restaurant, they are “kings” and restaurateur must not look down on any guest just because they do shameful things. One key principle for all restaurant managers is to fairly treat to all their guests. He should possess special skills to make them feel happy and maximize their satisfaction. And the possibility of returning of satisfied guests is very high and it also results in positive word of mouth advertising. When talking or interacting with customers, restaurant manager ought to always behave very politely and not be influenced by their partners’ attitudes or perceptions whoever they are – “ladies and gentlemen, as well as bankers, swank people, actors, commercial travelers, and company representatives”. He listens to them and receives their words as a reference to improve his view of life. What he learns and collects from daily life are useful to help him settle arguments and squabbles which may be occur among some aforementioned patrons. This results from his closeness to guests – he understands each eater’s characteristic, quickly knows the underneath incidents and then finds the most relevant solutions to satisfy his guests. In the case of Vietnamese restaurateurs, they also need to have certain attributes to ensure the restaurant operation. Firstly, they must be a good leader to manage and control their employees’ activities in a reasonable way, encourage them to work hard and create opportunities for them to maximize their working performances. A satisfied staff will result in a satisfied customer. Secondly, he himself should updates current situations in each department within the restaurants, as well as keeps continuous contact with suppliers and other important intermediaries to solve potential problems. Of course, restaurants’ owners in Vietnam had better possess many characteristics and skills as I mentioned above. However, these attributes have some difficulties in being applied in Vietnam restaurant business. In developed countries – where “restaurant” concept has existed for ages, work allocation is very clear. A restaurateur is simply a restaurant manager who takes responsibility for managing and controlling restaurant’s activities. Meanwhile, in our country, restaurant industry was newly developed and because of limited financial budget when running the business, many restaurant managers are in charge of other positions to save labor cost. Consequently, they do not have enough time to interact with customers very often and in some cases, they offer services which are not suitable for the target market. Only a few managers apply “management by walking around” method to evaluate the efficiency of the operation and this action is not frequent to cover all the problems if they arise. One difficulty Vietnam restaurant industry is facing up is the shortage of professional restaurateurs who get university or college degrees. Most restaurateurs in Vietnam are trained in vocational school and become restaurant managers after many years of working. During their working process, they obtain experiences and needed skills and mostly are trained on job – learning combines practicing to shorten studying time and fill in vacancy positions when needed. Several persons who have outstanding performance and are lucky enough have chances to take part in professional training courses in foreign country to enrich their skills and experiences. In many restaurants, customers complain about serving attitude, which is a consequence of lack of training. Some restaurateurs guess their clients by their appearances and make wrong conjecture towards them. For example, in busy hour, restaurateur may treat unfairly because he will serve a rich man or a beautiful lady first as the priority, whereas he may ignore to approach a guest because of her informal appearance. From my point of view, a restaurant manager should have some additional attributes to be successful in his career. He needs to have collaborative – oriented working style. He works to foster win-win interactions with other members. He is willing to fill in as a server or a cook without hesitation in busy operating days. It is even probable that he has bused tables or washed dishes at his restaurant alongside the staff. At the same time, he models this behavior for his staff. By seeing him engage in cooperative behaviors, they will better understand that he values such actions. They will also see the importance of the team effort and will try their best to work in cooperation with others for the team to achieve success. A restaurant manager must be creative. Creative individuals tend to both generate and embrace new ideas and new ways of doing things. Additionally, those with above-average creative scores are generally able to adapt to change in rather resourceful ways, and they willingly accept calculated risks. While it is clear to see why creativity is vital in the restaurant business, highly creative restaurateurs should be aware that they may need to guard against taking unnecessary risks.