26 Degrees in the Shade . . .

How to be a Good Waitress, bar in Spain

What is the highest skill that a waitress needs?

Well there are several:

• The social skill to relate to customers from the very get-go!
• The ability to say a few words when she passes a table that are having to wait for their food (If she chats even a little with them, they feel attended to and forget that they are actually sitting there waiting)
• She must remember to write down every  single drink and every food item that she has taken an order for. This must be written on the bill for the appropriate table. (Remember what doesn’t get written down, doesn’t get paid for)
• The most important skill is to control the flow of orders to both the bar and to the kitchen. When you are really busy in your bar/ restaurant  in Spain, a good waitress will discourage people from ordering cocktails and encourage them to order a simple bottle of wine or a jug of Sangria (only if it has been pre-prepared)

Buy encouraging people to order items that you can deliver quickly, you not only get more sales, but you keep the customer happy.

Controlling the flow of incoming food orders

By chatting just a little to customers, you can get them to sit and be happy just having a drink and not worrying about having their order taken quickly.

Most customers try to order food and drink at the same time and this causes several problems.

• The waitress has to concern herself with processing both food and drink orders at the same time and even looking after a few tables she soon starts to feel under stress, has no time to chat and starts to make mistakes
• When she separates food and drinks and takes the drinks order first, it’s a lot easier for her and the kitchen buys time to clear existing orders, before she goes back to the table to take the food order 15-30 min latter.
• Using this system customers start to enjoy having a drink and often will order a second round. More profit for you bar/restaurant in Spain..

In mid August when you have 300% of normal trade, you waitress may have to stop taking food orders for a period of say 30 min to give the kitchen a chance to clear existing orders. In such a case she must tell the clients honestly that there will be a wait and NOT take their order until the kitchen has freed-up.

Finally

At busy times she should not take orders for long lead items, such as frozen Lasagna. Even if you have it, she must be instructed to say that it’s off the menu

Remember

that a customer times his/her food order from the moment your waitress writes it down, so writing the order down as late as she can get away with, will lead to less unhappy customers.

If she serves them a drink or two before taking their food order, they will already be a little merry and in a better humour.

How to Work Orders Efficiently. Restaurant Bar Spain.

How to Take & Work Orders Efficiently. In Your Restaurant, Bar Spain.

One of the secrets of running a successful Bar, Restaurant on the Costa del Sol is:

Train your staff to operate to a system.

Especially when it comes to taking down customers orders!

There is nothing worse for slowing down the flow rate from the customers table through the kitchen and finally back to the table, than a set of staff who have no common system for working/processing orders.

I worked for Ford Motor C0. when I was young. I was one of 14,000 staff. when I first arrived I couldn’t understand how the output of 14,000 office staff could be co-ordinated. Here’s how it’s achieved in a nut shell:

They have a massive office solely dedicated to writing systems/procedures. These people who ensure that 14,000 staff can operate together in a highly efficient way are called “Systems Analysts”.

To run a bar/restaurant successfully which employs staff, you must become your own Systems Analysts.

Here’s how we take and process orders to a strict system:

Any item on our menu is described in detail, so all staff must be taught the same system of short hand and must use it at all times when taking down orders

The short hand must be simple. The simpler the better!

e.g. Our short hand looks like this:

Cheeseburger with onions, chips and a side salad and a gin & tonic for table 4, would be written as follows:

4.

1* ch/b+ons+chips

1*sal green.

Everybody who works in my pizzeria uses this system.

The advantages are:

• Can be written quickly
• Can be read quickly. This is very important for the chef as he may have as many as 30 orders hanging on pins in front of him, at any one time. He can read them quickly and hold them in his memory easier.
• Don’t have to decipher several different ways that staff choose of writing down the same thing.
• No mistakes in what arrives at the customer’s table.
• Speeeds up the work flow