Now is when the hard work really begins.
Your continued success in the restaurant business takes constant work. As a restaurant owner you must always be questioning every detail that made you a success in the first place. You must be asking yourself during every single task that you perform, "where can I squeeze that extra 0.01% from?"
I get it. I 100% understand it. After putting in 2, 5, 10, 25 years of hard graft to scale your Mount Everest: To reach the summit and enjoy the moment is incredibly tempting. And to some extent, you must enjoy the moment. Bask in the warm rays of sunshine atop your mountain. But be acutely aware that the wind rushing in to blow you back down the mountainside is imminent. And that's the annoying thing with winds: you never see them coming. It might come in the form of an employee who takes liberties and consistently shows up late, (I think we can all relate to this one), it might be a fire in the kitchen, it may be cracks in the supply chain ahead of a big night. Be prepared for anything. Also, it never hurts to have a stash of ice in your freezer for those summer events when your ice-maker breaks down. My ice-maker used to break down nearly every summer!
To stay at the summit requires constant management. You must still engage in all of those activities that allowed you to rise to the top in the first place. As human beings, we are conditioned in such a way that we let successes affect our thinking. We allow ourselves to become arrogant after each little win. We stop pushing once we achieve our goals. This conditioning is what we are actually fighting.
Don't let arrogance into your business. Consider this for a moment -think back to the day you first opened the doors to your restaurant business. The initial expense and energy to get customers into your dining room is vast. But once you begin to gain a little momentum, you can see where your technique/skills are working for you and build on this. After a while, the effort that's needed to continue this upward trend seems to be slightly less. But when you stop putting your energy into getting people through your front door, even for just a day, the momentum dips. One day off from this might not harm your business too badly, But when you add another and another and begin building that negative habit the momentum swings against you and you find yourself back where you started. Often, all it takes is one dissatisfied diner to destroy your momentum because as we know, if they have an experience below their expectations, they complain to the entire internet.
So the easiest way to avoid this press is simple. Not easy, but simple.
Don't give them anything to complain about. And on the odd occasion that things aren't up to your usual insane standards, make sure that you follow up personally, as owner or manager, and meet the expectations you've set for yourself.
