Culinary Cues

APRIL 29, 2024

At a time when the desire and need for dining out has returned to 2019 levels, this seems like a counter-productive formula. There is a real dichotomy in understanding, a gap in understanding between the employer and employee and how each views the work at hand. There is a noble side to preparing and serving food.

Front of House 240

Front of House Back of House Training Customer Service 240

Culinary Cues

APRIL 22, 2024

How can a chef set the stage for a dining experience if restaurants continue to look at everything as an extra charge. Not that I mind, but oftentimes the cashiers that are there no longer bag your purchases, that’s the consumer’s job now. Bread has always been a given. Hardly worth the $8-$12 that restaurants charge.

Consumer Goods 284

Consumer Goods Pricing Customer Experience Hospitality 284

Culinary Cues

APRIL 15, 2023

All good intentions – they want to create full or partially full dining rooms for restaurants in need. We want to make a respectable living, but there are few aspirations of wealth – our reward is feeling good about the product we produce, the service we offer, and the joy that can be passed on to those who chose to dine with us.

Seasonal Menu 447

Seasonal Menu Café Point of Sale Social Media 447

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Long before the restaurant chains of today, decades prior to the birth of fine dining, experience dining, and molecular gastronomy, there were neighborhood cafes that were part of small communities across the country. Ah, but the food and conversation were consistently good, plentiful, and in-expensive.

White Paper 319

White Paper Hospitality Fine Dining Reference 319

Culinary Cues

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

How powerful is a complete dining experience and what exactly is it? An owner for whom I worked years ago referred to it as the Total Dining Experience and I have held on to this concept ever since. Is your ventilation system designed to push positive kitchen odors to the dining room or outside the entrance?

Fine Dining 315

Fine Dining Dine-in Front of House Design 315

Restaurant365

APRIL 16, 2021

Online ordering is growing 300% faster than dine-in traffic and has become a lifeline for many restaurants. With the rise in off-premises dining, it has become apparent that consumers gravitate toward restaurants that offer convenient ordering options. Off-premises dining has become an essential part of people’s lives.

Online Ordering 78

Online Ordering Blog Ordering Front of House 78

Culinary Cues

JULY 22, 2021

The food didn’t seem as exciting or well-prepared, the server was less familiar with the menu than they had expected, their orders took forever, the ambience of the dining room seemed a bit off, staff seemed stressed and disconnected, prices were way too high, and many people were still nervous about being in a public place without a mask.

Guest Recovery 448

Guest Recovery Uniforms Point of Sale Customer Experience 448

Culinary Cues

MARCH 3, 2021

Menus became encyclopedic, the skills to execute these menus were over the top, the equipment that allowed for this level of creativity was space age and expensive, the intensity and stress in the kitchen was as heavy as lead, and the number of staff members required to execute this complexity was painful. Magazine: [link].

Dine-in 416

Dine-in Small Business Seasonal Menu Café 416

Culinary Cues

AUGUST 9, 2021

Wow visuals on the plate and in the dining room, wow views from every seat, wow service, and of course – wow flavors on the plate. Guests will return when the effort expended to create memorable complete dining experiences is front and center. The goal of every restaurant and every chef is to create memorable experiences for the guest.

Front of House 473

Front of House Customer Experience Workshop Dine-in 473

Culinary Cues

OCTOBER 27, 2023

To make it simple, the restaurant can choose to be either chef centric or restaurant centric. This involves, first and foremost, the decision regarding who to hire as chef and sous chef and the level of control this person will be given. Either choice can be viewed as key to success or failure. This menu is who I am.”

Hiring 392

Hiring Training Pricing Leadership 392

Culinary Cues

APRIL 23, 2023

Do you understand the seasonality of ingredients and how to adjust for less than stellar quality or substitute ingredients that will bring you close to the same result in a recipe? [] WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WINE: Is the wine list solely the responsibility of the sommelier, lead bartender, or dining room manager?

Seasonal Menu 481

Seasonal Menu Leadership Training Fine Dining 481

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 28, 2021

Cooks are busy at work with their own preparations as breakfast orders from the dining room arrive at a harrowing pace. The cooks are in the zone as the orders attack the kitchen even faster now as the dining room fills and servers’ line up to make toast and refill silver coffee pitchers. This is magical.

Kitchen Safety 423

Kitchen Safety Front of House Fine Dining Seasonal Menu 423

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

Walking down the streets in the once most robust city in proximity to my home, I was deeply concerned at what I saw. This was a tradition of early holiday shopping, hoping to beat the maddening crowds that typically flood shopping districts and restaurants this time of year. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.”

Customer Experience 362

Customer Experience Customer Service Food Safety Retail 362

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Dining out is more than a need for nourishment, it is a reward for hard work, a place to celebrate success, a way to recognize others, a mecca for friends to enjoy each other’s company, and a place where the important topics of the day find a home in discussion. [] THE REAL CONNECTION BETWEEN FARMERS AND CONSUMERS. In 2021, there were 14.5

Agriculture 368

Agriculture Tourism Transportation Café 368

Restaurant365

NOVEMBER 6, 2020

” You rapidly shifted operations and resources between different order modes, most likely approaching dine-in, delivery, takeout, or drive-thru differently. ” You rapidly shifted operations and resources between different order modes, most likely approaching dine-in, delivery, takeout, or drive-thru differently.

Dine-in 113

Dine-in Delivery Ordering Point of Sale 113

Culinary Cues

APRIL 23, 2022

Now that I have your attention and you are back in your chair, let me explain. The margins are very tight, in fact they are so tight that most business savvy people would wonder why anyone would ever want to own a restaurant. So, if the cost of goods is not the chef’s responsibility, then where does the buck stop? First in, first out.

Food 381

Food Seasonal Menu Waste Point of Sale 381

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Be strong, be true to your profession, honor those who came before, think of the hard-working cooks in your brigade and the trusting patrons who spend their hard-earned money in your dining room. This is one of the reasons why they choose to dine out. Don’t do it! Do it right! In this case, the recipe remains an important guide.

Seasonal Menu 353

Seasonal Menu Food Supply Training Presentation 353

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Well, here we go. I haven’t slept much at all over the past few days and certainly won’t until the weekend is over. The anxiety building up to a full house in the hotel packed with a series of food events has made it impossible to relax. The preparation has been mind boggling, now we just have to execute. It is the chef’s job to set the stage.

Front of House 397

Front of House Back of House Seating Food Truck 397

Culinary Cues

JUNE 14, 2022

fell in the category of “fine dining”. Now I mention these statistics because they will help to frame what the future may hold for the industry and those considering a career in kitchens and dining rooms across the country. Why would I choose to support a locally owned restaurant? The overall industry employed more than 15 million U.S.

Fine Dining 468

Fine Dining Food Supply Customer Service Presentation 468

Culinary Cues

MAY 3, 2023

Where we fall short is in the details of that menu, the complements, the “tag along” ingredients. What about the quality of condiments, butter, the cheese quality on the burger or the pizza, the salt for that steak, the olive oil on the salad, the coffee, or tea, and maybe most importantly – the quality of the bread products used.

Food Truck 467

Food Truck Customer Experience Food Supply Take-out 467

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Those from my generation will remember lines like: “Who are Those Guys” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; “You Can’t Handle the Truth” from A Few Good Men; and “Play it Again, Sam” from Casablanca, but it was Mr. Miyagi who taught us all a lesson in The Karate Kid with the mentor’s line: “Wax On, Wax Off, Young Grasshopper.” You want more!

Kitchen Safety 366

Kitchen Safety Food Safety Back of House Front of House 366

Modern Restaurant Management

JANUARY 22, 2024

This industry seeks to develop a value proposition that speaks to its consumers and convinces them to dine in their restaurants. Convenience: Simplified Dining Experiences Convenience is really what modern customers look for in a restaurant experience. But precisely, how can you determine what customers want?

Loyalty Program 152

Loyalty Program Dietary Restrictions Mobile Ordering Social Media 152

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

We filled the dining room, and everyone was served, but what was their experience? Push it out, how many covers, lock, and load, finish strong, over the hump, wrap it up: this the language of the kitchen during service, these are the timestamps like the number of quarters in a football game or innings in baseball. We made it!

Customer Service 344

Customer Service Customer Experience Point of Sale Uniforms 344

Culinary Cues

MAY 19, 2022

By 7:00 the dining room was full, and the orders came in relentlessly. The early crowd sputtered in – parties of two mainly, usually no appetizers – they got down to business with the less expensive entrees and a cocktail. This was “order/fire” time. As sous chef, he was focused on double checking everything before the push.

Seating 374

Seating Dine-in Seasonal Menu Leadership 374

Culinary Cues

APRIL 16, 2022

The guest who savors every bite and offers a sample to the person sitting next to them, saying: “you have to try this”, is an ambassador who will boast about your food and the dining experience to friends, family, and social media strangers alike. The most important word ever uttered by a guest and ever embraced by a peer cook or chef is WOW!

Hotels 370

Hotels Presentation Reservations Social Media 370

Culinary Cues

JULY 16, 2022

Whenever I visited New York City with students, or with family, Dick helped arrange for us to meet well known chefs and restaurateurs, visit, tour and dine in incredible benchmark restaurants, tour flagship hotels, and in some cases find kitchen space for our student culinary teams to prepare for competitions. The world will miss you, Dick.

Front of House 366

Front of House Back of House Education Leadership 366

Culinary Cues

MAY 28, 2022

Those who spend their days in the kitchen, or the dining room do so sometimes out of necessity, but oftentimes because it is what they love to do – to create and bring a little joy to other’s lives. The dining room staff face some different marks in time that establish them as “prepared”.

Front of House 319

Front of House Back of House Employee Relations Small Business 319

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 3, 2023

Hospitality is what makes the experience of dining special, and it is most definitely what brings people back. She wasn’t a chef as we might describe that person today, but she was a terrific cook and a savvy businesswoman. I said I was confused since the jar was clearly empty. What was the ingredient? This love is what we call “hospitality”.

Hospitality 375

Hospitality Customer Experience Customer Service Small Business 375

Culinary Cues

APRIL 1, 2024

Underneath it all we do know that most of the time it was very hard work – physically, mentally, and emotionally. We do know that there were countless days when we thought we wouldn’t pull it off, when being in the weeds was all too common, and at any moment everything was doomed to collapse – yet we managed to soldier through.

Back of House 318

Back of House Kitchen Safety Hotels Front of House 318

Culinary Cues

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Building a culture of learning may just be as important as a restaurant concept, the design of the kitchen space, ambience of the dining room, and intensity of a marketing plan. Think back in personal time. Do you remember when you first discovered how to snap your fingers or whistle? Talk with them and dig deeper.

Training 367

Training Seasonal Menu Back of House Leadership 367

Culinary Cues

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Seek out unique opportunities to experience great food, the source of that food, the people who dedicate their lives to it, the service that accompanies exceptional dining, and the commitment to excellence that very successful cooks and chefs are a part of. So, here are some golden rules that will help you to move in the right direction.

Leadership 381

Leadership Fine Dining Workshop Training 381

Culinary Cues

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

Your employees know that this is not the best way to start a dining experience. They can see the concern in your eyes over the certainty of failure when a full dining room is not allowed. We all know the challenges facing restaurants right now – there is little benefit in reiterating the problems. Ask your staff!

Kitchen Safety 331

Kitchen Safety Back of House Front of House Customer Experience 331

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

The strict alignment to table stations, training, development of a wine list that complements the food menu, and the smooth oversight of intense chaos so that it seems to be controlled rests on the shoulders of the dining room or restaurant manager. Independence in a manufacturing model that defies logic.

Seasonal Menu 517

Seasonal Menu Back of House Customer Service Front of House 517

Culinary Cues

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Unfortunately, dining out and finding the right place to work is oftentimes a wishful roll of the dice. It all matters – education level, income bracket, age range, frequency of dining, and food and wine preferences. [] KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE AND HOW YOU WANT TO BE PERCEIVED. Don’t try to be something that you are not.

Fine Dining 392

Fine Dining Front of House Customer Service Customer Experience 392

Typsy

MAY 11, 2021

As your restaurant looks forward to offering in-person dining again, you may want to try innovative approaches to customer experience. In this blog post, guest blogger Sara Carter shares with you some of the best technology solutions for your restaurant that you should consider.

Technology 183

Technology Loyalty Program Customer Experience Customer Service 183

Culinary Cues

FEBRUARY 13, 2022

The good news is that restaurants are beginning to see an increase in sales as more and more customers return to in person dining in addition to their new habit of ordering for home delivery. There are a number of possible solutions, but not all of them positive. SKILL SET: A cook’s repertoire will need to expand.

Compost 437

Compost Fine Dining Waste Café 437

Culinary Cues

MAY 1, 2023

There are many reasons why I am so grateful for the decades I spent in front of a range. I could not think of a career more rewarding than being a cook and a chef. Those who are despondent or downright angry with the industry, and I know there are many, may not understand or appreciate my words, but I stand by them.

Front of House 427

Front of House Back of House Food Order Seasonal Menu 427