rotate stations in order to promote economic fairness. There is not any economic fairness when a customer decides to stop visiting your restaurant because of shoddy service.

Reward the high achieving Servers with the best stations. This way, you will not fall victim to the law of diminishing returns.

CUSTOMERS

Separate Checks

Technology has accelerated the cumbersome job of separating checks. Modern systems such as Aloha and Micros only require a few touch screens for an accurately divided check. The problem emerges when it is time to facilitate payment. Each credit card must be individually processed through a terminal. A party of eight, with eight credit cards, will take eight times the amount of time to process than one card for an entire table.

Separate checks slow down computer processing, which affects the flow of service in the entire restaurant. If you eat together and want your food delivered at the same, you should expect to pay with one form of payment. Servers are not accountants.

Special Orders

In order to gain any competitive edge, restaurants bend over backwards to accommodate customer special requests. It seems the "special orders don't upset us" mantra has now reached an obscene fever pitch.

Designers logically construct restaurant kitchens with the menu as the blueprint. Special orders force cooks to scramble for ingredients outside of their station purview. Moreover, special orders take time to input into a computer terminal, once again slowing the service flow of an entire restaurant

Table Changes

Every Server has a station, one that encompasses a maximum amount of tables. Hosts and front of the house managers attempt to spread the service flow among each Server, so one Server is not overburdened with an excessive amount of tables within a short period. Request to change tables throws the seating dynamic off, thus rendering carefully implemented service flow plans ineffectual.

Unless you have a physical reason for requesting a new table, stay at the one selectively chosen for your restaurant visit.

Ordering

Adept Servers save steps. The most effective way to do this is communicating with a table, "Is there anything else I may get for you?" This is a customer's last chance for the time being to order what they need. Running Servers in circles by ordering one item at a time not only impedes service, it is also rude.

Restaurant experts write books delineating tips for improving restaurant service. Unfortunately, the experts are bound by tunnel vision and incorrect logic. While Servers directly affect the quality of restaurant service, many additional factors play a vital role as well. The additional factors rarely receive attention, but they are as important as the beaming person who effusively greets you with, "Good evening, and welcome to,!"

Learn more about this author, Keith Bailey.
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