“Running a successful restaurant is not just about good food. You need bloody good service to compliment the bloody good food.” Chef Gordon Ramsay, Hells Kitchen: Day 1 Dining etiquette is about making the customer more comfortable with their dining experience. If you use dining ettiquite you have the potential to be a fine salesman for the business through food and wine sales. If you don’t tell them about it they won’t know about it and if you don’t suggest it they won’t buy it.
Good communication is key to great dining etiquette. It really does come down to guest relations and the relationships that are built with the guests that keeps them coming back to the restaurant. You can have amazing food but if the servers are not taking care of the customer the customer they won’t come back. It is the responsibility of the server to ensure the customers satisfaction. Empathize with the customer. This person is a paying customer and they’re dishing out hard earned money for a dining experience that should be exceptional quality.
Learning your menu will help you master the dining etiquette. Part of on-the-job training is learning about the menu. Many fine dining restaurants will want the server to learn about different varietals of wines and what gets paired with different foods, as well as culinary terms. I see that most servers are junior chefs in their own right because they have to know what the chef has prepared and how it’s being presented to the guests so they can in turn be the messenger for the chef for the daily features and restaurant specials.
You hear a lot from people who are out at restaurants and they’re angry because their server failed to provide decent customer service or they just did certain things. More than likely this difficult person is projecting their own problems, issues or insecurities onto everyone else. If someone is being impossible you just have to recognize it as such. Never take it personally and don’t internalize it. You don’t know why what this person is going through. Maybe they have a unique personality or maybe they just had a bad experience eating out recently, you never know. They could also want to rain on everyone’s parade because some men just want to watch the world burn. Whichever the case may be you still have to deal with these situations with a certain amount of professionalism and detachment. Inevitably as a server you’re going to run into difficult people. These could be customers, co-workers or even management.
We live in a very superficial world. A server will have to interface with the public a lot. As a server you become the face of the restaurant. You should make sure your appearance is top-notch. Try to always maintain a smile and a positive attitude. Dining etiquette will help you handle many different personalities and many difficult situations and most importantly yourself. The last thing you ever want to do in a restaurant setting is start complaining. When one person starts to complain other people start complaining and pretty soon you have a bunch of resentful workers walking around doing nothing but the bare minimum and aren’t contributing to the restaurant’s success. Don’t let any situation get the best of you even if you know your right and especially when you know you’re right. The customer is always right.
When you hear the words manners or etiquette sometimes people think it is just rules you blindly have to follow. But actually that’s not the case. At their core, manners is being considerate and respectful to the people around you. Etiquette is all about how to behave beautifully. Unfortunately many people consider respect for the rules of etiquette as something shameful considering it a feature of classiest seats or removed from real life. The basic rules of dining etiquette are pretty simple it’s a culture of speech, common courtesy, neat appearance and control over your emotions.
