I moved to Cape Town in July of 2022 after living in Gauteng for years. I never took leave in December, I didn’t have a child so planning around the school holidays was not a factor, it’s quiet at work so I could focus on what I wanted and prepared for the new year. Typically my wife and I tried to stay away from holiday hotspot destinations during peak season as much as we could. This year was a bit different, working in a new industry where the company shuts down means I have had my first December leave.
Now that we live in Cape Town we are smack bang in the middle of one of the most popular holiday destinations in South Africa. But rather than stay home and hide from the tourists, we obviously want to enjoy everything we can. And let’s face it, the tourism industry needs as much support as they can get after all the lockdowns.
What I really cannot understand is the poor service from the local restaurants. It seems there is just no planning on the part of the owners or managers. When we went to restaurants we had to spend at least two hours waiting for food. In one restaurant the waiter came to us 45 minutes after taking our order and said ‘Sorry, I misplaced the order. What did you order again?’ Now you would think that they then put a rush on our order but it seems we just went in the back of the queue and waited another hour or so before the food came out. This was a standard breakfast and a chicken liver starter, hardly dishes that should have taken that amount of time at all!
I paid my way through university by being a waiter at numerous restaurants so I have been there and done that. I made good money, but I had good training. This does not mean that I sit in a restaurant looking for faults, counting how many cigarette butts there are in the ashtray before It is cleaned. I am there to enjoy my experience.
I understand that it is peak season and things may take a bit longer but here are the things that these restaurant managers seem to not understand: It is the one of very few times of the year when people are spending more than they usually do, there are a lot more customers and restaurants (and all hospitality industry companies) need to make the most of it! The lost revenues of not grabbing onto every customer these restaurants have blows my mind.
Firstly, if I am sitting there well over two hours, often more than three hours because I am waiting it means the table is not being turned around for more customers to spend their money. Other than the fact that I will not be going back to that restaurant. Secondly, the fact that I am sitting there longer does not mean that I am spending more money either. We hardly see the waiter and cannot order drinks so we just sit there.
There are obviously too many people to serve and the restaurant cannot handle it. But there is a simple solution. Restaurants need to have as many tables as they can effectively serve, as simple as that. If the kitchen is the constraint then rather change some of the tables to drinks only tables, then make sure there are enough barmen and waiters. The fact that the waiter does not take our drinks orders means there are too few of them. But sadly, not everyone can be a good waiter so if restaurants struggle to get enough waiters then the option is to remove all non-essential tasks from them so that they can focus on what they need to be doing.
What are they supposed to be doing? No, not serving the customers, they need to be entertaining them. Crack a joke, talk to them, ask them where they are from etc. Build as much of a relationship with that table as they can so that they feel good, order more food and leave a better tip. When they ask what is good here, don’s say everything. Have an opinion and tell them what is good. Have a meat-, a fish- and a pasta dish as options so that it caters for everyone. Part of entertaining is also upselling, making the meal better by adding to it, really pushing that bill. If they order a steak it needs to be accompanied with a sauce and a side of crumbed mushrooms. They order the 200 gram steak, push and get them to order the 300 gram. They order sirloin, recommend the fillet. These are the little sales and service techniques that managers are simply not teaching waiters. A 10% tip on a R200 bill versus a 10% tip on a R300 bill, multiplied over a number of tables really adds up for the waiter and the restaurant owner! People don’t like to say no to a stranger, and they are on holiday so they can spoil themselves. I also believe that it should be done in other retail stores, someone buys a couch, you add scatter cushions. But that is a discussion for another day.
So after these waiters have been trained they need the time to entertain the clients. It’s not difficult to find a few students over the holidays that need some extra cash just to be runners. They serve the food, clear the plates, clean the ashtrays and clean and prepare the table for the next people.
The section the waiter serves is also important. Many restaurants allocate waiters to a specific set of tables but others don’t and you can see the impact. If all the tables are together the waiter can keep an eye on them all from one spot, no long distance between tables. To speed up the service they need to be trained to work in a circle. This means starting at one table and taking the orders, whether it be drinks, food or dessert since the tables will be seated at different times and be in a different place in their meals. Then move to the next until all orders are placed. Punch it all into the system and while they wait for the drinks and food to be prepared they can still keep an eye on their tables and have a bit of a chat. Then serve in the same order, or hopefully the runners will pick up the orders and get it to the tables.
I am sure I am not saying anything new or profound here but it’s not being done in restaurants. And I don’t know why. Everyone knows when the December rush starts and ends so there is enough time to plan. It’s just a discipline issue.
To conclude I’ll leave you with this story. I liked to really joke with my customers and being a big rugby fan I could really have a good chat with other rugby fans. A table of four people sat in my section all wearing Western Province Rugby jerseys. The first thing I did was ask them to leave as we don’t serve province fans. The banter started so there were a lot of chirps coming my way being a Sharks supporter in province country. But the table was in good spirits and we had a good time. When it came to ordering the mains the one gent grabbed his stomach and said ‘what size steak do you think I need son?’ to which I replied without skipping a beat ‘I think you need a salad’. I immediately thought to myself that I may have taken that too far but the other three gents had a good laugh. One of the biggest tips I ever had.
Photos by Sharaan Muruvan, Louis Hansel, Tim Toomey on Unsplash
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