Food & Beverage - Icky Stuff: 20 Ways to Upset and Lose Customers - By Ken Burgin

Familiarity makes it easy to overlook a host of unpleasant, icky* things we make them experience.

Ask someone you trust to do a brutally honest review of your venue, from front door to rear entrance. Here are a few of the nasties they may find:

• Toilets - everything about them can be pleasant...or awful. Wet and dirty seats, bad smells, unclean surfaces, no paper - how are they on a busy night?

• Staff aprons - worn and dirty, or fresh. Do they look like they've done a year of hard service?

• Stale smells - how fresh is your function room if it's been closed for a while? Or the restaurant when you open in the morning?

• Staff collecting dirty glasses with their fingers - you know what happens. Why don't they use trays properly?

• An open kitchen that's dirty and untidy. Busy kitchens are messy in minutes, but good design keeps this out of public view. What's on the shelves that can be seen outside?

• Worn flooring in high-traffic areas - it may be clean, but looks bad and needs professional resurfacing or polishing.

• Dirty saucepan bases. When people to look into the kitchen, every metal surface should shine, not be grimy and burnt.

• Fluorescent display lights visible by customers - it's meant to make the product look appetizing, not shine in our eyes.

• Distorted music - you need good speakers and a good amplifier that doesn't have to be turned up high. Plus music your customers (not your staff) love.

• The customer view as they stand at your counter and look down - how tidy is it?

• Clutter - piles of old magazines, out of date newspapers etc. You're not running a dental surgery!

• The cleanliness of your entrance and windows out of hours - does it look good even at 6am?

• Anything sticky! Carpet that clings to your shoes, or the arms of chairs - this is caked-on grease. How does it feel under table tops or counter edges - alarming? Usually no shortage of chewing gum...

• Wiping the counter then cleaning the coffee machine steam wand with the same cloth.

• Wiping seats after a customer leaves, then wiping the table top with the same cloth.

• Visible cleaning equipment - mops, buckets, dustpans etc. How come they're always grubby when their purpose is to clean?!

• The bin and waste areas if they are visible to customers.

• Male staff who haven't shaved today. It's not because they're growing a beard, but because the grooming policy is lax. Your thoughts?

• Staff eating or smoking in view of the customer - never a good look to see kitchen staff chewing food.

• Staff grooming behaviour - do they realise they're touching hair, picking their nose, fiddling with earrings or scratching themselves? Elsewhere please...

*icky - defined by the Urban Dictionary as 'an odd or disgusting situation'.


Profitable Hospitality offers management and cost-control systems (Manuals & CD-ROMs) for restaurants, cafes, hotels, bars and clubs. The systems are based on the extensive consulting and operating experience of CEO Ken Burgin, and enable busy owners and managers to set up complete operating and cost-control systems in minutes, not months. Profitable Hospitality also runs regular management training workshops in the areas of kitchen profit & efficiency, restaurant marketing and functions management. A free monthly e-newsletter keeps you up to date on the latest industry management issues. www.profitablehospitality.com.

Reader Comments:

Be the first to leave a comment for this article