The art of good service

We’ve waited 10 minutes for water.

We’ve waited 30 minutes for an entrée.

We’ve seen other tables get served before us.

I was beginning to think there was something about me. Was I doing something wrong?

But no, it appears these are typical tales of the disappearing art of customer service. The cost of living is high, so staffing is a problem, but there is also an issue with training.

It’s not all bad. We went to The Iron Gate for our 20th anniversary (thank you very much) and I swear every person who worked there congratulated us more than once and the server brought us a dessert with a candle even though we didn’t order one.

But then, The Iron Gate is known for its service, and it’s the main reason I chose it for that night (the Caesar salad is the other).

You can tell staffing is somewhat an issue even at The Iron Gate, but they make it work by paying attention and making you feel welcome. I mean everyone feels special at The Iron Gate right?

But it’s not fine dining. I’ve had great service at The Iron Gate, and also Pausa, but one of the best servers we ever had was at Maverick Jack’s in Burlingame — quick and efficient, a couple quips and a few checkins at the perfect time. Jack’s at 92 and ECR is solid too.

For me, expectations are pretty simple. Get us water quickly, take our order before tables seated after us, ask if there is anything else needed when dropping off the food, return somewhat quickly to see again if we need anything else after we begin eating, and clear the plates after we are done. A warm personality helps too.

So what prevents this from happening? Staffing levels and training.

According to Jeffrey Stender, a fine dining waiter at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay and founder of Art of Service Consulting, it started changing during COVID, when service businesses had to cut back.

“Before COVID, there was more training. Now there is higher overhead and businesses are finding ways to cut costs,” he said.

And one of those cuts is training. So even though you may have friendly people working a place, they may not know the little things that build up to great service. For Stender, the first thing is the first thing — making a great impression.

“First impression is huge. In the restaurant business or in life,” he said. “If the front of the house seems like chaos, people notice. You have to make sure the first impression is really good.”

So what does that mean? Going out of your way to personalize, he said, including asking if it is a special occasion then following through, not getting between guests, facing toward guests when serving, clearing plates and reading the room. Little things like that could increase restaurant revenue by 24%, Stender said, because people will come back when the service is good.

“At The Iron Gate, you don’t even need to look at the menu, you know the service is good,” he said.

And it’s good for tips too. A restaurant server who forgets to put a candle in the dessert? I’ll leave 20%. A restaurant server who brings us a dessert we didn’t order just to make the night extra special? He gets double that.

Stender’s business is service, but also consulting on service, and he will do secret shopper visits, service audits and training. For him, it’s not just the first impression, but also all the impressions — including open versus closed service, meaning the server faces the diner rather than away.

“Face the guest,” he said.

In the “Forks” episode of The Bear, the well-regarded Hulu TV show about a burgeoning fine dining restaurant, Richie, one of the workers, shadows the waitstaff in another fine dining restaurant. He spends one day only shining forks and learns the value of service, of anticipating needs, of keeping the focus on the customer. In it, he serves a customer a deep-dish pizza from a famous Chicago pizzeria because he hears that they didn’t get a chance to try it on their trip. That’s above and beyond for sure, but it speaks to the idea of creating an experience, one that could linger for life.

“People remember good service,” Stender said. “They remember it.”

And that’s also smart business.