Quality Service… Where Has It Gone?

I have worked in the restaurant industry for many years now and there is a big difference in the quality of work from servers. I don’t place all the blame on the servers because the amount of money they make per hour has not changed since the 1920’s and most people still do not tip properly. But with anything that you do you should do it to the best of your abilities and sometimes that means taking initiative to learn information to improve your craft.

 Servers make $2.12 an hour in most restaurants. Country clubs, hotel restaurants, and banquet servers make more per hour because oft-times they do not earn tips. The amount of money you make per hour from your employer is not reflective of who you are as a person but the quality of service you give your customers is, and will determine how much money you will make that shift. I started out in fast food in high school, KFC. I loved that job or maybe I just liked working. In college I moved into fine dining, started as a hostess and then moving to server. I remember learning seat positions so that no matter who ran your food to the table the customer always got the right food without having to be asked who ordered what. I remember learning table times which is the amount of time it should take for you to greet the customer (30 to 60 seconds), take drink and appetizer order (3 to 5 minutes), food order, and desert order. This also included how many minutes it should take for the customer to receive each item. Servers today do not practice these standards. I don’t know if they are not being taught or if they simply just don’t care but the quality of service has declined.

Ultimately it is the restaurants responsibility to provide the proper training and to enforce quality service which is my second reason for not blaming the servers. Many of them have never been through a wine training class and most restaurants do not have their servers sit down and sample the whole menu. How can you describe food that you’ve never tasted? The manager at the first restaurant I worked in made me eat baked beans but after that I was able to describe them honestly to my customers. Serving is selling and to sell you must know your product. Restaurants are focusing more on quantity, the number of people who enter the restaurant, rather than the quality of service given by their waiters.