1. Chapter 10
Serving Your Guests

2. Definition of Service and Hospitality
Service: measured by how well everyone in the operation is doing their jobs.
Hospitality is the feeling that guests take with them from their experience with the operation.
Good customer service results in decreased marketing costs (customers share “word of mouth” advertisement)
When the offerings of competitors are similar, the competitive advantage often comes from the nature and quality of customer service.
Working in a service industry means serving people directly. This is the single most important aspect of the job.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

3. First Impressions
First impressions are often the strongest impression we have of a person, place, or event.
A positive first impression goes a long way in setting the tone of a guest’s experience.
A strong first impression is one of the least expensive and most effective forms of advertising.
The appearance of all restaurant and foodservice employees also affects a guest’s first impression.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

4. Identifying Customers’ Needs
It is up to all employees to ensure prompt, friendly, and professional service. They should start by identifying the customer’s needs.
1. Older customers
2. Families with young children
3. Customers with special dietary needs
4. First-time guests might be unfamiliar with the menu
5. Language barriers
6. Customers with disabilities
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

5. Greeting and Taking Orders
The greeter provides the first impression in appearance, friendliness, and attentiveness.
As each guest at the table selects their meal, the server notes guest orders on pre-printed guest checks or small note pads.
Some guests may ask the server whether certain ingredients can be removed from dishes due to food allergies or other special needs. Servers need to note correctly any special requirements and ensure that the chef understands the request.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

6. Suggestive Selling
Suggestive selling involves recommending additional or different items to a guest.
Suggestive selling maximizes guest satisfaction and increases both the average check and the server’s tip.
Talking about daily specials is a part of suggestive selling.
After guests place an order, let them know they’ve made a good decision by complimenting their choices.
Servers can also recommend menu items that they personally like.
Suggestive selling should be part of an ongoing training effort.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

7. Alcohol Service
Alcohol service is often an integral part of a dining experience.
The amount of alcohol absorbed into a person’s bloodstream is called blood alcohol content (BAC).
It is against the law to drive with a BAC of 0.08 or higher in all 50 states.
You must be 21 years old to purchase or serve alcohol in all 50 states.
If you sell or serve alcohol, you are responsible for ensuring that customers are of legal age by checking their IDs (drivers license, state ID card, military ID, passport)
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

8. Getting Feedback on Customer Satisfaction
To determine how well the restaurant or foodservice operation meets guests’ expectations, it is useful to measure their satisfaction.
Comment cards are quick surveys that customers complete noting their satisfaction with the food and service.
Surveys are similar to comment cards but sometimes include more open-ended questions.
Focus groups consist of customers that meet as a group to talk with managers about possible improvements in service or other areas.
Mystery shoppers are hired by an operation to visit and report on their experiences and impressions of an operation.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

9. Resolving Customer Complaints
An unhappy customer is bad for business, so every operation needs an organized system for handling and resolving all guest complaints.
Management must train every staff member on how to handle customer complaints.
It is important to recognize when a guest is upset so that the problem can quickly be resolved.
Never ignore or avoid a dissatisfied guest.
Proactively addressing such concerns with customers can turn a dissatisfied customer into a repeat guest.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

10. Contemporary and Traditional Service
Quick service is an easy and fast way to dine and typically involves no servers.
Traditional service style reflects four main influences: American, French, English, and Russian.
American service:
Food is arranged on plates in the kitchen by cooks
brought directly to the guests’ table by the server
uses the fewest tools and equip.
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11. French service French service:
servers present the food to guests from a tableside cart, called a guéridon
food is kept warm in a warming unit on a cart called a rechaud (ray-SHOW)
considered the most most elegant and labor intensive style of service

12. English Service English service: Also known as family-style dining
the simplest and least expensive
bowls and platters of food are placed on the table, and a seated host or hostess places the food onto plates.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

13. Russian Service the most formal service style
All food preparation is done in the kitchen
The bowls and platters of food are then brought on a cart to guests at the table.
Servers hold the bowls and platters as they serve the food to each guest.
Crowding customers during service is a problem
See page 654

14. Table Settings Napkin the middle of the setting
Dinner knife to the right of plate with sharp edges facing plate
Spoon to right of knife
Dinner fork to left of plate
Salad fork to left of dinner fork
Water or wine glass above knife
Bread plate to the left of fork
See page 653 (draw it out)

15. Traditional Service Set-ups
Dinner knife: Used for all entrées and main courses.
Butter knife: used to butter bread or cut breakfast foods, fruit, and other softer foods.
Fish knife: Used only to filet and cut fish.
Steak knife: Used to cut beef.
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16. Traditional Service Set-ups (cont.)
Forks
Dinner fork: main courses, vegetables
and pasta
Salad fork: salad, appetizers, desserts
Oyster fork: served with oysters and
clams
Cake fork: has 3 tines, cakes and other desserts
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17. Spoons Spoons: Soup spoon: oval spoon head
Espresso spoon: much smaller
than a coffee spoon
Grapefruit spoon: jagged edges for
carving into grapefruit
Iced tea spoon: long handle to stir
large glasses of tea

18. China or dinnerware 2. Dinner plate:
1. Underliner plate or charger: large decorative plate used underneath the plate on which food is served
2. Dinner plate:
10-12 inches across; used for main courses
4. Salad plate:
7-8 inches across; used for salads, desserts, appetizers, base plate for gravy boat
5. Monkey dish: shallow bowl, used for relishes or dipping sauces
6. Tureen: a large covered bowl, used to serve soup p. 660
7. Snail plate: 6 or 12 indentations for holding snails
8. Gravy boat: has special spout to prevent spilling when pouring gravy

19. Traditional Service Staff Responsibilities
Formal service:
maître d’hotel: resp. for the management of service
headwaiter: responsible for service in a particular area
Captain: responsible for a server area, and is assisted by the front waiter or an apprentice (server in training)
Less formal service:
Floor manager is charge of the operation during a particular shift and supervises servers
Servers: responsible for a specific section of dining room
Food runners: assists with bringing food from kitchen to the tables
Busers: assist with cleaning up and resetting of tables
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

20. Service Tools and Stations
In full-service restaurants, servers usually carry many different service tools with them.
Service tools may include a hand towel, a lighter, a corkscrew, change, a pen, an order pad, and sometimes a crumber, which is used to neatly gather and clear crumbs and debris from a table cloth.
The service station is the area in which an operation keeps additional items such as napkins, silverware, cups and saucers, condiments, menus, and water glasses.
Servers use different serving utensils when they serve food to guests.
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Chapter 10 | Serving Your Guests

21. Essential serving skills
1. From the guests left:
Serve from platters
Serving solid foods, including bread and salad
Removing anything served from the left
2. From the guests’ right:
Clearing plates
Serving liquids (soups and beverages)