It’s cool though because I have been working at this bar for a really long time (like 9 months) and Joe Schmo owner owes me because he is never around and I am the one doing all the stinkin’ work.  I’d like to see this place run without me, Joe Schmo wouldn’t know what to do.  I do all the cleaning (poorly), cut all the fruit (half – assed), put all the liquor away, stock the beer, change the kegs, and I have to deal with his drunken regular friends who only tip me a dollar a drink.  On top of that every time the guy is around he acts like I am stealin’ from him.  I don’t get.  I’d like to see this place run without me, old Joe Schmo, he wouldn’t know what to do.

This is the psychological tie that binds many, many, many hourly restaurant employees.  WTF?  Restaurant employees on a whole make far more money per hour than many part time employees.  A good bartender, $25 an hour  easy.  A good server $18 an hour easy.  A good line cook.  If he isn’t demanding $14 an hour it is only because he doesn’t know his own worth.  All in Eugene, Oregon.  A good grocery checker is lucky to make $10 and hour.  Wanna work at Best Buy or REI.  Hope you’re doing it for the discount because you ain’t gonna make jack for money.  Minimum wage or slightly over at best.  RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES MAKE VERY GOOD MONEY ON A PER HOUR BASIS – THEY ARE ENTITLED TO THEIR AGREED UPON WAGE AND THEIR EARNED TIPS.  No more, no less. Period.  If you would like to provide for them beyond this go ahead.  This is all they are entitled to.  If you got a bunch of employees sitting on your throne in your court it’s time to knock’em off.  Restaurant and bar work is not rocket science.  They are replaceable.  They need to know this.  The positive skills they have are teachable and trainable, and the negative skills they have are the biggest detriment to your profitability and sustainability in business.

I’m not saying don’t provide a good work environment and strive to achieve a culture of teamwork and family.  Draw some guidelines and stick with’em.  French fries are not free.  Pickles are not free.  Beer is not free.  Chicken breast are not free.  Not to you or your employees.  If we start to realize these things maybe we can start to be competitive to managers in the form of incentives and benefits packages with other industries.  We then can attract real leaders who can break the 70 hour work week cycle.  Your entitled to your business….take it back.

A couple of years ago I was searching for ways to really teach bartenders to pour accurate shots and so I ordered some plastic graduated cylinders online .  I simply mark these cylinders at an ounce and a quarter or an ounce and a half.  Which ever is the standard pour size for the particular client of mine.  The bartenders then practice with a bottle filled with water.  It is a very effective method of free pour training, especially if performed continually.

Once the cylinders arrived I wanted to practice myself.  I have done a bit of  bartending but was never given any feedback on the accuracy of my portioning, so I was curious how I would do.  At first I was overpouring nearly every drink that I poured.  However, by about the fifteenth or twentieth practice pour I was starting to get pretty good and was hitting my mark  (or within a tenth of an ounce or so) nearly each time.   It was nice to get the immediate feedback on my actions, and I was patting myself on the back for my accuracy.  Sometimes I still like to practice my pours.  I like to do it when I am preparing dinner at home, to simulate the busy actions going on while a bartender is pouring.  Chopping, water boiling, grill going….order taking, req ticket printer, POS entry.  Really similar actually.

Now, I’m not a bartender, but I can pour an ounce and a half or an ounce and  a quarter.  Don’t let over portioning go unnoticed, and don’t accept excuses when people try to justify it.  Remember, it often times isn’t our best guests who get over portioned.  I hear bartenders complain all the time about so and so, who is in everyday, but never tips and is such a cheap skate and so on and so forth.  No wonder they are not getting tips when they are complaining about this person every time they are in the bar and giving the guest shitty service generally being non service providers.    It is always the best tippers who get over poured.  Family members, friends of the bartender, other bartenders, or a guy dropping a big tip on the first drink, because he knows if he does he’ll get poured deep drinks all night.

I can pour an ounce and a half or an ounce and a quarter.  No excuses no exceptions.

The answer is really quite simple, you as the owner or manager must be the watcher of the auditor, and must question the formulas and methods of his or her work.  However, a good auditor welcomes these questions.  It is his or her chance to prove the undeniable facts of his or her work.  The ownership should be relentless in questioning the auditor and the auditor’s work until he or she is satisfied that the methods being used to deliver the audit statistics are accurate and honest.

A good auditor realizes this.  A good auditor also realizes that they are human and welcomes a second set of eyes on his or her work.  Often times I will make a mistake in my auditing procedure and have an owner or manager who I trust point the error out to me.  When they do I am disappointed in myself for making a mistake, but very happy that I have the opportunity to work with professionals who question my work no matter how awkward it may be for them.  It is this type of feedback which helps me improve and helps our organizations improve.

After this I am not going to write about auditing for a while.  I don’t want this blog to turn into an advertisement for the services my company provides, but the views of an industry from someone who has been on the inside, the outside, the upside and the downside.  All groups are equal here,  owners, servers, dishwashers, prep cooks, auditors, vendors, instructors, professionals, lifers, part – timers, seasonals, organizers, and me.  We all have our part to do and we all need to recognize the need of the other parts.  Everyone seems to agree that when a good or long time restaurant or bar in town shuts that it is bad for the industry as a whole.  Cities like Chicago and New Orleans have their share of new and innovative bars and restaurants, but there is also the classics, places like Morton’s or Ruth’s Chris, that have survived, grown and become iconic in our industry.  Places that have been blessed with a continuity of ownership and management that lead a great place from generation to generation.

I believe that most people are honest, but will test the waters if given the chance.  It is like the ageless question, who is more honest a bank teller or a bartender?  Most people would guess a bank teller.  But that is not true, bank tellers suffer from the same weaknesses that all people do, but they have strict measures of accountability in the form of auditors.  If an armored car shorts a delivery at a bank (a scenario not unlike Timmy and Bud Man’s in the first post) then the auditor is all over it.  An auditor never lets shortages go unnoticed, always investigates discrepancies in the figures.  He can use scientific methods to locate individual problem areas which could not be investigated otherwise. An auditor or controller, who is only accountable to the ownership to deliver honest, accurate feedback about the movement of the assets of a business is essential in every organization.

Auditing is essential.  It is the provider of timely information. Feedback is essential.  It is the timely solver of  problems. Auditing should be the sole responsibility of a singular individual in an organization.  A person who reports only to ownership.  Not management, the auditor is an essential part of management.

Effective auditors do not spend significant time in house, and they rarely visit the establishment during off hours.  It is their job to watch everyone at all hours,  employees, vendors, management, and even ownership and family.  A good auditor is happy to explain their methodolgy to anyone, because it is a very simple science, using simple math.  I believe that all owners should make considering methods of efficiently and accurately auditing their establishments a high priority.  Often times it can be achieved though a POS system or simply a scale and microsoft excel.   It does take a bit of time to develop these types of systems. Which is why an outside individual trained in auditing, bookkeeping, or business consulting is often the best person for the job, especially in smaller organizations (like bars and restaurants).   This type of person meets the condition of not spending significant time in house by default. The cost of auditing services will almost always be recouped many times over in improved efficiencies in operations, improved profitability, improved communication, improved staff moral, and improved piece of mind.

The line cook, we’ll call him Johnny, told me that he had been doing business with this wonderful Budweiser delivery driver for years (apparently he had previously dealt in Coors products), and it was well known around town amongst the line cooks, bartenders, and various other restaurant types that this gentlemen was your on call service provider for cheap beer.  Being relatively new to the ins and outs of the restaurant and bar business I was perplexed about the logistics and marketing of the situation.  How could this guy just sell beer off his truck to anyone and everyone?  Who was floating the bill?   Budweiser?  Hell no, why would they?  The driver himself?  Surely the distributor did not give away enough free cases of beer to their drivers for him to make the profit of setting up a small business worth the trouble.  Anyway, the distributor wants to sell beer to stores who will then sell to the consumer, therefore fattening the bottom line.  Who was paying the supply cost of Bud Man?

After giving this situation some serious thought, it finally hit me.  It wasn’t Budweiser or the wholesale distributor paying for the product, it was Timmy, the small restaurant owner down the street.  Timmy was so busy everyday that he often times didn’t have a chance to place an order with Budweiser (delegating this task to the delivery driver or salesman), much less check it in when it was delivered in the middle of the Thursday lunch rush.  He would simply let Bud Man stroll in with his hand truck and cases and kegs of beer.  Toss him the keys to the cooler (if there were any) and let him off to do his thing.  And what would Bud Man do.  Easy.  He would go in the walk in and move a few things around and see what Timmy had so much product in stock that he wouldn’t run out for the week.  Then he would just leave those items on the truck and walk up to Timmy and hand him the invoice.  And what would Timmy do?  We know he didn’t check the product in, he has eight req tickets hanging on the wheel.  Instead he grabs the check book and writes out a check for the total amount.  Poor, poor (and I mean that in the literal expression of the word) Timmy.  I heard Timmy’s out of business…too bad I liked the guy.