When friendly isn't good enough. Scene 2: The Pub

Jul 6, 2015
3 min read

Last night I ate in a pub in a popular tourist town in Nova Scotia. Sadly I was given more material for the theme I introduced on Friday: another case of friendly and service are not the same thing!

Let’s start with the positive. The food was mostly okay – when it finally arrived – and the prices were reasonable.

Now for the negative. Before reading further, please note I take 100% responsibility for submitting myself to the inevitable disappointment. I should have figured out there was a problem when there was a long delay between seating ourselves and the arrival of the waitress with the menus. But I was sucked in: the waitress was soooooo apologetic and nice I decided to let it go.

We ordered. The drinks arrived quickly. Things were looking up? So we thought. We were wrong.

The restaurant was quite busy. There are two rooms. One is a traditional pub – dark and woody, with pool tables, darts and a bar. We chose the sunnier room that had more of a restaurant vibe. There were two servers in our room: a very friendly man who was also very loud and the quiet but friendly woman who was allegedly looking after us.

It was warm in the room, but this wasn’t a surprise because it was a hot, sunny day and the room had big windows. Worse than the heat, the acoustics in the room were awful. The room is among the loudest I have been in – although the volume ebbed and flowed. My aunt had to turn off her hearing aid. There were two particularly large noisy tables contributing to the cacophony, encouraged by the waiter.

So the ambiance for waiting wasn’t desirable. As the minutes ticked by I was getting more and more antsy. I have been on the other side of the table when I waitressed during university. When I was a waitress if there was going to be long wait I let the customers know. Information is empowering and can diffuse a difficult situation. Managing expectations is the most important part of any job. As a consultant I see managers who lack this basic skill. I am mystified by this because It is easy to manage expectations with a little thought and care. My daughter (who took this amazing photo of Chester) could see I was becoming preoccupied so she tried to distract me with a game of 20 questions. Reflecting my increasingly prickley mood I chose a porcupine when it was my turn.

Our waitress was in and out of the room but did not come by our table from the time our drinks arrived until I flagged her down after 30 minutes of waiting. She was friendly when she finally came over and explained she could not have warned us there would be a delay when we ordered because she did not know. Fair enough but that answer does not explain why she had not been by to check on our drinks or report on the status of our orders during the intervening half hour. Another ten minutes passed before the food arrived. Which, as I mentioned, was mostly okay.

Just don’t get me started on the bathrooms.

Front of house staff in restaurants – from pubs to fine dining establishments – need to be trained by their managers to:

Acknowledge and greet customers as they arrive.
Provide menus and water in five minutes or less. Take drink orders immediately.
Gauge your customers and determine if they are in a rush, if they would like a leisurely experience or something in between. Once you understand their timetable, serve them at a pace that works for them to take orders, time dishes with the kitchen and other aspects of service.
Communicate any critical information from the kitchen that may impact your customers’ experience.
Stay in touch with your tables from a discrete distance, ensuring no one is wanting for anything throughout the time the table is in your section.
Be courteous and attentive, which is not the same thing as being friendly.