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Hi Tech vs. No Tech
John is yelling, screaming, to be heard. "I need a fajita beef for one, on a rail...yesterday...NOW!" He doesn't want to yell at his staff but they could not hear him otherwise, above the din of server yammer, dish clatter and occasional phone call that rolls over onto the kitchen P.A. Ordinarily, he wouldn't need to even raise his voice but tonight, Friday night, the P.O.S. system has gone down.
We cut away now, as John spouts off several expletives, ending in "...damn computers!"
At the corporate office which "supports" John, Karen is on the IS&T Help Desk, working the 7am - 3pm shift on Monday morning. "Ok, now click the 'Start' button," she is prodding an assistant manager. "No...no, it's not on your keyboard...it's on the lower left part of your monitor...your screen. Yeah, there ya go!" She knows she is not supposed to, she knows it is not right but she rolls her eyes as a colleague walks in with her double tall latte from Starbucks.
Too often, these scenarios play out in restaurant companies around the globe, as technology and the F&B biz try to find their places in each other's world. Submit a simple search for "restaurant technology" on Alta Vista and find 3,801,485 pages to surf through.
"I know I am old school but sometimes I miss the days of just writing down the customer's order on a green ticket and sticking it on the wheel," says Angel Borg, manager of Gulliver's Restaurant in Irvine, California. "There just seemed to be fewer problems."
This statement reflects the underlying belief of many restaurant managers, especially those that have been in the business for 5 - 10 years and have seen the evolution of restaurant computers grow from a simple Price Look Up (PLU) system to complex, windows-based programs which integrate (or try to!) with Accounting software and then upload to Headquarters.
One story, told by a district manager for a large chain, echoes the frustration of many tech-no-phobes.
"I arrived on Saturday in one of my Orange County locations. It was about 6:30 pm, and the restaurant was about three quarters full. The food cost had been running high in that store and I was looking forward to working with the KM to try and identify some areas of opportunity. When I got into the kitchen, I saw no managers and ticket times were approaching 30 minutes. I helped expedite some food for a while and then started looking around for my KM. Surely, I thought, he must be running some food or, worst case, at the store buying something.
"But I never expected to find him where I did. That's right. On the computer!"
"I'm trying to figure out why my food cost is high!" he said.
I won't say I never lose control in my job but I will say that right then was probably the worst I ever lost it.
"Let me tell you something, Bob...of course I am changing his name. You don't find out why your food cost is so #$%@'ed up back here on the #)($(++ computer! You find out why your #$(*)@ food cost is so #($*#!'ed up in your #()$*@ kitchen!"
Two weeks later, Bob left the restaurant business to become a mortgage broker. Two months later, the district manager quit, on the advice of his doctor.
The computer program that was being tested generated the highest food cost reporting in the entire 150+ unit chain and was scrapped, after several hundred thousand dollars spent in beta.
Are computer programs and grease filters destined to live apart? Can software really help the food & beverage business? At Dinersoft, we are exploring these questions. We love technology but don't take for granted that a faster, more-complex application is the answer to every problem.
What do you think?
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