IF ever there was an example of dumb management, it's the concept of restaurants using tips to "top-up" waiters' salaries so that they hit the minimum legal wage requirement. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? Hey, why don't we totally de-motivate the primary contact person for our customers? Resentful, bitter employees are always good for business, particularly in service industries. Hmm – I wonder why these online reviews say our service is "shut" – that must b
Shut service is the number one reason restaurants don't get repeat business. For all that many restaurant owners know about food and cooking, too many don't understand that the principle ingredient in a successful restaurant is good service; it doesn
't have to be brilliant; merely "good". HL Mencken wrote "The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology" – and that must include restaurants. I don't expect them to have all-singing, all-dancing waiters – indeed the more waiters try to be personalities as opposed to competent servers, the more they distract from the simple pleasure of eating out. Turn up at the table when the customer would like you to, write down what they want (perhaps but not necessarily) with a smile on your face, beetle off and get it.
Most, if not all, restaurant dishes you could cook at home yourself – perhaps not as quickly, perhaps not as elegantly and perhaps not when your chubby sister has popped round to wash her hair in the sink because her shower has "gone all funny", but certainly well enough to be a passable, soggy imitation. Eating out is all about service. Good food should be a given.
The fact that there has to be legislation to make restaurant owners stop behaviour that can only, in the medium to long-term, be harmful to their business is a tragi-comic indictment. Think about it – how big does a problem have to be before there needs to be governmental legislation? I would argue, and hope, that only widespread problems need such action.
I have no idea how widespread this tip-stealing practice is in Edinburgh – there are rumours about various well-known establishments – but I do know that if there was an Olympics for restaurant service, Scotland would be playing the role of one of those plucky Third World nations whose national colours nobody recognises but everyone cheers at the opening parade because there are only two of them and one is carrying a flag.
By the way, in case some think that this is going to be another Hennigan-bashing of Scotland – "He's a serial abuser!" – let me say that there is at least one First World European country where the service is even worse. Hint: if you happen to go out for lunch in Norway, be sure to pack some sandwiches, and maybe a Bible.
To continue as a Norwegian would, August is when the service-lemmings of Edinburgh throw themselves off the cliffs. As if things aren't bad enough, a sudden influx of selfish, demanding tourists wanting to spend money completely destroys the year-long attempt to engineer a service level that is merely grim. In August, Edinburgh hits the Marianas Trench (look it up) of service. You can understand why. The Edinburgh Festival has only been going since 1947 and it can take a while to get the staff. What's that? Figures show that tourists numbers are down this year? Oh well, it must be the weak dollar, Beijing 2008, carbon-friendly non-travellers – whatever. It couldn't possibly be that it's easier for two fat men to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to get a warm coffee in less than ten minutes in central Edinburgh and that word just might, just very, very might be getting round.
Always an exceptionRATHER than try and identify what it is about Scotland that makes our character ill-disposed to decent service, I'd rather single out three establishments that provide consistently good service. Importantly, in all three of Iggs on Jeffrey Street, Cafe Marina on Cockburn Street and The Dogs on Hanover Street, the proprietor plays a central role front of house. Granted, these establishments might tend towards the quirky in terms of certain aspects of their operation, but they consistently hit the stylish basics on the head.
The name gameAPPARENTLY some community leaders are concerned that identical street names in different part of Edinburgh are causing confusion – e.g. St Clair St in Leith and St Clair Terrace in Morningside. Apparently there is no record of any confusion on behalf of the emergency services or indeed anyone whatsoever as far as investigations and/or records can show. Apparently community leaders have a lot of time on their hands.
The full article contains 810 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
