Oleksandr Kulinsky, Managing Director at BEEF meat & wine, is talking about efficient team and service management at a successful restaurant.
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Managing a restaurant builds on three pillars: a satisfied guest, a satisfied employee, and a satisfied owner. When all these drivers come together, the business is successful, and the responsibility lies with the managing director.
Imagine that the restaurant owner is the legislature, I am the executive, and the guest is the judiciary.
The horizontal management method is the key thing that stands out BEEF Restaurant. Indeed, success depends on the personal involvement of every manager, the chef, and the waiters. They are all linked through the managing director.
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I believe that the managing director is a businessman first. And then he is a manager and an HR expert. His daily mission is to go away from the routine, look at the situation from the outside, compare figures, and take the right steps to achieve the desired result.
I am lucky: BEEF is the place where people want to work. That is why we have lots of candidates for vacancies, and BEEF employs the best staff only. We love, encourage, and empower our waiters to earn good money. We send them to inspirational study trips, help them to improve their English and knowledge of wines.
I try to build the service team as a football one where individual strengths of each player enhance the entire team: the tallest keep the goal, the fastest play as wingers, and the most efficient are attacking players J
Even with new technologies, the profession of a waiter will never become obsolete. This profession is evolving as the culture of gastronomy and wine-drinking develops. Guests come to the restaurant not for food, but for emotions, and here much depends on the waiter. Today’s waiters are well-educated, intelligent guys for whom this job is not occasional. Our big mission at BEEF is to recruit such motivated staff.
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To grow into a good managing director, you should strive for this goal. And take actions. Your HoReCa experience will be your competitive advantage.
My rules at work are to be open to people, not to be afraid of saying no, and to be truly honest. Think about how to make money three-quarters of your time and leave the remaining quarter for
operating activities. I found reading special literature of great help and strongly recommend The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, Getting Things Done, and High Five!
And undoubtedly work hard. I work at least 14 hours a day.
Perfect service means exceeding the expectations of your guests. When it comes to premium-class restaurants, expectations are always high and are not just about food.
Always think about little things (such as phone charging, nursery, toiletry kits, high-quality hand cream, paper straws instead of plastic ones, etc.) and do not forget about personalized customer service (serving steaks on personalized wood plates; making a guest’s favorite drink while he is approaching the restaurant; finding a huge tablecloth for a common table, even when the restaurant has never had tablecloths before). Once, we ordered a taxi for a guest who had drunk too much and sent broth and Borjomi to the same address the next morning.
Care and comfort are what a guest should feel in a good restaurant.
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In turn, the best thing a guest can do for a restaurant is to leave his or her feedback, no matter positive or negative: we always welcome criticism, but find obscenities unacceptable.
I think we can hardly compare the restaurant markets of Kyiv and, say, New York. The number of tourists and the historical background made us completely different, and we can only compare ourselves today with yesterday's us. In that respect, Kyiv is developing in the right direction: more tourists are visiting the city and locals are getting a habit of going to restaurants regularly with no special occasion.
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About BEEF meat & wine: Opened in 2010, the Restaurant got be the Best Ukrainian Meat Restaurant Award twice (Salt Award 2014 and 2016) and the Wine Spectator Award (One Glass).
Alberto Foyo, an architect of the Restaurant, is a professor of architecture at Columbia University (New York). Restaurant guests find BEEF’s design to be spacious, laconic, and honest.
Meat is the main specialty of the Restaurant.
Marbled meat from the organic farm Creekstone Farms is cooked on a four-meter Parrilla open grill and in a wood-burning stove.
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