Saturday 11.23.13

LY Lunch Sales:$2301
TY Lunch Sales: $2417

+/- :up 5%

LY Dinner Sales: $4855
TY Dinner Sales:$6326
+/- :up 30%  Blew it out of the water! Whats up!

Weather: Colder than yesterday. Still misting here and there with bouts of rain.

Any Special events going on?: East Austin Studio tours

Who worked?:
Lunch: Johnny, Stephanie, Kate, Clair CL. Jason SA, Hiroe FR, Lyn
Dinner: Stephanie, Esther, Naoto, Miho, Dusten CL. Perfaijer SA, Kaori FR, Lyn and Lindsey

Flow of Business, Cuts and Ticket Times:
Lunch: busy would be a good word to describe today. We picked up immediately and were pretty full by 1, but it cleared out around 1:30 I was anticipating another pop and sure enough around 1:45 the second wave hit. We went on a small wait, and I'm so glad I didn't make any cuts until 2:45 when I cut everyone. The kitchen got hit real hard with Ramen, which was to be expected with weather like todays. We were very, scarily close to running out of noodles, but we didn't. A few things I observed: Mario needs direction and needs to learn to prioritize. He works only 1 day a week here and really hasn't learned enough to be quick on a busy ramen line. Christina was getting bogged down with having to organize the tickets coming in and shouting out orders, along with making the 68 Ramens that came in over the course of the day. So she was stretched way too thin. Then I feel as though Fumi could have been of more help when he didn't have much going on, or at least to scoot over and help pull tickets. At one point Leo popped over to help and gave mario a little direction. After the shift Take and I talked about it and what they really lacked was a leader in the kitchen. Maybe even if Mario was able to work the Ramen station with more proficiency, then Christina could act as the Expo and the go between. We need to be ready for more days like this, it's only going to get colder...or at least stay this cold.

Dinner: Started with a bang- went on a wait by 6:05 and stayed on a wait until 10pm. No issues whatesoever. Had a lot of large parties early on, several 5 and 6 tops, a 12 top and then the party room reso with 12 and 6. No long ticket times, it was really smooth over all. It started a little chaotic because the wait we went on and by 6:30 the lobby was packed and over flowing into the dining room. What can we do to help with this issue? Anything?

Buzztable: This new app is really so much fun. We sat 163 covers tonight, with an average wait time of 26 minutes and the longest wait being 63 minutes. 6 Parties no showed and there were 8 "regulars" (which means return guests). On an more awesome note we had 9 new  guests sign up for the buzztable app. I'm still working with Chris at Buzztable to understand more about how we can use it has a marketing tool, but so far, in the last 2 nights we've gone from having 22 members, to 36. A huge jump for 2 days! Leary- if you have any questions about it please don't hesitate to ask (as far as entering in servers names or the app itself) take some time in the morning to play around with it. It's pretty simple. And if you get stuck there is a help tab that can...well...help.

Any VIP's in?
That angry guy that always wants his spicy tonkotsu with an extra aji-tama, extra spicy on the side, and lean pork belly, was in. It was during our longest ticket time period and so I went over and talked to him- apologized, in advance, for the length of time it will take to get his ramen to him, then told him we just got a new kitchen manager so going forward hopefully we can hone this skill and not take so long to get him his ramen (the last time he was in, he got upset because his ramen took too long and then the pork belly was fatty...yeah.) He told me he appreciated my communication with him about it, and in the end he left and he told me, in these exact words 'I am so happy'. The End. Nailed it!

Dinner: Rachel and Carols. That single dad guy, David (I'm assuming he's a single dad, I only ever see him with his child or by himself) Take had a friend in too.

Comps of note:
Buzztable Gyoza comps

R&M needs?:
none that I can think of at the moment.