wednesday 11/5/14 recap

Written By: Dusten

LY Lunch Sales: 1728
Projected Sales: 1823
TY Lunch Sales: 1427
+/- :-$396 under projected and down 17% from LY
Lunch Covers: 93
Avg PPA:15.34

LY Dinner Sales: 4153
Projected Sales: 4360
TY Dinner Sales:4265
+/- : up from LY by 3%. -$95 short of projected.
Dinner Covers: 181
Avg PPA:23.56

Weather: Rainy and cool. All day. All night.

Any Special events going on?:

Who worked?:
AM: Sayo, Sophia, Lindsey and Alex CL, Hiroe FR, Jason SA, Junko training Megan (3rd host train)
PM: Sayo, Sophia, Clair, Naoto, Stephanie CL, Jonathan SA, Kaori SA and Ally Hosting

Flow of Business, Cuts and Ticket Times: Slow Lunch. We got a pop after I cut down to just Alex and Lindsey. I saw Lindsey struggle a bit but not like last night. Left Alex on to help her and they closed it down. Alex and Lindsey make a good team, but I had to keep on them about closing duties. The place was a mess when they wanted to leave.
Dinner was busier. It seemed like we had a lot of table hanging around due to the weather though. I think it was good practice for Ally to handle a lobby full of people. No one wanted to be outside tonight.

Specials? 17 bento. Alex sold lots of those. 1x T.carpaccio, 6x poisson Cru.

3 Staff members that stood out (why/how):I've never worked with Jonathan SA before. He is meticulous but slow and inefficient at times. I watched him bussing a table with a tray containing only a bento box. He was gathering up chopsticks and napkins and glasses with his one hand and placing them on the tray. I went over and told him to put the tray down, take the bento box off of it and use both hand to buss the little things onto the tray and carry the bento box in his other hand once everything was loaded up. Bussing with two hands only seems like common sense. I also stopped him from going to help pre-bus when I noticed people trying to get moisture from water glasses only containing ice. It is great to help servers out, but it is better to know how to prioritize one's assistance.
Stephanie handled herself well on the sushi bar tonight. She seemed frantic a little bit at times, but that can be how sushi bar goes at times. A table left her a 50% tip on a good sized ticket.
Ally did really well at the host stand. She came to me with a few questions here and ther so I hung out with her and made her drinks and that sort of thing. I think she has just the right energy to greet people but I know she will have to toughen up too. One guy was taking exception to the seating policy when we were full with several people on wait. Luckily his tardy party member showed before I was needed to step in.

Any VIP's in? Didn't see any familiar faces for lunch. Or really dinner for that matter. Lots of new faces though!

Comps& Void Detail:
So one of the guys from last night's table of arrogant knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing sociopaths called with a few questions regarding the billing on his cards. Actually it was the main guy stirring up trouble. Of course HE would call. We basically had the same conversation over and over that we had last night over and over. They initially gave Lindsey three credit cards to pay. When they weren't satisfied with 8 out of 12 nigiri pieces removed, they only gave me 2 cards to pay for the bill with all 12 pieces removed. This guy wanted to know why his credit card charge had increased. I explained that the total bill was reduced by $32 plus tax for the other 4x $8 toro nigiri, but because the number of payment methods were reduced, the amount charged to each card was increased, as one of his friends declined to pay for their share of the bill. Nice friends. He repeatedly completely misunderstood what I very carefully explained to him. Long story short, I sat with him on the phone and broke out the calculator and figured out exactly how much money each of the card holders needed to collect from their friend in cash.
In the process of all this I managed to review their treatment of Lindsey, of Hiroe, myself and of the rest of our staff and guests. I told them we, at Kome held our standards of food and service very high, and welcome constructive criticism and offer appropriate restitution when we are found to be lacking. I also told him that we have a very basic standard for behavior that we expect of our guests, and that they were WAY out of line last night. He countered with, "well... it was really just one guy." I wondered if he knew he was referring to himself! I responded by saying that if there is a mistake on the food, or a fault in service he would hold Kome as a restaurant and staff responsible right? "Right." Same for everyone sitting at a table of adults carrying on as they did. If no one accepts responsibility for it, everyone is accountable and none of them are welcome to return. He's on his way back to Chile tomorrow so this didn't exactly faze him, but he understood. We got off the phone.
He called back a second time with questions about the tip that he left. I was so glad I got the chance to tell him all of these things! I told him that the tip he left, after Lindsey paid her tip-out percentage to the support staff and sushi bar, she would actually have to pay money from her pocket to serve them. I told him that I allowed her to reject their meager gratuity because, "it ain't all about money over here either." I also mentioned if there was any hint of gratuity accepted on our part Lindsey would be in very big trouble. Hopefully that is the final nail in that coffin and we can put the whole ridiculous ordeal to rest. 

I voided a couple of rolls for Sophia, duplicates that weren't made. Also a glass of the old Pinot Noir- 86. Should we mark off the beverages on the table tent flyers as we run out of them? A b-day desset cheese cake.

I looked over the Makanai policy that Take typed up today as it was sitting on the sushi bar. I think it is great we are offering a 50% discount to the host and cocktail. Should we not offer the same to our SA's? They get the same pay as the food runner but no free meal. Also I noticed the discount for servers remains at 20% which is basically the same we offer to other restaurant employees on SIN. These are things that I mentioned to Kayo when I had my one on one meeting with her, and I remember there was more discussion to be had between Take and Kayo regarding them. I extended the discount Ally today and she was grateful for it. I just wonder if it is set policy now or if there is still more to be said on it.

R&M needs?:John La Touf came in for the rent today. He mentioned something about guys coming to fixing the roof, but it was in that very vague 'landlord has to say something on a rainy day and the roof is leaking but he still gets his check' kind of way. We had two parties in the party room, where there is a leak, but it didn't seem to be an issue until the end of the last party. i had Naoto put a bucket under the leak before we closed up. Looks pretty bad... as usual.

86'd items/ need more? more tea lights for tables. We seem to have a shortage of ramekins as well.