Wednesday 7/27/16 recap

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LY Lunch Sales: 1645
Projected Sales : 1750
TY Lunch Sales: 2079
+/- : $329 over PS and 26% over LY
Lunch Covers: 132
Avg PPA: 15.75


LY Dinner Sales: 5140
Projected Sales : 4750
TY Dinner Sales: 4376
+/- :-374 under PS and -15% from LY
Dinner Covers: 167
Avg PPA: 26.20



Weather: rainy this morning. upper 80's to low 90's rest of the day

Special events?:


Who worked: Lunch: Naoto, Krystin, Kelly, Mandy CL, Taylor FR, Hatha H and Will SA
Dinner: Naoto, Krystin, Grace, Sayo, Sophia CL, Taylor FR, Hatha and John H and Will SA

Flow of Business, Cuts and Ticket Times: Lunch was steady. we went on a short wait at about 12:30 with maybe 5 two-tops on the queue. Sushi bar tickets stacked up for a little while, but nothing crazy. Kitchen had a few issues early on. The first I don't think it was anyone's fault- a woman found the tiniest spider crawling around on her plate. It could have come from around the table, perhaps the salad mix, but she wasn't too disturbed by it. Had the kitchen remake her katsu teishoku and everything was fine.
The more pervasive issue came from portioning of the kara-age and yakiniku. Mandy's party room ordered 4 kara-age teishoku, 2 thai 2 regular. The guys with the Thai style said their portions were significantly smaller than the regular. No one could really verify this except for Mandy. Had the kitchen send out two 1/2 orders Thai style and everything was fine. Immediately after that... not kidding, the next thing I saw leaving the kitchen was a Yakiniku teishoku that looked like a half portion. Kitchen says they were told to only put 3 pieces of beef on each skewer (and same amount for yaki-tori for that matter). Even if that were the case, these were TINY pieces of meat. At least half of each skewer was completely unused. Ziggy chalked it up to training issues. Servers say this has been an issue for more than a week now.

Dinner was slow up until about 7:30pm. No wait until after 8pm. Sushi tickets approached the 30 minute mark still. Servers were good to communicate with the guests. I cut Naoto at 8pm to give the girls a chance to make some money. Cut Krystin at 9pm and Sayo at 9:30pm. No issues during dinner besides a few misrings.

Specials: I brought in another batch of the peach & shiso infused sake for servers to give samples over the weekend. I suggested using a couple very small pieces of the peach with about 3oz of the sake in our normal sake glass. I gave a little bit to Rachel (of Rachel and Carlos fame) to try. She said she thought it was good, but maybe sweeter than she'd like for her meal, but great for dessert. I know she is very particular about her Kanbara. I've tried unsuccessfully to turn her onto our other sakes and she has unequivocally shut them down.
David and Ransom got to try it as well. They had some constructive criticism regarding the presentation. They, like Rachel are creatures of habit with their beverages, and they also enjoyed the sake with some helpful tasting notes. Please encourage the weekend servers to try a little if they haven't had it and, of course, to offer samples to our regulars for feedback. I'd like to start running the special soon. Please remind the staff also to sake the Texas Sake bottles.


3 Staff members that stood out (why/how): I had a talk with Taylor about his role as the absolute last line of defense against having obvious mistakes being delivered to guests. While I was back there talking about the yakiniku/yakitori portioning, he was about to run a curry with croquette that he even joked that it looked like it had been stepped on. I was surprised when he picked it up to take it out. It had been smashed in the bag with all the other croquettes. I stopped it from being run, had it remade and told him that ultimately if he takes a plate of food that isn't up to standard for presentation, he will be held as responsible for it as anyone else. Ultimately it comes down to his familiarity with the menu and how things should be plated as well as paying attention to those details.

It was brought to my attention that Kelly likes to change into her street clothes when doing her closing side work. I am unhappy to report that one (well, two) of the first things I saw when I came in today was Kelly's butt cheeks hanging out of her shorts while doing her opening side work. It is one thing if we aren't open yet, but with customers in the building, I feel it is highly inappropriate and unprofessional for any staff member to be out of uniform while on the clock. She was gone for the day when I learned of all this, so I did not get the chance to address it with her.

Hatha signed her probationary notice. We had a talk about the situation. I was relieved after reading the last blog, to see her show up for work. I hope she takes the severity of her probation serious.



Any VIP's in? Top Model girl. Rachel and her friend with the greatest laugh. Lauren sans her dog. Jason from Glazer's came in for a tasting and stayed for lunch. Ransom and David.

Had a dude drop off a resume. He was interested in serving or sushi chef. his info is next to the phones.

Kirk Miller with Mueller Living came by looking for a gift card. Apparently we did a trade with this publication through Elizabeth. They're running an ad for us for 12 months. I explainede the situation with our gift cards as best as I could. I got hi number: (512)694-4220, and told him Leary (who he asked for) would reach out to him.




Comps& Void Detail: Mandy had a space-cadet woman that walked her tab. Mandy said she was asking a lot of odd questions about her food. She came in with her daughter who left long before she did. She also asked Mandy if she could take our chopsticks to use for a knitting class. Mandy dropped her check off: a tempura teishoku and a bento box with go-go roll. Total: 24.90. Mandy came to me and said the woman left $7 cash and was gone. I've had plenty of people ask me where they sign and write in the tip before they give me any method of payment, so it is entirely possible that this woman did not intentionally rip us off. I forgot to ask Mandy or Will if she swiped the chopsticks or not.
$45 kome bucks (3x cards)
2 cali rolls- misring.
voided veggie tempura- misring
$5 kome bucks to cover gyoza sent to friends of Midori
Bday Taiyaki and camembert tempura


R&M needs: Guy from Lane Equipment (soft-serve machine) called and said he would be in at 9am tomorrow to clean and service the machine.

There was a bit of confusion regarding the 1/2 kara-age orders during lunch. There are two buttons for this, both are under "sides and apps." One is priced for lunch and the other for dinner. Can we have those buttons renamed to reflect the service for which they should be used?

86'd items/ need more: Tako yaki and okonomiyaki. Still waiting on the Le Pive Rose from Glazer's

PS. I borrowed both of the John Gauntner Sake books. I will return them when I get back from my trip. See y'all laterrrrrr