Our Services
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Mystery Shopping
Secret shopping reveals what your customers experience, helping you identify problem areas, bottlenecks, or personnel problems that hurt the customer experience and lead to a decrease in sales. Mystery shoppers can give you their overall experience or you can target a specific area, such as a particular bartender that you have suspicions about.
ABOUT ME
I
I have 16 years of restaurant management experience, from manager trainee, general manager, to vice president of operations of a regional chain.
But maybe more importantly, I have walked the talk, owning and opening 3 independent restaurants and a comedy club.
After that, I returned to school to become a university professor teaching restaurant management at the University of Alabama, Golden Gate University and retired from Cal Poly Pomona as professor emeritus.
I was a Fulbright Scholar teaching hospitality management in Helsinki, Finland, and gave keynote presentations about restaurant failure in Finland and in Estonia.
I have written two books on restaurant management, The New Restaurant Manager and the New Restaurant Manager, Part 2.
This is personal to me.
My first restaurant failed even though I had several years in restaurant management and thought I knew everything. It was obvious very quickly that I didn't.
Being an owner is far different from being a manager. Most managers don't realize that they walk into a proven location, concept, menu, prices, systems, controls, and organization. As an owner, you don't have that luxury, you start with a blank canvas, developing all of those.
One of the main reasons my first restaurant failed was that I didn't think I needed a business plan or timeline. I was wrong. Your business plan forces you to go deep into each area of your restaurant, alerting you to areas where you are weak and you are able to fix them before you open and before it is too late.
