To achieve restaurant prosperity, you have to follow a very specific formula made up of leadership systems, training, accountability and taking action. Today I’m excited to talk to a good friend of mine and fellow restaurant systems supporter.

Now, I want you to tune in to this episode of the podcast so you can hear from Darren Denington. He has more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry and has an extensive background as a food and beverage director, executive chef, general manager, restaurant owner, staff trainer, restaurant coach and consultant. He holds the most prestigious certification available for a hospitality professional being a certified food and beverage executive.

Darren is the founder of Service With Style Hospitality Group, a hospitality firm offering secret shopping, restaurant coaching and team training services.

During our conversation, Darren and I cover:

• How you get the most out of your restaurant with three key building blocks as your foundation: leadership, systems and staffing.
• How you can use checklists, action lists and responsibility lists to assure everyone is getting what you need done on a daily basis.
• How you should train great hospitality.
• How you can easily measure if your restaurant is delivering on that training.

This discussion is helpful for restaurant owners because we really get down into the nitty gritty of restaurant systems and what we really mean by restaurant systems.

When it comes to restaurant owners looking for restaurant solutions or restaurant systems, there is a bit of confusion. Restaurant systems Darren and I both teach are not the same as a piece of hardware like a POS system. A POS System is the number one most important piece of equipment you'll ever buy in a restaurant. Its data is critical to your business. And it plays into the systems I teach. But what I really mean when I say restaurant systems is there is a system, a process, a way to doing anything and everything in your restaurant. This is as basic as counting out a bar drawer to $300 the same way every single time to advanced things like dollars per labor hour worked.

Darren’s specific area of specialty when it comes to restaurant systems is for employees and for service levels.

Definitely tune in to hear:

• Darren tell one of my favorite stories about how he systemized everything in his restaurants, right down to light bulbs.
• Why restaurant owners don’t have to be superheroes and why delegating is key to restaurant success and restaurant prosperity.
• The three foundational building blocks you must get right to be a successful restaurant (leadership, systems and staff).
• How checklists help restaurant owners delegate and trust the work is done how they like it done.
• How to use a responsibilities list to increase accountability and decrease miscommunication.
• The importance of training employees the right way and the benefits to the restaurant owner who does that.
• Why Darren offers restaurants and other hospitality businesses a secret shopper service and the benefits of using a secret shopper.
• How and why to spend time on service as a focused topic with managers, in meetings and in training.
• Why, when you're pivoting due to COVID-19 and opening up new revenue centers and trying to keep your business alive, the guest experience is still critical.

For a special offer visit www.servicewithstyle.com/dsp to schedule a demo with Service With Style and get the new “10 Steps to Great Service” manual.

Sponsor

This episode is being brought to you by Repeat Returns. If you’re a restaurant owner of a medium to high-volume independent restaurant, multi-unit or franchise operator and you’re looking for a proven and realistic solution to attract, grow, and retain customers... then you really need to visit Repeat Returns. Repeat Returns is a modern marketing platform created by a restaurant owner for restaurant owners... It studies each customer’s habits and patterns, predicts the most profitable outcome for your restaurant every single day, and deploys the marketing to make that happen. You never lift a finger. Click here to see if Repeat Returns is right for you.

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Links mentioned in this episode:

• Service With Style
• Free Restaurant Evaluation
• Repeat Returns