It’s great being ’in’ conferences, you get to eat in an awful lot of good food in an awful lot of good places.
It’s
easy to make assumptions as well. I was about to book a client into a
property and was persuaded to go on what I thought was an unnecessary
recce trip. The location, size and reputation were a perfect fit, so I
was a bit lazy and resisted. The hotel really nagged me to go and that
was a big mistake.
Check in – fine – meeting room – a bit dull
but fine – and then we went for what was promised to be a gourmet
dinner. In fact, it ran the gamut from bland to abysmal. They lost a
three day booking for 150 through over pretentious poorly cooked food.
So
here are a few notes for venue restaurant managers: An amuse bouche is
not the same as vegetable soup in an egg cup. The reservation system is
not more important than a customer actually standing in front of you.
When a plate is cleared only 30% eaten, then yes, there is something
wrong. If you seat two people at a table set for five, then you should
clear the other three place settings. When you ask “was everything OK?”
you should stand still long enough to see if there’s going to be answer.
A
woman on the next table was clearly there for the same purpose. By the
end of dinner I could tell the size of her party, the length of stay,
and how very discerning her delegates were. This wasn’t eavesdropping, I
had no choice. I could also tell her client had hired the wrong person.
Like the accountant who knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing, this woman knew detail but not delivery.
We surely have a
duty to our clients to advise them about every aspect of their event.
If everything else is OK, but the food is rubbish, most of my client’s
guests would regard that as a fail. Good food isn’t improved by
pretentious service, it’s improved by buying decent ingredients and
putting them in the hands of a well trained chef.
Three days
later I stopped at the Jolly Boatman in Thrupp. Do go. Good honest grub
served by completely untrained staff that just CARED if we were having
fun. That’s more like it.
My wife read this and said I should mention that her Pork Belly was OK. That is not a euphemism.
Richard Tierney is a member of the ACE Council and coach to presenters and event organisers at IntrovertedPresenter.com
Any comments? Email sarah@mashmedia.net
