In the past, we’ve looked at where some iconic hotels went wrong. We offered humble suggestions to the management at Hotel California, Club Tropicana and The Shining’s Overlook Hotel about how modern hotel technology could transform their operations and guest experience.
And so we shift our gaze to The Bear, the series that cooked its way into our hearts. What can we learn about hospitality from their restaurant operations? There’s a lot they got right, but we have some humble suggestions for them too.
Warning, there may be spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen The Bear already, go ahead and binge it now. These words will be waiting for you when you’ve finished.
The power of the POS
One of the first things we need to address are the levels of stress at the restaurant. Especially at The Original Beef of Chicagoland, but also at The Bear. And it’s not just in the kitchen; front of house suffers too. It’s not healthy and it’s going to take a huge toll on staff retention.
Some of this might be due to the natural disposition of the team members, but you can bet your house that implementing a modern point-of-sale solution like Mews POS would bring stress levels right down.
Long lines are a good sign of your popularity, but bad when it comes to customer experience. Perhaps it’s taking too long for Richie and his servers to take payments. If they had a solution in place that allowed for digital ordering, split bills and online payment, the team would spend less time taking orders and on transactional admin and more time prioritizing service. It’s also a big win for guests who can choose their preferred payment method.
Credit where it’s due, Sydney does bring in a new digital ordering system so people can order online. This is a good step to boosting revenue, and they could go even further by working with delivery apps to serve an even wider customer base. (We’ll gloss over the fact that they left the pre-order option open and thus caused even more chaos in the kitchen.)
Lots or orders: good. Forgetting to set restrictions on pre-orders: bad.
Problem solving with the cloud
Inventory is a big problem at the restaurant. Orders are placed ad-hoc, relying on manual stock checks and staff intuiting demand. Plus, many of the tins of pulped tomatoes are unusable because they have big rolls of money in them – they’ll need to be itemized and reordered, pronto.
The solution is a POS with connected inventory. A digital solution that will help the team track, analyze, plan and order with confidence. One where you can upload recipes for ingredient-level updates (cola-braised short rib and risotto, anyone?) so that you know exactly what’s left in the kitchen because of what’s been ordered.
Accounting is also an issue for Carmy and co. Good luck trying to decipher the scribbled notes left in no discernible system. The good news is that Mews POS can handle that, too. It tracks deliveries and sales, manages costs and streamlines purchasing. Oh, and guest payments are fully integrated. Everything’s in the cloud, which means no more paper notes or wasted time deciphering gibberish.
The most important lesson
Perhaps we’ve been a little hard on the team so far. After all, the food is outstanding and the customers are always satisfied. But there’s one moment in The Bear that hits the nail on the head when it comes to delivering guest experiences.
There’s a pivotal scene during Richie’s week working at Ever, a fine dining restaurant. It’s where the Front of House Manager explains the importance of getting ever single tiny detail right, from ensuring every fork is streak free to knowing how fast each table likes to be served. Watch it.
This, right here, is the heart of remarkable hospitality. A mindset where every interaction with every guest is the most important thing that exists in that moment. It’s because of this attitude that we’re certain The Bear is going to thrive and become an unmissable destination for diners.
By the way, that episode was based on an excellent TED talk by restaurateur Will Guidara. He talks specifically about restaurants, but everything he says about curating memorable, personalized experiences for guests applies to hoteliers.
Heard.
A guest management system or CRM (customer relationship management) solution will help you curate these kinds of experiences, especially if you have a chain of restaurants or hotels. Investing in a CRM that integrates with your POS and PMS could be revolutionary. Oh, by the way, did we mention the Mews for Salesforce app?
We hope it’s obvious by now that Mews is the perfect solution for hotels with restaurants and other F&B offerings. Mews POS ensures that operations are fully connected, from guest profiles to payments. Want to know more?
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