Training Staff Menu Knowledge
Besides your chef and cooks who knows your food menu the best? It’s probably your expeditor, and this is a person who never has any contact with the customers to whom the food is served. As menu items become hyper local, eclectic dietary choices are the new norm, and new, worldly ingredients appear on menus everywhere, it is good to ensure that your employees are properly educated on what you’re offering your guests. This will enable them to speak with confidence about your offering and also to direct customers to items which they will appreciate and enjoy.
Basic Training
This can apply in two instance. The very first, and necessary instance is when the employee is first on-boarded and they’re given copies of the menu and required to learn the items on there before they’re even let loose on the floor on their own. This will ensure that everyone in your restaurant has the same base knowledge. If you’re promoting from inside, say a back-waiter up to a server, this basic knowledge should also be required.
Tasting
It may not be possible for every new or newly promoted employee to get a taste of all the items on your menu right away. However, they should, over the course of their first few weeks, have the opportunity to taste a majority of your menu, especially the most popular dishes and those that are a little off the wall. This tasting experience will help to solidify your menu in their mind, reinforcing what they learnt through studying the menu. Also, how are you really meant to serve something with passion if you’ve never tried it.
Formal Testing
After you employees have studied the menu and believe they are ready to step onto your floor and service guests you should present them with a written test of your menu, asking them many of the common questions that come from customers in your establishment as well as some throwing them some curveballs to ensure that they’ve learnt the menu throughly. Not until they’ve passed this exam can they step onto the floor of your restaurant and serve your guests.
Informal Testing
This is not a requirement however it keeps your employees on their toes and ensures that they keep their menu knowledge fresh and up to date. These sessions are not going to be formal or consist of bombarding your employees with questions. It may just be a simple question or to during your pre-shift meeting every morning, or maybe just randomly throwing out questions to employees during the quieter period of the day whilst they’re completing some other mundane tasks.
Undertaking this measures to ensure that your staff learn your menu properly means that they’ll be able to address your guests questions with confidence and knowledge. It also means that they’ll have more confidence in themselves in their position and that your chef and cooks -notoriously touchy people- will have less things to rant, rave and shout about; allowing everyone to spend more time concentrating on doing their job and doing it well.
