The table that ordered before it arrived
Big tables are where service goes to die. Pre-orders fix more of it than you would think, if you make ordering ahead the easy path instead of the awkward one.
6 min readRead article →
The Journal
Notes from the pass.
Practical writing on menus, wine lists, compliance and the unglamorous operations that make great hospitality look effortless.
Party of 12
86'd twice
Your till and your menu should agree
When the menu says one thing and the till says another, staff stop trusting both. Keeping them in step is not a systems project, it is a publishing habit.
5 min readRead article →
Table 12
QR menus guests actually thank you for
Guests do not hate QR menus. They hate slow PDFs, tiny type and being made to work for a drink. The fix is design, not retreat.
6 min readRead article →
A4 · bleed
Stop printing menus you hate
If every reprint is a small war with a word processor, the menu stops changing when it should. Printing should be the fast part.
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19:30 · 4 covers
The booking is won on the menu page
People read the menu, imagine the evening, then decide. If booking is not one tap from that moment, you are losing tables you never see.
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Bin 60
What out-of-stock says about you
Every 86 is a message to the room. Whether it reads as honesty or carelessness depends entirely on where the guest finds out.
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86'd
Your PDF menu is costing you covers
Diners check the menu before they book, and a blurry, out-of-date PDF from last autumn quietly sends them somewhere else. Here's what stale menus actually cost, and how to fix it for good.
6 min readRead article →
14
Allergen labelling your team can actually live with
Allergen compliance fails in the gap between the kitchen's knowledge and front-of-house paperwork. The fix isn't more laminated sheets: it's making the menu itself carry the data.
7 min readRead article →
Bin 34
The wine list is a story: structure a cellar guests actually read
Most wine lists are inventories formatted as literature. The best ones are arguments about what to drink tonight. How structure, order and honest notes turn a cellar into sales.
8 min readRead article →