Luv2Run wrote:
Annoyed and hangry wrote:
I’ve worked in a restaurant before, but not on the management side. When there are a lot of people waiting to be seated and quite a few open tables why not sit them down and at least them order some drinks and start making money?
From a customer’s perspective this always comes across poorly.
Is it a simple matter of not staffing enough people?
Staffing restaurants has to be a nightmare. While I am sure some have good data, I bet a lot do not (or do not look at it) and miss. Plus with the economy going pretty well I wonder if it is harder to find waitstaff.
I obviously can’t speak for all restaurants, but the restaurant that I worked in throughout college (08-12) relied heavily on data. They were startling accurate when it came to predicting business on a given night.
The manager used to print a report which showed sales for that given business week dating all the way back to ‘96 when the restaurant first opened. Starting in 2000 or so, the report also has notes such as: “the Rascall flatts concert across town brought in a large crowd” or “first Home football game for the local college amped up the lunch rush”. The manager would then look over this info and staff accordingly. As a stats guy, I always appreciated this.
Now to the actual topic - your question has been answered beautifully. Either kitchen staff or wait staff can’t keep up if you see empty tables AND a line up of waiting guests. No matter how well managers plan, this is sometimes unavoidable. If it is a common occurrence at a particular place, that manager needs to get his act together.