🍸 TRL Weekly: Warmth > Service

Your weekly lesson and tactical reminders inside.

November 03, 2024

Happy Sunday, future server/bartender millionaire.

In today’s lesson Brandon is teaching us why warmth sometimes outweighs good service.

Our Last Three Lessons:

You can read the rest of the past weekly lessons here.

Today at a Glance:

  • Weekly Lesson: Warmth > Service

  • Tactical Reminders: Your Video Lessons

🍸 Weekly Lesson:
Warmth > Service

Warmth is what we are trying to make the guest feel.

Service is all of the tasks we are doing.

Typically we talk about “hospitality vs service”, but I wanted the feeling of warmth to be the main message here because it is truly so important.

Quick Story: I went to an extraordinary Michelin star restaurant while I was in Europe.

The food and overall experience was unlike any normal restaurant experience.

BUT there was one huge thing that was missing…

A smile and a feeling of warmth. 

I would argue that the feeling of being at grandma's house (hospitality/warmth) is better than having perfect Michelin service without warmth.

Although there were no technical mistakes made, it felt like something was off. It felt a little like robots were serving me and they were just going through the motions because they had to and not because they wanted to. 

Please understand that I am by no means complaining about the service, but rather observing past service level so I can hopefully help you become a better server and make some more money.

The overall point I want you to get from this is that having a smile on your face and enjoying what you are doing is the most important part.

You will notice that if you have that smile and enjoyment, but sometimes make mistakes, the guest will actually forgive you and tip you more (as long as you rectify the mistake).

But if you do everything perfectly and the guests just don’t really like you, they won’t tip you that well! And maybe you won’t understand why because you did everything right, BUT… now you know!

Last Story: For my first year as a busboy (literally my first year in hospitality) I worked alongside the sweetest older woman (server).

She actually made a decent amount of mistakes, but she somehow always walked home with the most amount of money.

She didn’t have the most tables, she didn’t turn tables fast, she didn’t sell the most, but every night she made the most.

I was young so I probably didn’t even realize why she made the most, but looking back on it, it all makes sense.

She made the guests feel warm. The guests just loved her.

Don’t read this and think ‘Okay I can make mistakes as long as I’m warm’, but instead, try to do both!

Give perfect service, but more importantly, be warm and happy.

Act like you want to be at work.

Every task you have to do for a guest, make it like you actually want to do it.

🚀 Tactical Reminders:

  1. Brandon - Advanced Strategy -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

  2. Jess - Resting B**** Face -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

  3. Derek - Make this Switch -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

That’s all for week thirty two.

See you next week,

The Restaurant Launch Team