Adrian Marquez

48

Founder, Anthropologist, Sommelier

Super proud to introduce our new logo, I think it captures well what we are all about. Pineapple is the international symbol for hospitality, and the character in the middle, 人 means 'people' because it takes many hands to make anything in hospitality possible.
Come join us to help talent rise.

From the one and only Todd Staley in LinkedIn:
3🔥behaviors that will help you become a great restaurant Operator...

1️⃣ lead by example

You cannot avoid leading by example. You will always be an example of your restaurant leadership and that is why you need to be conscious of the example you are setting. Conscious of the behaviors you are showing your team to emulate.
“ More is caught than taught”💯

2️⃣ Direct and honest feedback🗣

Direct and honest feedback is one of the cornerstones in the development of your people. Feedback should always be given with respect and as close to the moment where The feedback is most relevant.

3️⃣ let your people shine🌞

A great restaurant operator understands that it is the people they lead that ultimately determines the success or failure of your restaurant.

What would you add??

Follow the conversation at

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/todd-staley-7650b64a_3behaviors-that-will-help-you-become-a-activity-6790239843088769024-Z37p

What is real leadership?

NEW RESOURCE ADDED: 5 LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP

I've always hated those managers that all they did was yell at people. The type that they think they are a leader because they have a title, HA! Not a great way to deal with your staff.

It is time to move on from toxic practices like that and on to better ones that encourage people with dignity and respect.
Leadership is not yelling at people. It's building them up, and helping them find their best talents and qualities. A leader is nothing without people willing to follow them.

Here is what Maxwell says are the 5 levels of real leadership:

Level 1 — Position (there because you have a title)
Level 2 — Permission (connect with you team)
Level 3 —Production (people want to build with you)
Level 4 — People Development (bring out the best in your team)
Level 5 — Pinnacle (change an industry and maybe the world)

This is really great, easy to understand and apply. Watch both videos, it will make a lot of sense. It has a section as well that comments on places where being nice could be seen as a weakness (like the EME and LATAM).

I'm a big believer in what he says. I hope this helps you in any kind of way.

https://youtu.be/OzpaggIB_BU

https://youtu.be/eTRWfreqIK8

From the one and only Todd Staley:

"The average job tenure of a restaurant employee is just one month and 26 days (7 shifts)...

It takes less than two months for a restaurant employee to leave their job.

Restaurant employment statistics show that employees working the counter have the highest churn rate.

If you are in the restaurant business (any business) what are you doing the 1st day, the 5th day, the 10th day, the 14th day, the 21st day, and the 30th day

Actually what are you doing EVERY DAY to keep your people?"

I think if we give people a 'why' (besides the obvious money) they will learn the 'how'

Follow him on linkedIn for more solid insights:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/todd-staley-7650b64a_the-average-job-tenure-of-a-restaurant-employee-activity-6785894819530186752-QBTA

WILDEST THING YOU’VE EVER OVERHEARD?

As a busboy / barback / waiter / bartender / sommelier / manager you get to hear all kinds of conversations.

But this one really took the cake.

So an older lady came for dinner with a bunch of her friends, and they were all congratulating her about her son's upcoming marriage. Somehow the subject of the bachelorette party came up, and that’s when it got weird. . .
She prefaced it by saying to her friends in a thick New York accent
‘Don't get me wrong, I grew up in the 60’s, I am not a prude, but this was something else. .. ‘
‘and how do I deal with it?’

As it turned out, her future daughter-in-law had not only had hot monkey sex with the stripper they hired as entertainment for the evening. . .
She did it right in front of everyone. . .
future mother-in-law included. . . right on the coffee table!.

Apparently ‘she had a really good time doing it too!’.

‘How do I tell my son what she did?’ the mother-in-law pondered. “Should I tell him??’

You could hear a pin drop in that room, I’ll tell you that much.

I guess I’ll never know what happened. But yeah, that one really was out there.

It is always interesting to overhear what people will share. One of the perks of the job lol

WORST CUSTOMER EVER

There have been a bunch of those in my career but not as many as I would have imagined.
Though I think the one that took the cake was a ‘Ms Simpson’. Somehow she could not imagine that someone with an accent and younger could know anything about wine . . . not like she knew jack shit about wine anyway. . . to her I was ‘the help’ and therefore barely human.
I was dismissed like I had neve existed. I had never been patronized like she did. I had some close experiences like that but nothing ever so blatant. 'This is what the wealthy think of people like me?' I thought.

To people like that we are all the same, do the same job and have all the same 'mediocre' abilities. . . just faceless bodies that do jobs for them.
I could barely hold my anger but thankfully my cooler head prevailed.

I refused to get anywhere near her whenever she came back though. I never served her again. Never again ran a drink, a dish or cutlery to her. Hard pass. I knew I would end up serving her some delicious knuckle sandwiches free of charge (and getting fired if I did). We may have had a night or two when they called and we were ‘unfortunately’ unable to fit them in. Oh they complained 'friends from Aspen were in town. . .'
Oh did I smiled. LOL

Thankfully management understood and supported, because they knew that nice Adrian is a nice guy, but angry Adrian is a force of nature ^__^

What's your worst customer every story?

FUNNIEST THING A CUSTOMER HAS EVER TOLD YOU

You know that sometimes people you get will just be ‘on’ and dish wisecracks and one liners that really connect. I wish I had written down more of those, over the years I've heard from the outrageous and obscene to the most subtle double entendres that the queen of England would have approved.

What have been some of your favourite one liners? Best wisecracks?

WORST SERVICE EVER LIVED

I’ll never forget it. It was supposed to be an easy brunch, high end, multi course kind of place. Two waiters and one manager. No bartender. No bussers or foodrunners. Pride weekend. Few reservations on the book.
Then they started coming. All the walk ins. All of them. More.

Next thing we know we have a near full restaurant, 50 some covers and just two of us.
Perfect!

And of course the printer stopped working. Good times!
So we had to go over our notes again, and punch in everything again. Of course!

Sous chef ended having to run some food as there was no way we could have done it. Drinks took 30 minutes, taking orders another 30, the phone was ringing off the hook (and nobody had time to answer), we couldn't find the wines we needed, the fridge was not working well.
Just great!

At one point my comrade (the legendary Adly Gawad) and I just looked at each other from across the room and smiled at each other because we knew we were FUBAR :D. It was just perfect. What a gong show.

My hair was on fire for about 3 or 4 hours, coulda been 10. Hard to say. Even dropping bills and processing credit cards took another 30 minutes.
Fantastic!

There was no 5 star service that day, and yet, somehow, the restaurant gods smiled upon us and miraculously nobody complained! :O

I am still mystified.

And writing this made me wanna throw up a little not gonna lie lol