How Not To...

-

 


... run a hospitality business. I'm sorry if this sounds like continuous carping and griping [blog posts passim] about one particular establishment, but these things have to be said. We went over to Biwmaris for our customary lunch of soup and chips today and found the town - and the pub - rammed. The frequent heavy showers had forced people to seek shelter and sustenance wherever they could, the Bull being no exception. What we found there was the usual story: a bar, lounge and restaurant full to capacity: all ordering food and drink, and just three front-of-house staff to cope. As always, I'll point out with some emphasis that those three were unfailingly polite, courteous and efficient; given the enormity of the task they faced. Nevertheless, there was an inevitable wait for both service and food - how could it possibly be otherwise? - and a queue (!) across the bar, as only one person was tasked with dealing with orders both from there and the not-small front lounge. The other two staff members had to serve food orders to Christ knows how many covers in the restaurant, lounge and bar.

The management's view on this? It's now Autumn/Winter. Off season: therefore scale down the operation. Total madness: the place was full on the 25th of October. Someone should have ensured that the demand was met on the day by whatever means - that is the nature of true management; not just sticking to some ridiculous spreadsheet-calculated 'plan'. I can offer one sweet caveat to all of this, however. The Bass [this being a Saturday, and the cellar's sweet spot] was A1 perfection; so I had two pints instead of just the one. It is, however, a tragedy that so many of the people who own and 'run' hospitality businesses these days are of such low calibre that they shouldn't be let anywhere near a lemonade stall at a village fayre, let alone a busy chain of establishments. It's no wonder that the trade is suffering the way it is: most people value and would rather have the speed and consistency of fast-food American-style chains over traditional British fare, simply because of idiots like the owners of The Inn Collection Group. Here endeth today's rant...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Messiah Complex

-
Image
A spectre is haunting... America; and it isn't communism. It isn't radical Islamism. It isn't even capitalism itself. It's Christianity. A particularly pernicious, politicised Christianity. 'In God We Trust', One Nation Under God', etc., etc., are the tropes of a 'nation' that is the result of the colonisation of a foreign continent by a motley bunch of assorted European disaffects several hundred years ago. That much is history, and the native peoples of America are still struggling to cling on to what is, after all, their birthright. Whatever good was squeezed from the sour pith of colony in the middle part of the last century: civil rights, racial emancipation and equal rights for women and LGBTQ+ people of all stripes, is not now simply being eroded, but actually bulldozed over the cliff edge that separates human rights & freedoms, and the return of enslavement by difference. Difference of skin colour, race, gender or sexuality: a pick 'n...
Read more