When we spoke to Glorious Food founder Sean Driscoll recently for an Impresario Q & A, he shared some insights in training his companies staff of 500 caterwaiters:
BiZBash: How do you train your waitstaff?
Sean Driscoll:First they come to an all-day seminar, and one of my top captains takes them through A to Z. I'm not really interested in anybody who has experience when they come to us, in terms of a waiter/waitress. They come with bad habits. And once they've learned that, even if they say, 'Oh, that's how you should do it,' they always go back to the original way they learned. We aim for the guy or the woman who just literally got off the Greyhound bus. And we do train a lot of waiters for other companies, but that's just the way it is.
Because they leave after you train them?
Or they work for other people. If you have 500 waiters, I can't afford them every single night, so they're going to have to work for other companies, too. I have a core of about 200 that only work for us.
Is it more challenging to get caterwaiters to give good service--when this isn't a career for most of them, just a way to make money between acting jobs?
No, because we make that clear--that when they walk up the steps to the Metropolitan Museum, I don't want to know what they did before, and I'm not interested in what they're going to do after. You have your three hours, and this is what you're going to concentrate on. And if you have a problem with that, then don't bother coming.
Posted 08.13.01
Read the full Impresario Q & A with Sean Driscoll...
BiZBash: How do you train your waitstaff?
Sean Driscoll:First they come to an all-day seminar, and one of my top captains takes them through A to Z. I'm not really interested in anybody who has experience when they come to us, in terms of a waiter/waitress. They come with bad habits. And once they've learned that, even if they say, 'Oh, that's how you should do it,' they always go back to the original way they learned. We aim for the guy or the woman who just literally got off the Greyhound bus. And we do train a lot of waiters for other companies, but that's just the way it is.
Because they leave after you train them?
Or they work for other people. If you have 500 waiters, I can't afford them every single night, so they're going to have to work for other companies, too. I have a core of about 200 that only work for us.
Is it more challenging to get caterwaiters to give good service--when this isn't a career for most of them, just a way to make money between acting jobs?
No, because we make that clear--that when they walk up the steps to the Metropolitan Museum, I don't want to know what they did before, and I'm not interested in what they're going to do after. You have your three hours, and this is what you're going to concentrate on. And if you have a problem with that, then don't bother coming.
Posted 08.13.01
Read the full Impresario Q & A with Sean Driscoll...
