|
TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Training days
are grueling part
of launching a
new restaurantThree major restaurant openings in Honolulu this month are likely to bring the first-in faithful out in droves.
The Cheesecake Factory opened at 5 p.m. yesterday as a new anchor tenant at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center.
Kona Brewing Co.'s Koko Marina brew pub will open to the public Wednesday.
Jackie's Kitchen at Ala Moana Center, movie star Jackie Chan's first restaurant in the United States, will open later this month. Its kiosk offering exclusive merchandise opened for business earlier this week near the base of the escalator leading up to the restaurant. It will begin selling collectors' edition gift cards today that can be loaded with any cash value.
All this means hundreds of new restaurant employees have been studying and training for weeks.
RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Chris Cunningham, left, and Fernando Rivera prepped the bar at The Cheesecake Factory yesterday at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center prior to its opening.
Cheesecake Factory's 550-seat restaurant is the largest in the 72-store chain. It has 400 employees, 350 of who were hired locally.
Kona Brewing Co. has 65 employees preparing for mock service starting Monday. A combination training evening and benefit for Hawaii Public Radio originally scheduled for tonight has been moved to next Thursday.
Jackie's Kitchen has hired more than 110 employees for its 152 seats, according to General Manager Robert Cortes.
Each restaurant imported some managerial staff.
Cheesecake brought in 50 from the mainland.
Cortes, of Jackie's, moved here from California in April.
And Kona Brewing Co. imported two managers and a handful of other employees from Kona, including "Uncle" Danny Sam, who will run retailing operations.
Much of the employee training that goes into a restaurant involves classroom time to ensure knowledge of company policies, menu knowledge, sanitation, alcohol awareness and the like.
Each company talks about giving its employees the tools they need to do the job.
Cheesecake Factory servers have 200 menu items to memorize, for instance. The menu changes every six months.
"There is classroom time and testing. Our staff has to be able to reach at least 90 percent on their tests or they don't work with us, so we have some very smart people that work with us," said Howard Gordon, senior vice president for business development and marketing for The Cheesecake Factory Inc.
For each type of position in the restaurant, the company brings in trainers from other restaurants "that have that specific job at the restaurant they are employed at and they're paid a little bit more to be a trainer," Gordon said.
During mock service, which is akin to a dress rehearsal for employees, invited diners eat for free and provide feedback which managers review.
The Cheesecake Factory's mock service last week seated two people to a table with a special menu assigning a choice of beverage, the two entrees and the dessert that were to be served to that table. Diners were given a test question to ask the server. A surprise appetizer was also brought to each table and diners were asked to fill out a brief questionnaire as to whether the ambience, food and service exceeded, met or did not meet their expectations.
Invited diners included business leaders, members of the media, the restaurant industry, vendors, hotel employees. "And," Gordon added, "I had walked down to the Honolulu Police Department and we had a whole group of police." In a rare occurrence, some diners were invited in off the street.
"The sheets give our guests the opportunity to write down their experience, so (we'll go through those) at the end of each meal period. First with the management, and then we'll start to make adjustments if need be. Usually there's something to adjust."
Kona Brewing Co. has been in intensive training for the last week and a half, said Mattson Davis, managing partner. It also involves classroom instruction and testing. "One entire day was devoted to beer," Davis said. Employees learned about the process from Rich Tucciarone, director of brewing, said Jeremiah Neal, general manager.
Neal attended one of Cheesecake's training meals and believes some hints he picked up will benefit the pub's operations.
"There were little things that Cheesecake did that I hadn't seen before," he said.
Kona Brewing Co.'s mock trainings will start Monday, with invited guests from among the staff of the nearly 500 retailers, bars and restaurants that serve KBC beers.
The 65 employees will not be expected to serve a full house.
"We're seating 60 percent of total capacity for our mocks and our beginning opening," Davis said. The restaurant's seating will grow from 175 to 250 over time.
"There are two reasons employees don't work out," Neal said. "We hire the wrong people or we don't train them correctly."
If a challenging situation arises with an employee, Neal says, "We ask ourselves, 'what have we done to make them successful?' 'Do they understand the expectations?' and we can make the expectations clearer."
Training for Jackie's Kitchen employees began Nov. 25. The company rented a 3,200-square-foot office space in which on a typical day, Cortes said, "one office has all the retail training, there's a huge office with flair certification, another room with seven POS's (cash register terminals) with a programming instructor training staff, another room testing menu knowledge, another office with the paperwork."
"It is a very chaotic environment, but things were moving along," Cortes added.
The flair certification relates to part of the restaurant's entertainment -- which will be the showmanship at the bar. "It's Hawaii's first flair bar inside a full-service restaurant," said Cortes. The 10-member bar crew "did an intensive 10-day training period with Toby Ellis, one of the top flair consultants in the world. He opened up Caesar's Shadow Bar," he said. Bar Manager Cache Bouren is also a flair trainer. "He's been the absolute passion behind the flair component of our concept."
Jackie's employees will do staff-on-staff and then friends and family mock service and will open its doors to the public the next day, but the date later this month is not set in stone.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
