National
Restaurants
Customers or guests?
Bobby Fitzgerald - Restaurant Operations Examiner
Posted:
11/08/2009 12:46 PM
In the hospitality business the guest is always right-right? I’ve been playing restaurant everyday since 1984 and the act of referring to our customers as guests is a practice that predates my plebe year by about a century. According to Dr. Carl Braunlich of the UNLV Harrah Hotel College, the phrase "the guest is always right" was used in the 1800’s referring to how the lower class should treat royalty and it was certainly the phrase used when he was a young student at Cornell in the 1970’s. But what does being a guest mean?
Most everyone in this business gets the obvious about treating guests with graciousness and an aim to please approach. But my kids are of the age where we are teaching them how to be a guest in other peoples' homes and it got me thinking about the difference. I have taught them to do the following as a guest; not ask for anything and wait to be offered, eat what is put in front of them, be polite and always say thank you.
Most everyone in this business gets the obvious about treating guests with graciousness and an aim to please approach. But my kids are of the age where we are teaching them how to be a guest in other peoples' homes and it got me thinking about the difference. I have taught them to do the following as a guest; not ask for anything and wait to be offered, eat what is put in front of them, be polite and always say thank you.
Copyright © 2009 Clarity Digital Group LLC d/b/a Examiner.com. All Rights reserved.