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Anyone ever owned/run/worked at a Chinese take out resturant?
Gabriel_Pitt
Carrion-EaterRegistered User regular
Carrion-EaterRegistered User regular
Apropos of nothing(I swear) has anyone had experience with the behind the counter side of Chinese take out? What kind of problems did you experience in relation to getting people in, getting them to come back? Are there any big does or do nots that experience makes you want to pass on? Suggestions for how to prevent possible problems from popping up?
Gabriel_Pitt on
Origin ID: Null_Cypher
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Hit me with whatever you've got. I'll weigh, evaluate, and distribute as needed.
So I guess it is apropos of something after all
You don't have to go to the extremes that this guy does, but it's chock full of amazing ideas and concepts.
Make sure you have all the stereotypical stuff that people order. The one I worked at didn't have General Tso's Chicken, and that alone made people not order from us sometimes. As in they'd call, get all the way through the order, it would be the last thing, we wouldn't have it, so they'd just cancel and call another place. It was busy all the time still though, so it wasn't a big deal, but it could be for someone starting out.
Are they planning on delivering as well? Make sure the delivery guys aren't fuck ups. This goes for most places that deliver. They should hopefully know their way around and be able to at least fake friendliness, and defer all complaints to the phones, their job is to deliver, not to be a mobile complaint department.
Have they ever ran a restaurant before, of any kind? I can't really think of much advice to give that someone who has worked in the business wouldn't already know.
Make sure everyone isn't a fuck up. Also, don't hire your friends.
I worked at a sit down Thai restaurant, so not exactly the same deal. Not all the chefs were from Thailand, I've worked with people from Laos, Vietnam and China. I don't see why your buddy's place would be any different. Don't hire a translator because that would be too much, but keep that in mind that not everyone is going to all be speaking the same language, let alone English, and you need to have clear communication channels in a restaurant. In any place really.
It wouldn't hurt to write down a copy of the menu in different languages to be kept in the back.
You're assuming that the cooks are going to be Chinese or not speaking English. There's a sushi place downtown here that has a bunch of Mexican guys making the sushi.
Without communication a restaurant (and especially the back of the house) will fall apart really quickly. It's generally not a good idea to hire people don't speak a lick of English unless the place is run by someone who speaks their native tongue.
But...
They have three different people answering the phones. One sounds like an American college kid, no accent, no nothing. He's really nice, and he's really cool. There's a guy with a very thick accent. He's hard to understand, but patiently repeats anything he needs to, and he's nice and cool too. Then there's a woman who answers the phone, has a very thick accent, and is increasingly belligerent every time I need her to clarify what she just said. I don't mind accents, and I don't (generally) mind angry people answering the phone as long as I get what I order. When you combine the two, it makes for kind of a shitty experience. Were I not so determined to order their pepper steak specifically, I wouldn't have called there again after the first time she answered the phone because she was actually quite rude.
So I guess my advice is to try to make sure the most patient of the group take the calls. Patience always helps in customer service, because let's face it, customers are assholes, but if they have any kind of accent they are almost certainly going to be asked to repeat everything they say two hundred times a day. That can wear on even the patient.
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
The other place is not quite as good, but you can get a box of food with a bunch of different things for each person, which is much more convenient.
Combos are not critical if its cheap enough to justify getting extra. i mean think of the leftovers.
Having numbers on the menus helps greatly when trying to break that language barrier. Some places I will just order "C34, Pepper Steak" or whatever.
I do agree that being putting a nice person in front and answering phones is very important as I often will decide I like a place purely from the front person/phone answer person. Numbers are a good idea. Make sure the delivery people are nice (smile, say thank you, etc.).
Make sure you put "No MSG" prominently on the menu and in the store. Also make sure you use no MSG. A lot of people care about that, I'm always surprised by it.
There are probably at least 10 Chinese takeout places that deliver to me, try to find something to stand out. I still haven't tried them all. If only one of them did something different or extra(besides the one that costs more), I'd try them next. For example, if they didn't have their battered chicken delivered ready to be fried, or even offering lo mein in combos instead of rice (possibly for more money).
If they can find a way for their menu to stand out from a design point of view that would be good too. All the menus here are almost identical.
I hate take out places that are cheap and have that yellowish fried rice that ruins the rest of the meal.
The Vac - My Science Fiction Epic
Fortune Pancakes - My Gag-A-Day Comic
I agree with bowen - good rice is important, be it white or fried. And make sure that your top 3 dishes (usually General Tso's chicken, orange chicken, and beef and broccoli/veggies) are done well.
Personally, there are places I go to where the combos are obviously the best deal. And that's a good thing. But sometimes I would like to eat take-out without getting a shitton of food. For one thing, I try to control my portions so I don't overeat, and for another, it's a complete waste because if I have leftovers, they usually taste nasty the next day (imo) and so I don't eat them. So maybe have a "healthy" section of the menu (you can put the no-MSG dishes here too!) where there are smaller portion sizes for a cheaper price. [fake edit: Just realized Thundykratz said pretty much the same thing! hi5!]
The most important thing is to get the food right. If it's tasty for a reasonable price, people will come back.
I agree, but the fact is MSG is something a lot of people don't want. There's no use in arguing with potential customers, they just won't try your food and you'll lose money because of it. No one in my extended family will eat it. My wife and I don't really care, but there's too many people who don't understand, care to understand, or genuinely believe that its a bad thing to risk your business for an additive that isn't essential.
Or do people genuinely ask if there's MSG in the food before ordering? I've never heard of this in my lifetime, but I wasn't brought up in the states so maybe it's indeed a regional thing.
edit: Honestly I never minded that much, but I just looked at the menu and the local place actually does put on their menu that they use no MSG.
Health nuts that tend to follow crash diets and other crazy shit like that tend to be concerned with MSG. It's just like being concerned about the levels of sugar that get added to your diet soda behind your back. Basically, it's stupid.
granted it is a tv science but they basically called BS on the headache adverse reaction to MSG and people prefered teh taste of it.
-I can order online
-They deliver it obscenely fast (I do live pretty close)
-In addition to all the "American Chinese" favorites, they have a selection of more crazy Cambodian dishes. I love this because I can get something 'safe' and something new in the same order.
-They've got a refrigerator magnet punchy card.
People ask all the time, and for every person who asks there's other people who won't be bothered to ask and will just assume its in there. Those are people who won't be customers. A large number of people who ask won't order if the place uses MSG in any food at all, figuring it will either get into their food or that the cooks won't listen or don't care to not add it to their order.
I think the important thing is that being MSG free and advertising it will lose you very few customers and gain you a significant amount.
One other thing I forgot to mention before. If the kitchen is at all visible from where customers can be make sure it is always very clean looking and very clean. I know at busy times sometimes its easier to leave some empty trays stacked up on a counter or something, but the appearance of cleanliness is just as important as the actual cleanliness. If people get sick off the food they probably won't come back, but if people think the kitchen is dirty they may not come back either.
The ones who care can eat shitty food while everyone else will have the tastiest Chinese food in the area.
I don't mind TV science when it looks like actual science, but I probably wouldn't risk customers on it.
To the OP, re the MSG thing: assuming you get this kind of input, have your friend check all the other local Chinese places and see if they advertise that they don't use MSG. If nobody says "NO MSG", then the locals probably don't care and you don't have to either. However, in that case not using it might make your friend stand out to customers, and in the case that NOBODY uses MSG you might not want to be the place that does.
Or he could end up being the best tasting Chinese food place in the area. But locale plays a huge part in that. He wouldn't want to do it if they were in SanFran or NYC, but, Texas would be fine for instance.
part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMihS5pFzQ0
part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW__LPYTlk0
We have cheap chinese takeout places here. They all have the same decor (old, wrinkly pictures of flower vistas in China), pictures of food (also old and wrinkly) and probably food. They're cheap, you know what you're getting.
We have very nice place that is also a sit down restaurant. I say it's nice because it has carpet, the colors are dark and rich (greens, browns, dark blues). The tables are polished wood. It just looks a lot classier. The food is marginally better but it is mostly how excellent the place looks that makes you enjoy being there or ordering. It's a popular place. It's not that much more expensive than the 'cheap' places, maybe a dollar per entree, but the entire experience is just much better on all fronts for me.
Carpet is generally the mark of a low class of restaurant.