I have posted about delays in getting the food out at the Beer Garden a few times now. It really has been our major problem since we started and we really hit a bit of a wall this past fortnight. In my previous posts about this problem I have outlined actions taken to improve the situation and yet it continues to be a problem.
You could be forgiven for thinking that previous solutions have failed. While that would appear to be the case the reality is that the restaurant side of the Beer Garden has grown phenomenally in the past few months and the solutions applied have all worked but been too little, too late.
The real problem has been a lack of management in the kitchen. Although I would consider myself an experienced manager, the kitchen side of the business scares me. I am the world’s worst cook and what I know about organizing a kitchen would take about two seconds to tell. Given my lack of expertise I made a point of hiring a very experienced Executive Chef and gave her full power to run things as she saw fit.
Well, Pin is a great Chef and generally the quality of the food we have been putting out has been excellent. Sadly though, it has dawned on me that she is a crap manager. In August we were doing about 100 meals a day. In September we hit 150 and things started to slow down again. In October, Mikey, an experienced western Chef spent a week with the staff working on their western food skills. At his suggestion we added a new super sized grill, extra burners and a salamander. In October we hit 200 meals a day.
On Loy Kratong night in November the kitchen did 450 meals. Not surprisingly the delays that night were looooong. It concerned me but it was a special night and a one off or so I thought. Last Monday we hit 400 meals again and once more delays in getting the food out at peak times hit one hour or more. This was exacerbated as one of our evening cooks had to attend to a dieing grandmother, so we were one cook down that night.
I’ve been keeping out of the kitchen as I felt I was just getting in the way. A visit to see the problem close up on Monday revealed utter chaos. Food orders were streaming off the printer and falling on the floor. One of the service staff had been seconded into preparing vegetables to free up the cooks time for cooking and the two cooks on duty were running around like blue arsed flies. Not a good look.
That night after the rush had died down I had a meeting with Pin to discuss what we were going to do about the problem. The discussion was somewhat fruitless. One of the things that bug me about Thai staff is that they generally don’t see the big problem as they concentrate on the small details. Pin’s suggestions were all detail issues which would help a little but would not solve the overall problem. I decided then and there that I would have to get involved more directly or things would only get worse.
Monday night I sat down and wrote out all possible solutions. These included increasing the price to dampen demand, building a second kitchen, hiring more staff, finding a good kitchen manager or reducing the number of items on the Menu.
It seemed to me that price rises or limiting the menu were counter-productive. Any business that tries to limit demand must be doing something wrong. That left management, staff and a second kitchen as possibilities. A second kitchen is do-able as we do have the space. However other restaurateurs around town have told me they envy our kitchen for its size and equipment. It seems unlikely that more equipment was going to fix things.
That left management and staff. On the evening shift when we have the longest delays we have three cooks and two kitchen hands working. Of course they have holidays and sick grandmothers and days off so more often than not one or more of them is away. I decided to add one more kitchen hand to work from midday to 8 pm with the sole purpose of doing prep work. Then two more cooks to cover 3 pm to 11 pm which are our busiest food times. This would increase the staff at busy times by almost double.
I had another meeting with Pin early Tuesday and pointed out that she is a great Chef and a nice lady but as a Manager she was doing poorly and so I’d decided to get more involved. Hopefully with my management experience and her cooking experience we could get it sorted. I was a bit worried about her reaction but I am pleased to say she agreed with me and was well aware of her own limitations. I think I took a big load off her shoulders and she has been really happy this week.
My first “management” decision was to set goals for the kitchen. I wanted an average order time of ten minutes and no more than twenty minutes when very busy. I nominated Pope, our trainee bar manager as special kitchen liaison and gave him the responsibility to prioritize and organize food orders coming off the printer and getting the service staff to inform customers if the delay was going to be more than 20 minutes. Pin was given the job of finding the new staff asap.
That was Tuesday and since then we have continued to do over 400 meals a day. We have one extra cook already at work and another starting on 1 December. Still looking for the prep person but finding him/her is a priority. Delays at the busiest times are down to 40 minutes. That is still unacceptable but getting better daily. The kitchen now seems to flow rather than lurch from crisis to crisis.
My apologies to any customers who have experienced unacceptable delays. We are now getting on top of the problem and I hope to meet our time goals by 1 December. For now things are definitely better than they were and set to improve further over the next ten days or so.
I think I know how to manage a bar and the bar at The Beer Garden runs very smoothly. We are seeing a similar growth in the bar business but that bar staff have coped admirably. The kitchen has been a huge learning curve for me but really it is just another management problem and I’m not so scared of it now. As I pointed out to the staff this week having problems dealing with quite meteoric growth is a lot more fun than dealing with the opposite problem.
I hope to see you soon at the PBG.
Pete
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Sorry to say, but it seems things aren’t improving at all. Last night I ordered two meals for myself and my wife at 8.20pm. My meal arrived over 40 minutes later with no sign of my wife’s food (itself a poor situation). It was another 15 mintes before her (thai) food arrived. As we had a prior engagement it had to be left and she went hungry, and I’m sure you know the grief a hungry thai lady can inflict.
We really like the place but sadly don’t intend on returning after this debacle.
Hi Andy
I am sorry your experience was not a good one. Things have improved as I have been doing the things mentioned in this post. I’ll be writing about the current situation soon.
Last night was a bit of an exception. Maybe because it was the King’s birthday holiday. At 8:00 pm the place was half empty. By 8:30 the place was completely full with every table occupied. We have over 60 tables so you can imagine the rush of orders that came in.
I was timing things and we did get up to 40 minutes wait time. Although that is not good I doubt we will ever be able to deal with such a rush more efficiently.
The important thing is that when such situations arise the service staff are under strict instructions to warn people BEFORE they order.
The kitchen is also under strict instruction that meals ordered together must be served together. It sounds to me like something went wrong with your wifes order causing the extra delay. I’ll be investigating that today.
In any case what happened to you in not acceptable and if you do return sometime, please make yourself known to me and you and your wifes meal will be on the house.
I ate in the beer garden on Friday and Saturday at the weekend. The first night I ordered filet mignon with baked potato and vegetables. It was so good and such great value at 270 baht that I ordered it again the next night. In many restaurants filet mignon is a tiny piece of steak; this was a large juicy steak with a generous wrapping of bacon, plus a lovely mushroom sauce.
The venue was busy both nights with a lot of meals coming out of the kitchen. On Friday I waited 20 minutes, which was fine. On Saturday, I probably waited more than 30 but was not concerned. The waitress kept apologising but I told her not to worry. I was drinking and having fun with friends, so what difference does 10 minutes make?
It’s great to see the beer garden doing so well with its winning combination of great food and drinks, excellent value, friendly service, unattached ladies and seaside location. Many congratulations.
Pete,
I had been waiting patiently to get to Pattaya since the start of this web page. I have enjoyed reading your weekly (at first) then monthly entries on this amazing restaurant. After more that 20 years in the business (stateside) it was more than interesting to read about your adventure. As a former restuarantuer I was drooling at the opportunity your had created there. What a dream come true for anyone with the moxy to pull it off. Congrats by the way.
I was in Pattaya from Nov 25th through Dec 10th of this last year and made it to PBG more than a few times. Yes I saw your growing pains first hand. My third time around I sat at the end of the bar where I could get a better look at the kitchen area. I do not remember the date but that night the restaurant was rockin’. It might have been the King’s Birthday I just cannot recall to be 100% sure.
You are correct about the timing of hardly anyone there when we arrived and within 30 minutes of our arrival the place was pretty much full or at least reaching that point. Basically you need crowd control on busy or potentially busy nights.
I remember my first time walking in. It was for breakfast and was able to just seat myself. I was a bit surprised but then looking around it was a pretty calm morning and I remember reading that breakfasts are not that busy anyway. This may work during the slow times but I would recomend having some sort of seating control during your busy times. Slow down the rate of seatings by directing folks to your bar area. Seat folks in a timely rational manner. Rope off the seating area and have your greeters or servers seat the guests evenly throughout the restaurant. This serves 2 perposes. It keeps your servers from getting slammed. And keeps the ticket machin from rolling off it’s rollers in the kitchen.
On a night like that there will be little you can do other than stem the tide. It will slow down the tickets coming into the kitchen maybe just enough so that your expeditor can direct the mayhem that is coming your way. It will also up your bar business quite nicely.
Bottom line is you are in a choice location with a great view and a huge menu. Seat your patrons as your kitchen can handle them and your customers will be happier in the end. Sounds seasier said than done and it truly is. Just stem the flow and keep all the tickets from arriving at the same time. That is the goal.
This is just one of the many ideas I’m sure you’ve recieved concerning your wonderful situation of being just too damn busy. This may be moot at this point as it is already the middle of January and you may already have a fix in motion. I’m catching up on your monthly updates now. I’ll be returning to Pattaya the 1st of May. Cannot wait for the best breakfast in town.
Best of luck
Cameron