Gritz N Wafflez

Restaurant Name: Gritz N Wafflez

Owner: Jurni

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Number of Seats: 30

Number of Staff Per Shift: 14 Total

1-2 host, 3 servers, 2 takeout, 1 busser, 1 dishwasher, 3 cooks, 1 expo, 1 prep cook

Busiest Shifts: Saturday & Sunday Brunch

Before realizing her dream of opening her own place Jurni worked in management for big restaurant chains such as Pappadeaux and the Cheesecake Factory. Fed-up with working for someone else she cashed in her 401k and opened a ghost kitchen for her pickup only Southern Soul Food concept. After a year scraping by in the competitive food scene of Los Angeles she managed to open a brick and mortar restaurant with eleven tables and pickup service. Jurni has been able to establish a decent following and a rag-tag team of dramatic, mediocre but loyal staff. Jurni has been running her business entirely on her own. No outside backers, no consultants, she is doing everything by herself and now, is starting to burn out. She is exhausted, overleveraged, stressed and at a breaking point. It’s not uncommon to find her in tears or irrationally irate.

She knows that there are issues in the restaurant but at the same time she believes her concept has potential and merit…but if she doesn’t fix the issues with her lazy or inept staff, or problems with the cooks in the back, her dream she has given everything to will implode. To add even more pressure Jurni is preparing to move into an even larger space in the next three months. Jurni has put all her money into the new space so it’s now or never. Jurni doesn’t want her dream to be a “fad,” she wants to see her restaurant scale in the way she knows that it can. But will improperly cooked food, angry guests, dramatic and entitled servers ultimately be her downfall?

Issues

When the cats away! It’s no secret the entire staff behaves differently when Jurni isn’t there. The service isn’t as good and the back of house is lazier and more laid back. Servers aren’t pre-bussing, greeting every guest or wiping down every table. The cooks will cook themselves and the rest of the staff free meals that have become known as the “off menu.” They will improvise the recipes instead of going by the recipe book and won’t pay as much attention to the quality of the plating.

Burned food: The server “Big Jas” has noticed inconsistent, burned or improperly cooked food. She has no tolerance for serving lack-luster cooking and will hold up the entire kitchen before she serves something sub-par.

Too much waste! There is a lot of food waste in the kitchen because of a lack of processes and paying attention. For instance, $300 of waffle mix went to waste because it was left out overnight! For a small business this is a major issue that can’t keep happening.

Jurni has had to tell BOH staff to not drink alcohol or smoke on the job. She never thought that substance abuse on the clock would ever be an issue but she has sadly been proven wrong! Now she is always on the lookout if someone might be drunk or high…

Cleanliness: Jurni’s concerned about health code violations because of the lack of processes in the kitchen. Is her staff consistently checking the sanitizers in the dishwasher? Are labels being successfully utilized on food products? Jurni can’t be a health inspector and a business owner at the same time!

Kevin, one of the line cooks isn’t cutting it for Jurni. She can’t tell if he is lazy, or just doesn’t get it, if he needs training or simply needs to be fired. All she knows is that Kevin is completely useless in the kitchen and she has no idea what the issue is with him.

Consistency: The chefs try to make food from memory or “eyeball” the recipes without actually measuring ingredients, following the recipe book, which is a problem both for consistency and because it makes ticket times longer. This is Jurni’s biggest pet peeve, and it only gets worse when she is not around to supervise the kitchen.

Disorganized kitchen and walk-in! Not everything is always labelled and not always in the right spot. This means that people can’t find what they need, so when it’s busy this is a major issue because it translates to cooks not having the right ingredients or tools and everything gets backed up.

There is competition and drama between servers. Jasmin, or “Big Jas” hates “LA” who is Jurni’s best friend from growing up. Big Jas thinks that LA is a terrible server and has no business working at the restaurant and the only reason she is there is because she is Jurni’s friend. Even Jurni admits that LA has issues. 80% of all customer complaints can be traced back to LA. Big Jas is a good server but she has an ego and an attitude and isn’t a team player.

“NOT MY JOB!” There are servers who will only serve, not open or close, do prep work, wipe tables or do any task outside of “make their money.” For Jurni, this is an “all hands on deck” place and therefore needs everyone to have a “no job is too small” mentality. Some servers, such as LA and Big Jas, don’t think that they have to do certain things. Also, some staff are punctual, but some are late and unreliable.

Competition and Tip Culture: Jurni has a no-tolerance policy for hearing her servers complain about tips. It lowers team morale and is disrespectful – but there are some major complainers on staff that just can’t stop! When servers mention tips it becomes a competition that leads to rivalry and animosity.

Servers need to be more attentive to their tables throughout the entirety of service. Mistakes in this area can lead to a more backed-up kitchen because of delayed or rushed orders. Because it’s breakfast and lunch, there are multiple drinks, side dishes, dressings, syrups, etc, so if servers aren’t getting the details right the first time it becomes an issue that brings the speed of the restaurant to a stand-still.

Wait times! Wait times for tables can be anywhere between 20 minutes to two hours. When tables have to wait too long they get hangry and irritable. If the host isn’t organized and manage the seating chart and wait list properly it can create major issues for service. Guests will also demand specific tables regardless of where the host seats them.

 Servers can get territorial about “good tables,” and complain about not being seated enough or enough good tables.