The Ten-Minute Manager's Guide to...Saying Goodbye
By Virginia Gerst, Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/15/2006
First impressions are important, but in a service industry so are the last moments of the guest experience. How restaurants bid farewell is just as essential as how they greet and welcome.
Striving to make a memorable imprint and stir a desire to return, operators look beyond gracious goodbyes. Some present diners with small edible mementos, while others aim to make sure they help in every way possible—even running into snowstorms to hail taxis.
In all cases the goal is the same: to turn “goodbye” into “hello again.”
Sweet Send-Off
More than memories of Executive Chef Robert Gadsby’s six-, nine- or 12-course tasting menus are carried off by those leaving Noé Restaurant & Bar at the Omni Houston Hotel. Guests also take goodie bags of chocolate-pistachio biscotti.
“We want our customers to feel mollycoddled,” says Gadsby.
In New York City, Del Posto cossets with bags of house-made breadcrumbs, accompanied by a note from Chef Mario Batali, one of the owners, thanking guests for coming.
The 70-seat restaurant, which opened in December, gives away 40 to 50 bags a night, according to General Manager Alfredo Ruiz. The general guideline is one bag per party.
“It’s a simple gift, very much in line with Mario Batali’s style of cuisine,” Ruiz adds. “People love it. A lot of restaurants don’t give gifts. It’s a little gesture that goes the extra mile.”
At 85-seat Grace in Los Angeles, “Morning After” pastries are more than thank-you gifts, they are marketing tools.
“All of our outreach is word of mouth,” says Chef-owner Neal Fraser. “We don’t take out ads in the Los Angeles Times.”
The restaurant packages four varieties of house-made pastries in a carryout box, with reheating instructions tucked inside. The boxes cost $6, but Fraser estimates that he gives away more than he sells.
“In the restaurant business, operators try to make people think about them the next day,” he says. “You use matches or you use business cards. The boxes of pastries are a simple way to get Grace’s name into somebody’s head for longer than just that one night.”
Parting Ways
Diners leaving Blackbird restaurant in Chicago get more from their hosts than a simple “Thank you for coming.” The goal is to serve guests even after they have walked out of the door.
“The last words should not be ‘Thank you,’ they should be, ‘Can I do anything else for you?’” says Donald Madia, managing partner of the 60-seat fine-dining restaurant.
Guests don’t get their own taxis. Instead, Madia, a hostess or a server hails cabs on the busy street. “We don’t just wait until the taxi pulls up then go back in the restaurant,” says Madia. “We open the car door for them and make sure they get in all right. We take that additional step.”
When taxis are hard to come by, Madia has been known to drive guests to their destinations. “I’ve taken people to their hotels, to the opera or symphony, and I’ve done it in snowstorms,” he says. “If diners are from out of town, I may ask what they are doing for the rest of the weekend and make suggestions.
“We provide service equal to [Chef-partner] Paul Kahan’s food. I do what it takes to make Blackbird stand out.”
Gift Rap
Holidays mean gifts at The Sea Grill and Rock Center Café in New York City’s Rockefeller Center.
Michael Gabriel, executive pastry chef for the two Restaurant Associates operations, prepares a different version of his signature chocolate bark in the weeks around Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter. The chef also whips up the take-home treats for special wine-dinner events at The Sea Grill.
Servers place the bark, wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon, on tables as guests finish dessert.
In December, diners received packages of four flavors of bark: white chocolate, dark chocolate, espresso and chocolate nibs, while Easter packages contained white-chocolate peppermint bark laced with pastel-colored cocoa butter. Guests at a recent Sea Grill black-truffle dinner took home chocolate bars infused with black truffles.
The gifts are “a way of saying ‘thank you for coming,’” explains Gabriel, who prepares more than 100 pounds of bark for each holiday season. “Customers walk out with something to make them remember their dining experience. It’s a memento of how good everything was.”
Cordial Acts
Parting gifts arrive on a rolling cart at 50-seat Masa’s in San Francisco.
“It’s a surprise before guests go out the door,” says General Manager Todd Stillman.
Called mignardises (French for “little candies”), the cart contains 15 varieties of confections made by Pastry Chef Keith Jeanminette. Stillman likens its selection to an end-of-meal amuse bouche.
“There are seven or eight varieties of chocolates, a wonderful little French pastry, candied orange peel, several kinds of cakes and house-made lollipops in flavors such as watermelon, bubble gum and sour apple,” says Stillman. “Mom and dad usually take the lollipops home to the kids.”
Diners are encouraged to select one candy—or one of each. “Most choose one of everything,” says Stillman. “This is not something you are going to turn down.” Management packs up any uneaten selections in take-home cartons.
“People love the cart so much,” he adds. “You think your meal is done and we bring this out. It’s a wonderful way to finish.”
At seafood restaurant Mare in Boston, diners finish their meal with glasses of limoncello, presented after dessert courtesy of Executive Chef Marisa Iocco. Limoncello is a tart, lemon-flavored liqueur.
“When you go to someone’s house in Italy, they always give you something a little special that they have saved in a credenza,” she explains. “This is our version of that tradition.
“Giving guests something special that they can enjoy, like a little glass of limoncello, definitely makes them feel appreciated.”
Buss Lines
Neither the elegant sweets cart Masa’s employs nor formal goodbyes are personal enough parting gestures for Mare’s Marisa Iocco.
“Most of the time we hug and kiss our customers,” she says. “It’s the Italian way to say arrivederci.”
Many of the diners in the intimate, 55-seat restaurant are regulars, so they are known to the chef and to General Manager Rita D’Angelo. But not only familiar faces get bussed. First-timers are eligible for similar send-offs.
“When we sense a customer wants to keep their distance we don’t do it,” Iocco says. “We are 100% professional. But we also are warm. This is a way we let customers know we care about them.
“It is not just good for them; it is good for us,” the chef adds. “You work 15 hours a day, and then somebody comes in and says the food was excellent. You want to hug them. It’s an exchange of affection. It’s a beautiful thing.”
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