First Impressions

First impressions are everything in the hospitality business. Which is why I am floored by the lack of genuine hospitality sometimes from front line staff. And even more shocked at the owners and managers who hire these folks!

I am in Columbus, Ohio for the weekend to visit my wife's family, and sometimes friends from when I lived here myself. Making this trip about once a month, I try to visit some of my former haunts and a few new places. A game I always play is called "2 minutes", in which I decide if I would hire this person based on the first 2 minutes.

Let's just say this weekend I have effectively "not hired" 10 employees at 4 establishments.

(On a side note, I did want to hire the young pregnant girl who attempted to hold the door for me. I declined and returned the favor.)

The various undoings range from trivial to overall bad attitude to lack of attention from 4 bartenders in an empty pub. As a recruiter constantly searching for good talent, this frustrates the hell out of me.

The common theme in the people I did not hire was poor attitude, and should have clearly been noticed by the hiring manager in the interview, or at the very least in the reference checks.

(Remember reference checks?!)

Great personalities and hard work can be trained on technique and position duties. Bad attitude can only spreads through your staff like a virus.

Happy Hiring!

Score one for Park Creek Kitchen

I'd like to welcome Park Creek Kitchen to the neighborhood of Upper Arlington, Ohio. Because it they certainly did welcome me.

I hit up the Columbus Clippers game last night and on the way home my brother in law suggested a beer on the way home at a new place that just opened this week. My arm doesn't need to be twisted for another beer. So off we went.

Columbus has quite a few culinary gems, but the location we were going is a small boutique shopping area stuck in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Many spaces have sat vacant for a long while, and we actually kicked around the idea of opening a small pub there.

We arrived around 11pm to find the chairs up and the lights low. The closing time read 10pm, but the door was open. Behind the bar we met the owner and chef, Jeff Headley.

Chef Jeff was extremely accommodating. He told us the story of Park Creek, where he had come from, where he was going, his struggles to open a restaurant with a liquor license in a residential community with just a 5% commercial base.

He demonstrated genuine hospitality. We sampled from among his large craft beer list and salivated over the eclectic menu consisting of organic and local ingredients. Though I have not tasted from the menu just yet, I will return based on the experience. Even if its just for another beer.

Here are a couple of link to the website and Facebook pages.

www.parkcreekkitchen.com

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1064913159&ref=ts