Clean Restaurants Run Better

Clean Restaurants Run Better

My first experience working in a restaurant was fast food. I still remember the first day of work and getting a tour of the back of the house. The restaurant was so clean and organized. Everything had its place. I even remember the manager’s desk…how it was so neat and kempt. The disposition of the restaurant seemed to follow through to everything else; my training was by the book and thorough, the product quality was spot-on, and the customer service was hospitable, friendly, and efficient.

 I also remember the second restaurant where I worked. It, too was fast food. However, unlike my first experience, this restaurant was dirty and disorganized. My training was the always-reliable “stand by Jack and watch.” Product quality was hit or miss and customer service was at best transactional, at worst rushed and rude. At the time I had not realized it yet, but the more I worked in the restaurant industry the more I understood, cleanliness is often the best barometer of how well a restaurant runs and operates. I finally figured out, clean restaurants run better.

 When I was promoted to General Manager and had the opportunity to take over my first quick service restaurant, of course, the restaurant was in bad shape. The team was poorly trained, the restaurant was not making a profit, sales were very low, food costs were out of control and in general, the restaurant was filthy and unorganized.

I did not know where to begin and hindsight being hindsight, I should have started with cleanliness, but I did not. Instead, I started by growing sales. After several weeks, the restaurant’s sales were up over 20% and I thought I was doing a great job. Then my Area Manager stopped by to rain on my parade. In the first official visit since taking over the restaurant, my Area Manager could not stop complaining about how dirty and disorganized my restaurant was. To my embarrassment, he began to clean and organize my restaurant. I remember thinking I never wanted my Area Manager in my restaurant again cleaning or organizing and I set out to make my restaurant into a shiny new penny.

Within days the restaurant was as clean and organized as it had ever been. My team was not accustomed to cleaning so I lead by example and put other managers in charge of the shift while I toiled away at cleaning and organizing. What I had not realized was the effect it would have on my team. At first they just watched me. Then some started helping me. Soon others joined in. We didn’t convert everyone that week, but something began to change in the restaurant: Pride began to appear and the team started to pick up after themselves and practicing “clean as you go”.

The analogy I like to share is very simple. Imagine you are at that relative’s house… you know, the one that still has plastic covering their couch? The relative’s house that is so clean that you are scared to mess with the very perfection that is their living room? Now imagine you have just finished a can of Coke and a plate of food. What do you do with them? Do you put them on the table in front of you for your relative to eventually pick up after you? Or do you seek out the garbage bin to safely dispose of the Coke can and seek out the sink to carefully rinse that plate and place it in the dishwasher? Compare that scenario to visiting that messy friend in college… you know, the one with the completely trashed dorm room? The one that people used empty soda and beer cans as ashtrays? What would you do with that empty can of Coke and plate in this situation? Does it matter? Chances are, the can of Coke and empty plate are left on whatever available surface there is close by you at the time.

Team Members that work in a clean and organized restaurant will tend to have much more pride than those that work in dirty and disorganized restaurants. It is sort of a chicken or egg type scenario…what comes first? To me, clean restaurants are a personification of the manager’s leadership and capability. A clean restaurant usually indicates the ability of a manager to get work done through others, who has high standards, knows how to drive teamwork and pride. Dirty and disorganized restaurants should be an alarm. If a manager cannot keep the restaurant clean, how well will he/she manage more complex processes like hiring, training, COL management, food cost management, marketing, etc? Indeed, if a manager does not know how to use soap and water, how can he/she be responsible for a million-dollar-plus business?

My first restaurant became the last stop any time my Area Manager was working with the Region Manager. My clean restaurant was not only clean, but the results were among the best of 6,000+ restaurants in our company. Mastering the cleanliness and the systems and processes to maintain the level of cleanliness helped me master other systems and processes within the restaurant. Master one system and process, chances are you can master many more.

As I moved forward in my career, I always made cleanliness a top priority. The tactic that I would employ with sub par restaurants was to always ask the General Manager how he/she would rate their cleanliness on a scale of 1-10. I would never tell them my opinion, rather I would either agree with their assessment or, in most cases, I would walk around the restaurant showing the manager the opportunities until they would lower their score to something with which I was okay agreeing. Then the follow up. I would ask the manager how long their team would need to get their restaurant to a 7 or an 8 on that 1-10 scale. Invariably, the manager would usually say something like “1 week” or “2 weeks”. This is where I had fun. I would tell the manager I would double the time or even triple the time because I wanted their team to succeed. Then I asked the manager how they wanted to celebrate when I came back and their restaurant was clearly a “7” or an “8” in cleanliness. This, too was fun. Some managers had no idea how they wanted to celebrate and needed help with ideas, while others immediately went for things like “BBQ dinner and cake”, or some sort of other fun ideas for the crew. I always liked the managers who were bold and asked for “all new shelving” or “all new uniforms”. After some horse-trading, I always made a commitment to the celebration. Then the flip side. I would ask the manager: “If I come back here and you don’t succeed, how do you want me to hold you accountable?” This is usually where I would experience the “oh, crap” look on the manager’s face. The interesting thing is, most managers would go to the extreme and say something like: “Terminate me” or “Give me a final written warning.” This again is where I liked to have fun. I usually came up with some zany alternative like having the manager agree to hand washing their Area Manager’s car while we sat in lawn chairs and watched. Or make the manager agree to getting up at the next region meeting and singing an entire song…or wearing a jersey of a sport’s team they despised for an entire week. To me this exercise was about helping the manager learn what they CAN accomplish…to get their restaurant clean and maintain it. It was about building them up, not breaking them down. (The key was also having the Area Manager constantly follow up with feedback so there would be no surprises when I came back.)

Before leaving the restaurant and after putting the “bet” in writing, I would offer up ideas on how their team could succeed. You see, I have seen many different processes for cleaning and maintaining a restaurant and I have my personal favorites, but sometimes it is about finding the right solution to fit the team’s style. My personal all-time favorite was a manger who took all the possible cleaning tasks that needed to occur in a given week and wrote them all down on index cards. The manager even included some “freebie” cards like “no side work today” or “pick another card and assign it to the manager on duty". This manager mixed in some fun tasks with the necessary tasks such as “bathroom duty” or “clean all garbage cans inside and out.” At the beginning of a team member’s shift, they had to pick at least one card, some days more. It became more like a game and team members looked forward to those freebie cards or even “gift” cards where they won a small prize such as dinner or movie tickets. The point is, it doesn’t always have to be an old-school-checklist-in-your-face-solution. Allowing fun and creativity to help solve problems can sometimes help a team’s morale and spirits, and it can also be just as effective if used consistently.

 When you find yourself with a General Manager who just cannot seem to breakthrough on cleanliness, you really have only 2 choices. You can continue to try and help the individual, so long as he/she is motivated and wants to succeed. This means helping to surround the General Manager with Jr. Managers that can drive the process and maintain the restaurant... and putting this accountability squarely on their shoulders. Or, you can terminate. I freely admit I have done both. I was mildly (at best) successful with the first option and as for the second option… what I always told myself was: Not everyone was put on this planet to run a restaurant. You see with the first option you still have to admit you are risking not only your own career, but you could be risking your company’s entire existence. With social media the way it is today, one major case of food borne illness or other inexcusable pictures/videos of the restaurant’s cleanliness can have devastating effects on restaurants big and small alike. Social media can literally bankrupt a business and ruin careers. As much as I believe in people and want people to succeed, this day in age, a great leader has to know when to cut their losses and protect their brand. As an old boss of mine used to say: “There are no directions on a bar of soap for a reason.” Cleanliness is the simplest of all the processes and routines we put in front of our managers. If managers cannot manage that, how well will they be able to manage their P&L? It's simple: Clean restaurants run better.