Setting up a restaurant or eatery? There is little doubt that while location is the most important criteria to the success of any hospitality trade enterprise hiring the right staff can well make the difference between feast and famine or success or eventual closure. Having friendly staff that makes customers welcome the moment they enter your doors is like a magnet for creating that core group of customers from which the whole venture grows and prospers. Hire the wrong staff and you may just have well stayed in your old job or perhaps at home in your kitchen. Two adages come into play in restaurants when hiring and hiring well and correctly. First find the right people for the right positions. Next it can be said even by the most experienced stewards in that “You can never judge a book by its cover”.

It can be said that before you can even figure out whom you do need to help you to operate your restaurant or bar you first and foremost need to sit down and figure out you need to develop your concept. Major chains do this and so must you.

It is not just a matter of throwing mud into the wind and hoping all will settle out well.

What makes “your place” different than any others and why would someone get in their car , or even call a cab and travel all the way across town for a meal at your table. If your eatery does not offer something different and distinctive then why should they not just stay at home, make their own salmon sandwich or at the worst go to some nearby fast food “joint’.

Next put on your “operations” hat and then think about what jobs you will need to fill. If you are in the category of fast-food restaurant , then it is easy in that you do not need a host or greeter to sit people down and help them find a table or to take reservations. However you will need for a fast food set up order takers at the counter who double as cashiers and can handle money and give change. If on the other end of the spectrum if you are a “fancy” gourmet restaurant you may need at least 2 hosts but no cashiers and counter staff. It all depends on your setup and arrangement. Thus first you have to determine your market niche, and then the type and number of staff. To some degree it’s a first stab of the knife, an educate guess with a business plan, from which with customers and guests at your restaurant you then go on to fine tune and adjust accordingly.

Different jobs in the restaurant definitely require different personalities.

Yet must insist on several basic tenets and standards. First cleanliness – all staff must maintain certain standards of personal hygiene and neatness in appearance. They also must meet all local city and state health and food safety rules strictly. Next staff must always be friendly to customers and other staff no matter what.

True different jobs require different attributes and you should always be cognizant of this in your hiring. No one size or even standard fits all. For example a fry cook while neat does not have to have an outgoing personality or to that matter even is greatly fluent in the English language. Yet you do want serving staff, or staff at the front counter that is and does.

In the end it’s all one big fun game so to speak to hire proper staff, have them work together as a team, have them productive and yet be overly supervised to the point that that morale falls off. Good luck and have fun.

Author Bio: Toni I. Williams Quality Inn Winnipeg Choice Hotels Winnipeg Best Furnished Hotels West Wpg Airport Winnipeg Spring Wedding Caterers