When I was asked to manage Henry’s Home restaurant to make it “The best steak house in Nanjing” I thought this would be great 
opportunity to use my years of catering and restaurant managing experience (which amount to none) to make a real difference. A chat with the owner confirmed I would have carte blanche to do whatever I liked with the place including the menu. So I started the project with some excitement – Gordon Ramsey eat your heart out.
I made an initial visit to see the scale of the job. The first thing I noticed was that the place was dirty – everything was dirty, the people, the kitchen, the toilets, the cutlery, the glasses, the floor… everything.
The restaurant employs a handful of Chinese waiters and two “Westerners”, one Cuban student and one Russian girl. The role of these employees is to stand in the doorway of the restaurant to act like a magnet to pull in potential customers in a “This must be a good restaurant, it employs Westerners” sort of way.
“Would you like to see the Manager?” Oscar, the Cuban asked
I was confused – “I didn’t think there was a Manager”
“Yes, it’s Billy, he’s in the kitchen”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He’s washing the dishes” Elina explained
I went to investigate.
“Billy why are the washing the dishes? You are supposed to be the Manager”
“There wasn’t anyone else to do it. The washer woman left and has not been replaced”
I asked Billy.
“How often does the cleaner come?”
“We don’t have a cleaner”
Incredulous I ask “Why not?”
“She left a while ago and Henry hasn’t replaced her”.
“So who’s doing the cleaning then?”
“Ummm well, we all are”
“The toilets are disgusting”
“Are they?”
An hour or so later I have enough notes to go back to the office and put together a list of improvements for Henry the owner.
- Employ a cleaner
- Get rid of all plastic flowers and replace with fresh.
- Use serving spoons
- Put Salt and Pepper back on the tables.
- Buy some mustard
- Reduce the amount of dressing on the salad so that there is not a pool left in the bottom of the bowl when the salad is finished.
- Buy some steak knives for steak
- Offer vegetable, salad or chips with the steak rather than just a slab of meat on a plate.
- Have one menu for everything rather than three heavy menus.
- No smoking
- Switch off the TVs. People don’t go to a restaurant to watch Tom and Jerry.
- Chefs to wear whites rather than sweatshirts and baseball caps and keep themselves clean
- Kitchen helpers not to sit on the floor to peel vegetables.
- No need to bring the steak to the table to show the customer before it is cooked.
- Write job descriptions for each role to save confusion of who is responsible for which tasks
- Iron tablecloths.
- Put napkins on each place setting
- Make every place setting consistent
- Use clean tablecloths, don’t just turn them over when they get dirty
- Turn some lights on
A few days later I turned up for a staff training session to find staff from all three of Henry’s restaurants lined up ready for me in excited anticipation each holding a pencil and notebook. This was all very new to me. Even my most motivated classes have not lined up and stood to attention like soldiers waiting for my word. Thinking on my feet I decided to do some role playing and managed to spend 1.5 hours getting the 16 of them role-playing greeting people at the door and showing them to the table, giving them the menu and taking the order. The other half hour was spent getting them to lay the tables properly, using the correct knives, forks and glasses.
The next week I turned my attention to the menu. I noticed a steak priced at 540rmb (£54).
“How many people order this steak?”
“Nobody. It’s not very popular”
I spotted “Wild Alaskan Cod” and “Norwegian tuna” on the menu
“Why don’t you buy local fish rather than getting it from half way across the world?”
Billy looked at me awkwardly and then I realised I had been naïve
“It’s not from Alaska or Norway is it?”
“No”
“Don’t you think people will be angry if they realise you are lying to them?”
Shrugged his shoulders
After a few weeks of not getting anywhere at Henry’s Home my relationship with the owner 
deteriorated and came to a head in what is now referred to as “the salad crisis”. I had arrived early to watch how the staff were dealing with the customers and was hungry so I ordered a salad. I had eaten there several times with Henry and he was always very generous with his food. At the end of 2 hour session Billy came over to me and gave me a bill for 45rmb (£4.50) for the salad.
“I hope you’re joking Billy”
“Henry said you have to pay for it”
“That’s ridiculous, I am not paying for it.”
“You have to”
“I refuse”
“Henry said that because you are now getting paid to do work here, you can pay for your food”
“Get lost Billy”
“But but but but…”
“Billy, it doesn’t matter what you say to me, I’m not paying for that salad”
And so ended my spell as a Gordon Ramsey wannabe. The only things Henry had done from my list of suggestions was to get rid of the plastic flowers and that was only because I had thrown them all in the bin so he had no choice.
On my last visit there, the tables were still not set properly, the place was still filthy and the menu still boasted wild Alaskan cod and Norwegian tuna.