Server Training: Teach your servers basic food knowledge and preparation methods

As a restaurant owner/operator, if you ask one of your servers, “what’s the difference between rotisserie chicken and rotisserie chicken?” or ‘what is a ragout sauce?’ Would they give you the correct answer? If not, I suggest you start teaching basic food knowledge and food preparation methods in your server training programs. Otherwise, valuable revenue and reputation for service in your restaurant dining room will be unnecessarily lost every day.

Most chefs work very hard and long hours to design and implement a food menu. But, if your servers can’t deliver proper dining service that includes being able to explain, in detail, everything on that menu, then a lot of the chef’s valuable time and effort is being wasted.

Restaurant customers always have questions about the menu, whether it’s a definition of a spring vegetable, an unfamiliar fruit, or a certain method of cooking a dish, such as stewing, roasting, grilling, etc. If a server can’t give a quick and knowledgeable answer when asked, then customer confidence is lost and so are sales, not to mention the reputation of the dining service. The actions and skill of a server are a reflection of the restaurant as a whole.

For example, if a customer is provided with an excellent answer to a menu question, they immediately realize that the server has skill and experience. So there are much more chances that a proper restaurant service will be provided. Logically, a customer who knows this fact is likely to order more items (and more expensive items) from that menu. No one wants to risk spending a lot of money at a restaurant when there is the possibility of poor service.

There is a very simple solution to ensure that you always have a trained service staff when it comes to knowledge of food and food preparation methods. For proper server training, restaurant owner/operators and managers should always have:

#1) Menu descriptions typed and given to all servers, keeping extras available for new hires. (All ingredients for each dish must be explained in detail.)

#2) food knowledge and food preparation methods typed and given to all servers, keeping extras available for any new hires. (Simple definitions of stew, roast, grill, etc. should be included in this handout.) These 2 information sheets should always be included in every server training course.

It’s also a great idea to have a food dictionary on hand on this topic. In the past, I have worked in a restaurant that had this type of dictionary available in the office. I always read it in my spare time, which helped me greatly increase my knowledge of food and food preparation methods. This way, I could really impress customers when they asked me any kind of question about the menu. Therefore, the upsell would start quite easily.

The concept explained above is passed on by so many restaurant owner/operators in waitress training programs for 3 reasons. The first reason is because of the extra time and effort it takes to print menu descriptions and basic food knowledge/preparation methods. The second reason is the false assumption that all servers are very experienced and know this menu data to begin with. The third reason is that precisely because menu tasting meetings are held; the entire staff is supposed to be able to sample every item on the menu. Well, this is a big mistake because many times not all staff attend these meetings. And, when there is staff turnover (which happens in almost all restaurants), the newly hired staff have not attended the previous food tasting.

So take my advice, after many years of restaurant consulting. You should include menu descriptions and basic knowledge of food/preparation methods in your server training programs. Get help from your chef and managers if needed. It will reduce the number of headaches for the chef, since there won’t be as many nagging questions from servers in the middle of the busiest shift of the week. More importantly, it will immediately improve the restaurant’s dining service, which, in turn, improves the reputation and bottom line.