Food and beverage studies - Essay Example

Food and beverage studies Table of Contents Introduction 2 Discussion 2 Meal Experience 3 Service and Recommendation 4 Importance of Embracing Trends 6 Relevant legislation for the organizations 7 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction The restaurant market in UK has been growing rapidly due the presence of several leading restaurants that provide quality foods and beverages to the customers. Popularity and growth of a particular restaurant depend upon supreme quality of food products, effective customer service and effective in-house amenities. This essay will investigate all these aspects of a particular restaurant based in Southend-on-Sea. The name of the restaurant is ASK. ASK Italian is popular in London due to its several continental and traditional Italian dishes. The restaurant has implemented several unique strategies to attract the local customers. Differentiated food menu and expert chefs helped the restaurant to pool a significant group of target customers (Davis, Lockwood and Pantelidis, 2013, p.26). Moreover, the restaurant implemented several discounted pricing strategy to target the price sensitive customers. The staffs or the employees of the restaurant always try to provide efficient customer services (Angel, 2008, p.7). High brand awareness or brand value of the restaurant motivated me to visit and investigate several aspects of the restaurant. I had found out several unique strategies as well as drawbacks during the investigation. This essay will evaluate the meal experience and provide some valuable recommendation plans to the problems and issues in order to improve the brand image and reputation of the restaurant. Discussion This part of the essay will discuss a complete meal experience, customer service, importance of embracing and relevant legislation for ASK restaurant based in Southend-on-Sea. Meal Experience The restaurant is quite clean. Moreover, the staffs of the restaurants are friendly enough. The restaurant was visited by me on a weekend in last month. The restaurant does not have lot of staffs comparing to other high street restaurant. Major objective behind this investigation was to evaluate the meal experience including quality of foods and customer services. The restaurant is specialist in providing simple and traditional Italian foods. I tried all the three courses to measure the experience. The environment of the restaurant was calm and quiet on that particular day due to large space and limited number of staffs. First of all, all the staffs and executives welcomed me. They were very much warm and inviting. All the chefs and staffs were trying to provide effective service and follow up the customers to meet the satisfaction level of the customers. After entering into the restaurant, a staff guided me to take my seat. After one minute, a staff came to me and provided a glass of clean and mild drinking water. Slowly and gradually, he asked about the meal order. This gratitude pleased me as effective customer service can develop a potential customer base for a restaurant. However, I went for starter section. They have kept three separate menu cards for three courses. Various differentiated food items surprised me. I heard from my friend that, the preparation and taste of Bruschetta is quite awesome. It is traditional toasted Italian bread item with fresh basil, maintained tomato and Ricottas salata. The staff came back with my given order after five to seven minutes. The taste of the item justified my preference and expectation. After 2 minutes, the in-store manager came to me and asked about my opinion about Bruschetta. This service pleased me. After completion of my starter, the same staff asked about main course order. It is known to all that, Pasta is traditional Italian food. Moreover, the restaurant is specialist in providing different Pasta items. I gave an order of a Spaghetti Al Commodore. The ingredients of this item are fresh as garlic basil star enriched with tomato sauce, Santos tomatoes, covered with buffalo mozzarella and a slight drizzle of olive oil. This food was lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed all the courses. The chefs are majorly responsible for these quality foods. Moreover, the staffs are energetic and customer friendly. After competition of my main course food, I made an order of Lamadoro. This drink is the enriched with rich crisp wine from a specific region of Puglia. Fruity and fresh are major characteristics of this drink. Long waiting time between the courses is the major drawback of this restaurant. It is true that, the quality and taste of food is nice. And presentation and follow-up of the staffs are highly acceptable. However, slow service and long waiting time can affect the popularity of this restaurant. Customer Service and Recommendation Long waiting time between the courses is the major drawback of this restaurant that can affect the customer service. It is known to all that, restaurants are food providing organizations. The business performance and growth of a restaurant highly depends upon the effectiveness of customer service. Long waiting time between the courses will force the customers not to visit again. In addition, it has been investigated that the price menu of several foods are quite expensive for the middle class income people. Recent financial crisis and global recession reduced the purchasing power of people. Low disposable income is stooping people to consume expensive food products. Several restaurants are operating their business practices in this area. They are trying to integrate quality, service and effective price level in their business process (Landau, 2010, p.124). This competitive pricing strategy can affect the existing customer base of ASK Italian Restaurant. Following recommendation plans will help the restaurant to meet expectation of the customers. First of all, the restaurant needs to employ skilled and effective staffs with relevant working experience. It is important for the restaurant to meet the customer’s demand and satisfaction to develop customer base. The organization needs to review the resumes of all the applicants. Then they should heir people accordingly. After the completion of the selection process, the management of the restaurant chain needs to organize an orientation process for the new employees. In this orientation process, the management should discuss about the business ethics, organizational values and major growth drivers. After this, effective training and development process need to be organized for the employees. The management of the organization should try to increase the skills and efficiency level of the employees through this training programme. This training will help the employees to bring significant pace in customer service process (Nickson, 2012, p.51). Quick customer service will help the organization to attract more number of customers. The organization needs to focus on discounted pricing strategy to achieve potential competitive advantages. They need to provide happy hour offers to the customers during the dull business seasons. This strategy will support the purchasing power of people during this economic slowdown. It is true that, ASK Italian restaurant maintains nice and clean atmosphere, but during the investigation it has found out that several women customers were making complaint about the cleanliness of ladies washroom. These issues need to be reviewed effectively by the management of the restaurant. The restaurant should appoint efficient cleaning staffs who will clean the washrooms and floors of the restaurants with sheer responsibility on daily basis. Cleanliness is the part of effective customer service. Hygienic atmosphere is the major growth driver of a restaurant. Last but not the least; the organization should offer online purchasing and home delivery process. Customers prefer online consumption process due to huge work stress and busy work schedule. Therefore, online consumption and delivery process will help the organization to achieve significant competitive edge within the London market. Importance of Embracing Trends Several restaurants prefer recent market demand and basic needs of customers in order to maintain business performance. Maintaining quality of food products, atmosphere, cleanliness, price, and service is major concern for the restaurants (Meggitt, 2003, p.58). It is important for the restaurants to integrate all these things in the business process to meet market demand. The awareness of cleanliness and hygiene is significantly increasing in this industry. Moreover, people prefer healthy food items. Health and safety has become major concern for majority of the people. Therefore, demand for vegetarian foods, pasta and white meats are dramatically increasing. Growing demand for organic and additive free foods is forcing several restaurants to offer these food products. People are trying to avail quality food products in low price level due tom economic slowdown and reduced purchasing power. Several Italian restaurants are setting price level based on the frequency of the customers at a specific time. The restaurants are implementing social media promotional strategy in order to increase the brand awareness (Rasco and Bledsoe, 2005, p.72). However, the restaurant industry in UK is facing several challenges, such as expensive rent forcing restructuring, economic slowdown and transformed social trends. People in UK are trying to consume healthy drinks, such as fruit juices, tea and coffee. Therefore, sales of beer and wine declined dramatically. On the other hand, unique interior design of a restaurant has become major business growth driver. In adequate physical appearance can reduce the sales of a restaurant. Therefore, the owners of the restaurants are spending significant amount to design the interior in order to attract the customers. However, this concept cannot be harmonized. First of all, the restaurant needs to maintain their promises and values. Then they need to maintain the cleanliness and hygienic factor as these can help the customers to feel comfortable (Godsmark, Garvey and Dismore, 2011, p.17). Providing food of superior quality is the major aspect of a restaurant. Low waiting time, effective customer service and hazardless billing process need to be maintained by the restaurants in order to meet the demand of customers. Lastly, the management of the organization should consider efficient workflow, significant workspace, access to the ancillary areas and appropriate sections, numbers and size of operating equipments. Relevant legislation for the organizations The government of UK are motivating and forcing the restaurants to follow several hospitality legislations, such as food safety act, licensing act, health and safety act, weights and measures act, discrimination acts and employment acts. Under the food safety act, the restaurants need to maintain the quality of the ingredients that are used for the preparation of food. They need to maintain quality of foods and drinks as inadequate quality can affect the human body (Hutter, 2011, p.39). It may create several legal challenged for the business firm. Under the weights and measures act, the consumer protection needs to be maintained by the restaurants. Effective brand identity, appropriate pricing and quantity need to be maintained by the restaurants. Under health and safety act, the workplace environment, and health & safety aspect of the employees need to be managed by the restaurants. Under this act, the organization needs to review workplace environment, machineries after a certain period of time. Violation of this act may force the organization to pay huge compensation amount to the employees in case of any workplace hazard. Inadequate health and safety measures can result civil damage claims, high insurance costs, fines, legal cases and loss of productivity (Lucas, 2004, p.293). Food and alcohol license need to be avail and renewed by the restaurants under the licensing act. Provision of late night refreshment, retail of alcohol, supply of alcohol and provision of several regulated entertainment activities needs proper licensing (Brotherton, 2012, p.46). The restaurant needs to avail a club premises certificate in case of these scenarios. Under employment law, the organization should maintain equal income distribution, working time regulations and fixed term working. In this act, the organizations need to operate fair business practices in order maintain effective brand reputation. Conclusion It is clear from above discussion that, UK restaurant industry has become highly competitive due to presence of several leading restaurants. The essay investigated the meal experiences and customer service at ASK Italian Restaurant based in Southend-on-Sea. From above analysis, it has found out that, the restaurant tries to provide supreme quality foods. Moreover, they try to satisfy the basic needs of customers, but long waiting time unhygienic ladies washroom are major drawbacks of this restaurant. The restaurants need to improve their customer service management to maintain existing customer base. They need to integrate several strategies, such as employing more staffs and maintaining cleanliness. The restaurant needs to meet several customers demand through effective pricing strategy. It will help the organization to support the limited purchasing power of middle class people. Last but not the least; the restaurant needs to maintain all the legal organizational acts to avoid several business and operational conflicts. References Angel, V., 2008. Facing It. London: Troubador Publishing. Brotherton, B., 2012. Introduction to the UK Hospitality Industry. London: Routledge. Davis, B., Lockwood, A., and Pantelidis, I., 2013. Food and Beverage Management. London: Routledge. Godsmark, C., Garvey, M., and Dismore, H., 2011. Starting and Running for Dummies, UK Edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Hutter, B., 2011. Managing Food safety and Hygiene. London: Edward Elgar. Landau, E., 2010. Food Poisoning and Foodborne Diseases. London: Twenty-First Century Books. Lucas, R., 2004. Employment Relations in the Hospitality and Tourism Industries. London: Routledge. Meggitt, C., 2003. Food Hygiene and Safety. London: Heinemann. Nickson, D., 2012. Human Resource management for the Hospitality and Tourism Industries. London: Routledge. Rasco, B., and Bledsoe, G., 2005. Bioterrorism and Food safety. New York: CRC Press. Read More