Babysitting adults – Who is responsible for your drinking habits?

Recently our industry underwent some of the most significant liquor reforms in decades. Its aim is to curb our drinking culture.
After reading the stats, you would have to agree changes needed to be made. While many New Zealanders drink responsibly, it seems many don’t. More than 700, 000 over 18-year-olds binge drink and more than 120, 000 currently suffer from a clinically diagnosable alcohol use disorder. Alcohol related harm and the social cost of New Zealanders’ drinking habits are estimated at $5.3 billion a year. Then there is the question of what dollar figure can be placed on the pain and loss on our families as a result of excessive drinking in terms of family violence, personal tragedies and the loss of loved ones. Following on from this is the claim that 60 -70% of all injury based cases at emergency departments over the weekend are alcohol related.

Now there are certainly some positives that come from the reforms; communities can play a stronger part in local alcohol polices, parents are now required to give consent for kids to be given alcohol and there will be a reduction in the number of off-premise outlets in our communities.  But likewise, there are certainly issues that have not been addressed like the minimum drinking or purchase age for on and off-premise outlets, off-premise outlets’ pricing of alcohol, the alcohol percentage in ready-to-drink/alco pops, longer trading hours, advertising of alcohol prices and specials and supermarkets’ ability to drive down prices.
However, I believe the most important issue that has not been addressed is personal accountability.  We, the on-premise outlets (be it a café, restaurant or bar), carry way too much of the burden.  We are held responsible to ensure food is readily available, that free water is provided and clearly visible, that you are given safe transport options, that we provide licenced staff and train them about the different stages of intoxication, server invention, managing risk, host responsibility and that you don’t consume a level of alcohol that may cause you harm. We now we have shorter trading hours and we are categorized into high, medium or low risk based on size and trading hours for the purpose of revenue generating by our local councils. We are also restricted on what advertising we can do and feel pressured to provide security staff.  To me it seems the idea of personal accountability is blatantly absent.

It makes sense to me as a publican to offer an environment that is not only welcoming and safe but provides the products and services I would enjoy if I was the customer and I certainly don’t have a problem complying to our regulatory requirements.   But isn’t it a two way street? Don’t you as a patron need to assume some accountability for your actions?  Would revoking alcohol licenses from off-premises, supermarkets, bars or cafés stop alcohol misuse? Does fining a bar or staff member for serving an intoxicated person reduce alcohol harm? Isn’t it an attitude that needs addressing? What happened to personal responsibility? Some people make a conscious decision to buy cheap liquor, drink excessively, and come into town and cause damage and harm. Some people will have too many pints after work and still drive home. Some people drink to just get drunk.  Should an on-premise outlet be held responsible because you didn’t eat or drink your free water or ring a taxi to get home or you pre-loaded before you came to town and then was intoxicated and caused mischief on a licenced premises? What are you held responsible for? 
If we really want to start making a change to our drinking culture and send a clear message that excessive drinking is not okay, then shouldn’t we reinstate the law that makes it an offence to be drunk in public? It seems obvious that if individuals were held responsible for their actions, then it would it play its part in curbing our drinking culture.
Stats from the Alcohol Healthwatch and the New Zealand Drug Foundation

Would you like fries with that?

I am not afraid to admit it; I am a fry –alcoholic. I love fries and I see no point in denying the greatness of a well-cooked chip, frities or fries. They are golden sticks of joy.
Rightly so, fries now appear on all types of menus from fast food all the way up to fine dining restaurants.  They range from the trusty old faithful thick cut chip, to now including crinkly, curly, shoestring, steak cut, wedge, waffled, seasoned, hand cut, double fried, skin on, duck fat and beer battered. The revolution continues - move over tomato sauce, there are new condiments in town. Introducing gravy, béarnaise, aioli, jalapeno cheese, bbq sauce, ranch, mustard, mayo, buffalo, sriracha, parmesan and chilli cheese.
Now I am not suggesting we eat more fries as moderation is important, but it should be about the quality of fries. Well-cooked fries should have the ever important balance between crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Using the right potato is key. It can’t be watery or too in high sugar. Our favourite is Agria. With its great golden colour and the right mix of sugar and starch, it will produce great fries every time. Fries should be cooked in fresh clean oil (no trans-fat), well drained, served hot and well-seasoned. Soggy, under cooked, cold or unseasoned are just not acceptable. You might roll your eyes thinking, “they are just fries” but I can tell you after years in the hospitality industry, fries have made up a significant part of my ‘staple’ diet; fries are a quick, convenient, carbo- loading fix. I have also seen the looks on people’s faces and read the body language when fries aren’t up to standard; there is nothing worse than being sold twice cooked chips that promise to be crispy but aren’t or you are desperate for your hangover cure and you are served soggy fries or your drive through chips are cold, hard and have no seasoning. Bad fries are like hard poached eggs on your benedict, it’s just not good enough.
So please, don’t accept it any more, stand up for your humble fries. They deserve more and they are certainly here to stay.

Check out these sites whose commitment to chip greatness is to be admired.

www.lordofthefries.com.au
www.belgianfries.com

This one’s for your Dave!

Why write an online restaurant review? What role does it play?

In today’s modern world, where everyone is a critic with their mobile devices, it’s the online food critic, which has the hospitality industry on its knees.
This is a real issue for anyone in our industry; the problem being, there is very little recourse for us. I will be the first to admit, not every service is perfect and while we may install high standards of product and service, and set policies and procedures and invest heavily in training, we do have a human element to factor in. Some days customers will all arrive at once causing kitchen carnage, someone will order 20 takeaway coffees which will cause a time delay in your order, suppliers will be closed over a long weekend and inevitably some items will run out, staff constantly work under pressure, mistakes will happen and unfortunately (but hopefully not often) a staff member may just have a bad day.
For some online critics, a restaurant review site provides a stage to vent as well as a cloak to hide behind. There are tales of scathing reviews from competitors posing as real customers, disgruntled ex-staff, reviews from people who have never been but heard something from Jimmy at the office, from people who dined a year ago or dined under previous ownership or because they just want to participate in a conversation .  The system is easily abused no matter the filters or processes a site may put in place. There is no requirement of proof that the reviewer even ate there. There is no accountability for the reviewer and their comments. What is posted on these sites is on the big bad web for ever.

So, if you want to write an online review, these are my suggestions to keep in mind:

1.    Have you judged the business correctly? Is it right to post a negative review because a bar didn’t sell muffins or you had to order at the counter? Or you were told by a friend that it was noisy but you went any way and then posted a negative review because it was noisy?
2.    Did you view the menu before you went there? Every business has its own objectives and gives careful consideration to menu planning, food styling, and pricing that suits their business. Is it fair to negatively review a business because mains were $40 or your wanted loose leaf tea but yours came in a bag or you didn’t like thin crust pizza because thick crust is your favourite?
3.    Are you being completely honest? If you waited 30 minutes for your meal but were pre-warned by the staff or because the restaurant was full then why not include that in your review? Is it fair, to write a negative review because you didn’t like your meal?  Or if it was cold or over cooked and you are asked how your meal was and you don’t say anything at the time, is it fair to then write a negative review?
4.    Be careful of the words you use. “Disgusting” or “worst meal ever” are very strong words and if that was the case, shouldn’t you have spoken up at the time? Why would you pay for such a product?

Now, I don’t want to come across like my nose is out of joint or that I am bitter. A business I co-own has had its share of bad reviews but why, for an example, is this business then, one of the busiest in town? What role have those reviews played? I genuinely believe all feedback is good feedback and if half of what is said in a bad review is true then we do need to look harder into what happened and make sure as business owners, we right any wrongs.  Restaurant review sites aren’t going away and they are welcomed in terms of the feedback they can provide. As an industry, we just want reviews that are fair and balanced; we want to hear when things are good as well as when they are not so good and we want to remove the ridiculous, somewhat toxic, personal and misinformed comments.