FOOD & DRINK FOOD & DRINK SUPPORTED BY
ARE YOU BEING SERVED?
A great meal out depends on a cast of cooks, chefs, servers, managers and others who are often taken for granted or rendered invisible by the glitz and glamour. Food & drink editor Donald Reid examines a few of the sometimes unspoken issues exercising the hospitality trade
P H O T O
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F R E E P K C O M .
A s our imminent Eating & Drinking Guide reminds us, the food and drink scene in both Edinburgh and Glasgow are a rich, varied and dynamic part of the two cities.
Diners and drinkers are well served. But what of the other side of the pass? While compiling the Eating & Drinking Guide each year we observe the scene and talk to those working in restaurants and bars. It’s clear there are a number of challenges within the hospitality industry, so here we highlight four issues which we’ve noticed are much discussed behind the scenes and probably deserve a greater level of awareness among diners.
NO-SHOWS The part of this that annoys the dining public is being asked to provide credit card details on making a booking. It smacks of mistrust, offi ciousness and even greediness – and not in the spirit of hospitality at all. Restaurants are highly sensitive to this resistance, and know it puts diners off. The single reason they’re compelled to do it are phantom diners: ‘no-shows’, the tables that fail to turn up despite a booking, and galling when you’ve turned prospective diners away and bought in food and extra staff in anticipation of a full house. Dine restaurant in Edinburgh suffered 36 last-minute cancellations or no-shows on Valentines Day this year: resulting in ‘a massive dent in our takings,’ according to owner Paul Brennan. ‘One customer said he had booked three restaurants so he could decide on the night where he wanted to dine.’ The restaurant’s response? Credit card details are now required to confi rm a 62 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2019
reservation for tables of fi ve or more, with a £10 charge per person in the event of a no-show. regular exercise and drink responsibly. Small differences can deliver big changes.’
TIPPING While the minimum wage has made a signifi cant difference to hospitality staff over the last two decades, tipping remains a slippery issue. The most common form of payment of restaurant bills is by credit card, but often waiting staff would far prefer a cash tip. ‘There is a major issue regarding how tips are distributed,’ explains Rory McGinley, general manager at The Buttery in Glasgow. ‘There are instances of managers not being accountable and transparent about how the sharing of tips is calculated. You can see service charges either escaping into owners pockets or being used to supplement staff wages. Fundamentally, tips are one of the central reasons why people stay within the industry – it can be extremely challenging and tips are a way staff can feel rewarded at the end of a diffi cult shift.’ MENTAL HEALTH In January this year, a new charity, Hospitality Health, launched in Scotland. Its aim is to elevate awareness of mental health in the hospitality and tourism industry, offering access to a dedicated online portal, a 24-hour manned helpline and helping employers understand stress better. ‘The hospitality culture needs to change,’ says Hospitality Health’s chairman Gordon McIntyre, who is associate dean of hospitality & tourism at City of Glasgow College. ‘We need to put health and wellbeing at the top of our agenda and really let staff see that we are taking it seriously. We want to encourage more staff to eat well, take
FOOD WASTE According to Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS), Scottish restaurants produce over 53,000 tonnes of food waste each year, at a cost of £64 million. ZWS also reckon that two-thirds is avoidable, including what’s known as ‘plate waste’: the perfectly edible food that’s left by diners. A pilot study found that three-quarters of customers said they wanted to be offered to take food home, but nearly half were too embarrassed to ask. So ZWS developed a scheme called Good to Go that provides free doggy bags and takeaway containers for restaurants to offer to customers with leftover food. The scheme has also helped highlight issues in the kitchen too. ‘When we did the pilot for Good to Go we saw the scheme was reducing food waste by 42%,’ says Ylva Haglund, food waste campaigns manager at ZWS. ‘Of that, half came from factors other than the doggy bags. What was happening was that as part of the pilot someone had measured the restaurant’s overall food waste, and then come back a while later to measure it again, and what the restaurant had done in the intervening period was go ‘hang on, where’d that come from?’. The portions could be too big, or maybe ordering wasn’t quite right, or there was something going on in the kitchen. And the simple act of measuring it helped them pinpoint that. For businesses, there is potential profi t to be made. If you measure, fi nd out where it comes from, and set your action accordingly, you can make savings. So even if you don’t care about the environment, it makes sense.’