Questions about Greensleeves Steakhouse, answered in the words of the people who did the work. The engagement itself is on its own page.
What had to be protected before committing to the lease extension?
We owned the business, the brands, the equipment, the bars and the stock, but not the building. The space was leased, so every dollar we put into the room was a dollar spent on somebody else's real estate. A renovation is only worth as much as the term left to earn it back, and a landlord holding a dark, burned building has every reason to extend before you spend and much less reason after. So the lease came first, before the first drawing was approved. Then we phased the work so the former staff had a room to come back to right away, and the upstairs piano bar, the patio and rooftop, and the cigar lounge each opened as it finished while the restaurant kept earning.
What was measured each week to tell whether the turnaround was working?
Food and labor, on the same weekly clock. Most restaurants look at labor weekly and food cost monthly, so the kitchen learns it lost money after it is gone. We timed both to the purchasing cycle, so a bad week showed while we could still fix it inside the pay period. The harder call did not come from the numbers, though. We went through several chefs, each one fixed some dishes, and the room still did not run the same on the nights we were not there. The problem was the floor, not the plate, and the turn came when we backed a general manager who owned the slow Tuesday.
Where did an operating perspective change a construction decision?
The kitchen. We had to finish it well ahead of the rest of the space because we needed to start training staff, and training took far longer than we expected. We went through three or four chefs. So we separated the kitchen from the construction for cleanliness and worked around it. It was a pain for the workflow, but it was essential.
How was it decided which guest criticism called for changing the food rather than service or execution?
We asked the staff, really, and talked to the kitchen extensively. Sometimes it was a food thing. Sometimes it was a difficult guest, and food is subjective. It was just a lot of communication with the staff.
What did the former staff know about the customer experience that a new team would have found hardest to learn?
They knew the regulars by name, and they carried the town's memory of the room from before it closed. You cannot buy either one, and replacing the staff would have thrown away half of what we paid for. The trust on day one was real, and it was theirs, not ours.