Our current restaurant will be privately owned and managed by it's two owners. This will give us the freedom to whatever we feel necessary for the restaurant to flourish. After our first restaurant blows up and becomes well known, we will begin to sell stock for new restaurants and begin a chain of restaurants offering the same great food as the original. Our initial restaurant will be using a Total Quality Management (TQM) system. TQM is a philosophy advocated by Dr. Edward Deming, a world renowned quality expert. It was widely accepted by Japan from 1950 onward. They used this principle for continuous refinement of an organization-wide quality system. In the food industry, continuous improvement is vital to the survival of a restaurant. The customer is constantly purchasing the restaurants products and any decline in quality will equal a decrease in profits. There are several areas that a restaurant may focus on for quality improvement such as menu offerings, hospitality, service, cleanliness, and over all food quality.
The first area is measuring quantitative results of various surveys and studies and basing future decisions strictly on these outcomes. This information could come from something as simple as a comment card, but these cards must tell the business more than what was good and bad, but why. This will give management insight on what customers like and dislike about the restaurant and therefore will allow the manager to change any negative aspect. The second area to be focused on is empowering the employees. Allow the employees to be involved in the team effort. Make the employees feel responsible for their actions and allow the employees to fix their problems. If management treats employees in a respectable manner, the employee will turn around and treat the customer with respect also. Employee empowerment will result in better service and hospitality for the customer.
