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After three decades in the restaurant industry, there’s one thing I wish more business owners understood: Everything in your space is an opportunity to connect with customers and establish your brand.
I spent 18 years as a working chef, cooking everywhere from a Caribbean eco-resort, to New Orleans’s famed Commander’s Palace, fine-dining destinations in New York City, and celebrities’ private homes. Now, as cofounder and chief creative officer at Tilit NYC, I work with restaurants, hotels, and resorts all over the world. At Tilit, we create stylish, functional, high-quality workwear for chefs and other hospitality workers. Often we partner with restaurants to develop custom attire that fits their brand.
Working with so many different businesses has shown me that many miss key chances to create the ambiance they want. But there are three simple ways you can shape a positive experience for your guests.
1. Start with your team
Your employees are the ones in front of your customers building and selling your business. Think about it: In a coffee shop, a rude barista can ruin the customer’s whole experience. It’s the same thing with servers in a restaurant. But when employees feel good and feel supported at work, they’ll be more productive, friendlier, more outgoing with other team members, and with your customers. Your guests will feel their energy.
Taking care of your team starts with basics like fair pay, benefits, and treating employees with respect. But even seemingly little details go into how your employees feel. One way to show your team you care? Make sure they look fantastic and feel comfortable. I started Tilit because, as a chef, I didn’t feel good about the cheap, baggy uniforms that were the industry standard. And talking to other people in the restaurant business showed me I wasn’t alone. A lot of restaurants have open kitchens. But you still see cooks wearing stained, ill-fitting uniforms. And you still see businesses that don’t devote any attention to making their servers look and feel good.
These are missed opportunities to invest in the team and in the customer experience — your team has to wear clothes anyway, so why not have that carry through to your brand? A tuxedo says a lot about what your restaurant is and what you want it to be, and the same goes for a branded t-shirt. Practically, it helps customers know who works at your business, but it’s also an easy branding opportunity.
I’ve also found that uniforms help bring unity to the group, creating a big opportunity for morale. I think about it like a professional versus an amateur sports team; a group playing pickup basketball isn’t going to work together the same way as a team with their own uniforms; it just isn’t the same.
It comes down to making your team feel good. The lengths you go to get them health insurance — it shows that you care about them. In the same way, equipping them with thoughtful uniforms is an example of an opportunity to show that you care about who they are and how they feel during the day.
2. Think through every customer touchpoint
Do you realize how many times your guests will see servers and busboys throughout their meals? This gives you a huge branding opportunity! How you outfit your team ties into the vibe you create. There are all kinds of possibilities, but whatever you choose, be intentional about how you want your team and your customers to feel.
For example, it kills me to go into a restaurant and see that the owners have lavished attention on, say, the front door experience, but ignored other opportunities to cultivate the customer experience they want to create. What if customers go into your bathroom and see that it’s a mess? That tells them a lot about how you take care of the space — and of them.
Or take something as fundamental as the chairs customers sit in. It’s easy to overlook how a chair sets the tone for the whole experience. A ramen shop that focuses on providing a quick meal might intentionally have wooden stools to prioritize guest turn over. But if you aim to create a high-end experience where guests linger for two or three hours? A hard, wooden seat won’t cut it. Neither will something cheap looking. The chair is part of your brand.
Another technique: Think about what your customers see and hear when they walk in the door, while they’re waiting for a table, once they’re seated, when they walk to the restroom. Where do you want their eye to go? What should the lighting be like? What kind of music do you want playing?
You should also think about what happens when customers leave. Is there something they can take to remind them of your restaurant? Branded matchbooks have become less popular, but they’re a great way to keep your restaurant’s name on customers’ minds. If you carry branded merchandise, make sure you always have inventory, in all sizes. On vacation recently, I wanted to buy a T-shirt from a taco shop, but they were out of stock. The restaurant missed a chance for free advertising. (Actually, I would have been paying them to advertise for the shop.)
3. Draw inspiration from outside your industry
As you curate your brand and vibe, you don’t have to rely only on the restaurant industry for ideas. Look elsewhere for creative inspiration.
Tilit is based in New York City’s most fashion-forward neighborhood: Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I go to a local coffee shop every day to observe what people are wearing, what trends are developing in streetwear. These aren’t people in the hospitality industry, for the most part. And they’re not wearing expensive couture. They’re inspiring because they find ways to make fashion interesting on a small budget.
So for us it was about the crossover, where it was something you could wear to the grocery store or after work and feel good. It’s the same appeal as Carhartt for construction, where you look cool even when you’re not surrounded by a bunch of people wearing the same thing.
Creating the right look and feel for your restaurant comes down to making all kinds of detailed decisions, as I’ve said. You have a much better chance of producing a unique, inviting customer experience when you look outside the restaurant business for ideas.
Create a good vibe to build word of mouth
For most restaurants, word of mouth is the best, most consistent source of advertising. Good reviews, PR buzz, and social media bumps will help you at the outset, but happy customers are what will keep your restaurant full over time.
To create positive word of mouth, you need to do more than serve good food. The most successful restaurants create a strong brand and carry it through every aspect of the guest experience. You can pull off that feat when you take care of your team, develop a plan for every customer touchpoint, and look to unexpected sources for creative inspiration.
That’s how you create a winning vibe that keeps customers coming back again and again.
