ARE MASKS WIPING THE SMILE OFF THE FACE OF HOSPITALITY?
Masks keep us all safe, especially when dining out. But they also form a barrier between diner and serving staff that we can all help to overcome.
Dear Restaurants,
Something has come between us. Something made of multiple layers of fabric that filter particles between 0.02 and 0.1 micrometres. The mask is the new face of hospitality, and it has changed the dining experience in many ways.
I can’t see your welcoming smiles, and can’t understand you when you run through your daily specials. It’s harder to make a connection, to build a relationship, share a joke.
I’m deeply appreciative that you are wearing a mask, for your own protection and for ours, but I reckon we could do it better.
At a recent (and exquisite) dim sum at Mr Wong in Sydney, I was taken with how well the Merivale staff still managed to tell a story and keep up the energy in articulate and charming ways – particularly the wine waiters, whose task must be made extremely difficult by the wearing of a tightly fitted mask.
According to Merivale’s Food and Beverage Director Frank Roberts, there’s no specific training as such, but the group has introduced guidelines for mask-wearing that the different restaurant teams have taken on board, and to which, he says, they have added their own personality. I’ve interwoven his thoughts with my own here, to come up with some tips on coping with The Great Cover-Up.
1/ Make eye contact. The eyes can do a lot of the work, to show that you are listening, that you are smiling, that you are present and mindful. As Frank Roberts says, “you can build rapport with the guest through eye contact and lots of expression.”
2/ Smile anyway, even if we can’t see your mouth. See above – we can see it in your eyes, and hear it in your voice. (Besides, smiling will make you feel better).
3/ Speak clearly. “The main things we teach are the importance of speaking up and enunciating words so that the customer can hear them properly” says Frank Roberts.
4/ Exaggerate, act out, play up. Use your hands, shoulders, eyebrows and general body language to help tell the story you want to get across. (Frank: “Be more gestured than usual”) Remember, restaurant is theatre. Go be the star of your own show.
5/ Don’t lean in too close, and don’t lean over the plates of food on the table. If you’re closer to my food than I am, you’re too close.
6/ Don’t complain. We know it’s hard for you to do your job under such circumstances, but we love you for it. We love the normalcy of being in a restaurant, ordering food and drink, while being surrounded by others. It’s something we’ll never take for granted again, so the last thing we want to do is whinge about it.
7/ Sommeliers, we feel your pain. You open a bottle and want to sniff it, but you can’t smell a thing. You pour a tasting glass and raise it to your lips, and smell only the gardenia and native thyme of the restaurant’s bespoke sanitiser on your hand. How on earth do you cope now that every wine tasting is a masked tasting? We’re going to be extra nice to you until masks are off.
8/ Be nice. “Overall, it's important for our staff that they have fun with it and are patient", says Roberts. And that goes for we diners, too, even if we may have to ask for something to be repeated a couple of times, or we’re a bit hard of hearing. It’s a small price to pay. “Everyone understands what the staff need to do, to keep everyone safe” says Roberts. “It’s about providing the best possible service, no matter the challenges.”
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I live and work on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay my respect to elders past, present and emerging.
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