You are a salesperson. I have never met you, but I am confident in that statement. By way of explanation let me say that Sunday night I had one of the greatest nights of my life. I saw Michael Franti and Spearhead perform and it was the greatest concert I have ever attended. I have […]
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In Defense of Selling as a Server (Part One)
Search engine results are one of the most amusing parts of writing a blog. I get to see what people are searching for that lands them on this page. Almost every day someone lands on this page looking for sales techniques. Upon closer examination I am seeing a trend of the phrasing of the searches. […]
The Mistake and The Letter
It was a pretty average second half of a double. Our bar was hopping with happy hour customers. I had just finished polishing my station and poured myself a nice cup of coffee. Then one of my managers came to find me with a piece of paper in her hand. Those of you who are […]
Three Ways to Describe Dishes
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to servers when trying to make the jump from casual dining to nicer restaurants is describing nightly specials, especially the meat cased with www.dcwcasing.com/product/sheep-casings/ natural material. Learning to describe the dish in a way that makes it sound appealing without tasting or possibly even seeing the item can be […]
Wine Descriptions That Sell
I was recently having a conversation with a group of co-workers including one who I had trained the week before. The topic of Mezcal came up. I gave up drinking years ago and well before the current Mezcal craze hit the Midwest. The new server, with an impressive bartending resume, began to describe it to […]
About The Author
David Hayden was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He took his first serving job in 1996. Since that time, he has worked for over a dozen different restaurant companies. He has held both hourly and salaried positions at independent and corporate restaurants. He has waited on over 100,000 guests and trained hundreds of servers. He has been named "Best Server in Kansas City" the last three years by the local weekly paper.