The last restaurant I ran for a year and a half was a failure.

You could attribute this to the location, the interior design, the exterior design, the unpleasant clientele, or the troublemakers, but in retrospect, looking back, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is not the wrong part of Glasgow or Scotland. Not in the wrong part of town, but in the wrong part of the restaurant.

I should have paid a lot more attention to the kitchen. My energies were focused on the staff, the bar, and the decor. I should have paid a lot more attention to the food. The quality and quantity of the cuisine.

If I had put as much effort into the kitchen as the operation of the restaurant, the website, the staff, the decor, if I had put it into the kitchen, tasting the food, observing the food, creating new recipes. Maybe it would have been better for me.

All he had to do was make sure that all that came out of that kitchen were the bees’ knees, get acquainted with new menus, foods, expand tastes. Creating a BUZZ about food is what I should have done. He was in the wrong place, not externally but internally. My advice to anyone with a restaurant in trouble … get in the kitchen and get to work. If you don’t have the “thrill” of cooking, find someone who does! Ask customers when they leave “How was the food?” Get the right opinions, the criticisms.

“Good” or “Excellent” … no, “FANTASTIC! I’ll be back” is what you need to hear.

A kitchen porter told me many years ago “this is the most important place in the restaurant.” He was pointing to the trash can! The most important place ?! This is where food comes back if it’s not good enough. Think about it. People are hungry, they should have finished their meal. If the food is good, the dishes will come back clean.

At another restaurant he ran in Edinburgh, the chef asked me who I thought was the most important person in the business.

I said yes. After all, I kept it all together! I took care of and paid the staff! How wrong I was. The chef is the most intrinsic, of course, because the food has to be better than A1.

Being in the right place in the restaurant. Be in the kitchen.