How to greet guests at the restaurant?

Guests arriving at the restaurant of their choice, should make them happy. Typically they are ready to get some quick food or spent a fair amount of time at your place for a more extensive lunch or dinner. Depending on the service level your establishment would like to offer, greeting your guests can be done in a variety of ways.

Very important when greeting people at your restaurant:

Be hospitable, you are their host and they are your guests.
Warm and friendly tone of voice, address them according to time of day(morning, afternoon, etc).
Offer to take a jacket when you provide this service, and even if its not the company standard you might feel like doing an extra step once in a while.
Ask about reservations and table preference.
If you are showing them a table, always lead the way. Perhaps surprisingly but your guests probably get confused when you tell them to ‘sit at table 7, over there in the corner’.
Its common courtesy to help ladies out first. Take their coats first. Pull out a chair for them. Nowadays some people might be offended because of all gender-neutral talk. But more often than not, you are scoring bonus points when doing so.

Just do the basic restaurant stuff, nothing fancy or upscale

The principle of greeting people at an establishment to eat, is the same
Make the difference, especially when your company is not aiming for Michelin-stars you can really win
If no other places around provide a good welcome, that doesn’t give you the right to not do it as well

Personal note:

It is such an underestimated part of the dining experience, the ‘welcoming ceremony’ as I like to call it. While most restaurants will have a host who welcomes you, this welcoming starts and ends with: “Hi, do you have a reservation?”. Other times there is not even a staff member in sight and you just wonder around the place, trying for the other patrons not to see you being clueless as to where to sit or go.

I truly believe it’s a shame when no other effort is taken to start off any dining experience. If you think about it: the first seconds you form an instant opinion of a person and a place. If you nail this simple first 30 seconds of a visit, your guest will be happier from the start making the rest of the job for you and your co-workers definitely a lot easier.

Sincerely,

Den The Man

Be hospitable, you are their host and they are your guests.

Warm and friendly tone of voice, address them according to time of day(morning, afternoon, etc).

Offer to take a jacket when you provide this service, and even if its not the company standard you might feel like doing an extra step once in a while.

Ask about reservations and table preference.

If you are showing them a table, always lead the way. Perhaps surprisingly but your guests probably get confused when you tell them to ‘sit at table 7, over there in the corner’.

Its common courtesy to help ladies out first. Take their coats first. Pull out a chair for them. Nowadays some people might be offended because of all gender-neutral talk. But more often than not, you are scoring bonus points when doing so.

The principle of greeting people at an establishment to eat, is the same

Make the difference, especially when your company is not aiming for Michelin-stars you can really win

If no other places around provide a good welcome, that doesn’t give you the right to not do it as well

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