Playing With Musical Chairs

Festive Season Celebration Down South Coast

2006 Christmas party in session at Dom's Teahouse

Well, it is this time of the year again. I must admit as trading operators we are treading on a very trying time. Christmas period leading up to the New year and a few weeks beyond into the holiday period has to be one of the busiest in our hospitality calender year. I get less time to spend behind my desktop as the business draws most of whatever surplus leisure time I have away.

It is also time besetted with frustrations and concentrations as one is besieged with concerns for a rather small dining room having not much capacity for a decent turnover of seatings for it does not take much time and effort to get the 32 seats immediately filled up and congested even perhaps on a slack week night. Rather relying solely on 'word of mouth' than extensive advertising it is something I am most prone not to disappoint and to minimise our patrons if need be. For we do have such a 'personal' following and any widespread negative reaction from our regular customers would be horrendous and certainly unhelpful to say the least.

The first few pre-Christmas banquets have gone down pretty well by our standard as we get mostly satisfactions and admiration from our clients feedback. Nevertheless, I endeavour to ratchet up a few more notch than what we could possibly achieve so that my staff can excel to get the better side of things. After all this is merely the beginning of a festive season. Esprit De corp and teamwork with an effective leadership and a hard working fair equitable and a consultative boss around the staff should generally get us there.

That was the positive note. On the downside there will bound to be disappointments frustrations and exasperation around. As trading hours get longer so does getting to work earlier effectively adding further 2 hours early and closing premises later in the evening. Suppliers deliver late tend not to be on time as they have heavier load and orders. Whats more their prices are more vagaries subject to yo yo . Seldom can you work out the sense as it vacillates between pre-christmas and immediately after the New Year period. Seasonal fruits for fruit salad like a pound of cherries now is around $9.95 but after the Festive Season it will be $6.00 or below. Sliced Virginia ham for fried rice chow mein and buck bow farn will attract astronomical price but after the New Year it may well go for some crazy bargain. Wish we could adjust our long term fixed restaurant menu accordingly. But because menus are fixed for a long period of time we prefer a predictable consistent price where not only other related costs are factored in our customers also get their bearing.

Road traffics are getting longer and more erratic in behaviour. Someone told me that it is the influence of the coming 'Silly Season'. There was this local government sponsored Christmas pageantry parade and Toys on the Run Charity fund raising events that resulted in major detours and re-routing of commuters daily distance and the number of lost hours subsequently caught up in blocked traffic. Someone was in a hurry too in attempting to get to the Christmas by the Candlelight gathering and when I mentioned to them to switch the indicator on before cutting in and overtaking the lane at close quarters I got a rude 2 fingers up . Some nice charming self professed Christian family that was.

If you run a pub at this time of the year you should be raking in some dough alright. Especially down by the dockside they get them from the nearby breweries by the truckloads. Most revellers and celebrant will start drinking from now till New Year and some will do so till they no longer stand on their two feet. I sent one of my staff home one year for turning up to work in a stupor.It just does not cut with work and responsibilities.

There are those workers that I do show my commiseration. The public enforcement officers, the nurses and the taxi drivers. Now that random alcohol Breathalyzer tests will be taken out frequently over the celebrations in a blitzkrieg fashion the rather understaffed taxi drivers will have a hard time in getting up to their long shifts into ungodly hours of the morning. There is bound to be long queues of irritating temperament customers at the taxi ranks at most popular night venues.Their job is to take out the less drunk and less stupor else they have to send in their transport for a quick needy wash.

Well back to our little premises and little Christmas story. This season there will bound to be disappointment. Major events such as Christmas and New Year calls for banquets and other bigger social 'get together'. Because most people in a group knows each other we endeavour to provide larger and longer tables for them. We call it a 'communal table'. Translated into smaller place where it is virtually impossible to make a sizeable turnover it necessary means lose of available seats which would otherwise be released to other customers making up of couples smaller groups or even singles who also dine out for the same night. Then this is coupled with uncertainty that not everyone in a large group will turn up thereby losing more available seats by being locked in that group booking. There is no sure way to do it . However I understand that larger restaurant would stick to the steadfast rule of collecting a money deposit from each of the group's participant beforehand perhaps on a 10% or 20% of the per head costs. But it is not all the time practicable and certainly in our case when a smaller premises thrives more on personal following on on word of mouth publicity. We just have to play it by the ear and know our customers well enough to build up a trust and confidence. Strange as it may sound integrity has always play a big part on both side at our Dom's Teahouse. Meantime we just have to cart out more cartons of emptied wine bottles and drinks along with extra rubbish at the end of the night for the next two weeks.Cheers to all.