The pre-service briefing is the last chance to move a fact out of a system and into somebody's head before the doors open. After that, whatever nobody said is simply not known, and the guest at 7:30 finds out.
Most briefings fail in one of two directions. Either they are an eleven-minute monologue about the specials containing nothing at all about who is coming, or they are a printed copy of the book, which is a schedule rather than a briefing.
What follows is a template you can fill in before service and the rules that keep it fillable. Take the shape, not the wording — the whole point is that it sounds like you saying it.
What the briefing is for
A briefing exists to transfer the handful of facts that cannot be recovered at the door. Table numbers, party sizes, the fact that the 7:30 is a six-top — all of that is on the sheet and does not need saying out loud.
The test for whether something belongs is straightforward: would a host or a server otherwise find this out too late to use it. A guest's twelfth visit qualifies. The sea bass count does not, unless somebody is going to promise it to a table at 8pm.
The five things a host needs per flagged booking
You are not briefing every table. You are briefing the exceptions, and for each exception there are five fields. Anything that does not fit into one of the five is probably conversation rather than briefing.
- Who — name, time, party size, and the table if it is already decided.
- Why they matter tonight — first visit, twelfth visit, back after a bad night, booked for an anniversary.
- What they want — the seat, the wine, the pace, the thing they order every single time.
- What to avoid — the allergy, the section they hated, the server they had a problem with in March.
- Who owns it — one named person responsible for the greeting or the gesture. "The team" owns nothing and never has.
The template
Print it, laminate it, write on it with a marker, wipe it at the end of service. A shared document that requires a login is a document that gets filled in twice and then abandoned.
SERVICE ____________________ COVERS ON THE BOOK ______ MANAGER ______ HOST ______ BAR ______ ONE LINE ABOUT TONIGHT ______________________________________________ FLAGGED BOOKINGS (four is the target, six is the ceiling) TIME NAME PARTY WHY THEY MATTER ____ _______________ _____ ____________________ WANT __________________ AVOID ____________ OWNER ______ TIME NAME PARTY WHY THEY MATTER ____ _______________ _____ ____________________ WANT __________________ AVOID ____________ OWNER ______ KNOWN GAPS TONIGHT ______________________________________________ (short a runner, the 86 list, the thing that is broken)
A filled one, so you can hear the register
The difference between a useful briefing and a useless one is almost entirely in how the middle column is written. Compare "VIP, look after" with anything below.
SERVICE Friday 12 September, dinner COVERS 96 MANAGER Elena HOST Priya BAR Andrés ONE LINE ABOUT TONIGHT Heavy until 8:30, then it falls off. Both tables that matter are early. FLAGGED BOOKINGS 19:00 Hartley, 2 Twelfth visit. Came back after we lost their booking in June. WANT banquette, the Chinon AVOID the bar OWNER Priya 19:30 Okonjo, 4 First visit. "Anniversary" typed into the booking notes. WANT quiet corner AVOID announcing it OWNER Elena 20:15 Bell, 2 Regular at the wine bar. First time in this room, so she is a stranger here. WANT hand to Andrés AVOID pretending we know her OWNER Andrés KNOWN GAPS One runner short until 8. No sea bass after the second seating, so do not let anyone promise it.
Rules that keep it to ninety seconds
The template is not what makes this fast. These five habits are.
- Cap the flagged list. Four is right, six is the ceiling. A briefing with fourteen names is a list, and nobody remembers a list.
- Write in the imperative. "Sit them on the banquette" rather than "guest may prefer banquette seating." One is an instruction, the other is a document.
- One owner per booking, named. If the greeting belongs to everyone it will belong to whoever happens to be standing there, which is how a twelfth visit gets a laminated menu and a smile.
- Never brief a status without the fact underneath it. "They are a regular" gives a host nothing to do. "Twelfth visit, always the banquette, drinks Loire reds" is a plan.
- Say the gaps out loud. Your team already knows you are a runner short. Pretending otherwise costs you credibility on everything else in the briefing.
Where the ninety seconds actually goes
Filling the form is not the hard part. Knowing what to put in it is.
The middle column requires cross-referencing tonight's book against visit history, a note somebody typed three months ago, and a complaint handled by a manager who now works at another site. On one site with one book and a GM who has been there four years, that is memory and it works beautifully. At nine sites it is not memory, it is an afternoon nobody has.
Turning tonight's book into four sentences a host can hold is most of what we built Compliments OS to do. The briefing itself you should still deliver yourself, out loud, in your own words. Nobody has ever been briefed by a document.