Would you want these guys to re-write your menu? [moved from General Topics]

[Cherveny]

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/fbh/...

Seriously, people selling themselves as restaurant consultants, who will re-write your menu, but have terrible spelling and grammar in their craigslist posting.

And, in case it gets taken down, here's a copy/paste of their ad:

Resturant consulation (Grater Cincinati

)

We are a consulting firm for restaurants ran by chefs. What we do is we provide the essential back-bone to restaurants, we help restaurants succeed by providing them with menu ideas and ways to run there establishment better and more efficiently. We want your restaurant to succeed. We offer our years of know how to you for you to use and grow. Essentially with new restaurants we will come in ask a few questions to get the feel of what type of place you would like to be then we will come up with a menu , equipment (pots,pans,staffing ,space ect. )lists for you. We then will go over the menus we have come up with you to come up with a final menu . The next step is we help train new/existing staff on the new menus. (again WE want you to succeed)We are different from all the others because we focus on the menu and staff development of your restaurant . If this sounds like something you might be interested in please feel free to email .Thank you for your time and have a nice day

[Withnail42]

Thanks for posting that made my day!

[faleentoby]

Either this is some sort of joke or the writer/advertiser just came across the border a few days ago.

[Passadumkeg]

I just photocopied the article and will use it with my 10th grade English students as a proofreading exercise. Thanks for the article. I'll let you know how they do and what they think.
(Eighty per cent of my students are non-native English speaking.)

[buttertart]

Great idea.

[cowboyardee]

Of course such a sloppy ad is unprofessional, and if I had a restaurant, I wouldn't hire these guys. But I feel compelled to point out that menu consulting has nothing to do with grammar and spelling. They're not a business to write and print menus, but to consult on efficiency and target demographics with respect to food.

[sunshine842]

sorry, but if someone is incapable of communicating like an adult with a college education, their credibility goes right out the window.

We're not talking prizes for literature -- we're talking literate. And these guys missed.

[Cherveny]

Exactly. They want to try and exude a sense of professionalism, and yet can't be bothered to double check their ad to make sure it's correct. If they take so little interest in taking care of their own business, what would make anyone think they'd actually put some care into your business.

[cowboyardee]

You read my first sentence, right?

[SherBel]

It's got to be a joke. I hope.

[Cherveny]

I'm betting still on not a joke. Never underestimate the overwhelming power of stupidity.

[monku]

Then again there are "hacks" out there and these guys are too obvious.

[sunshine842]

I'm also sort of speechless at the suggestion that anyone would open a restaurant without any idea of staffing, equipment, or menu. (Hey! I've got an idea -- a restaurant! What kind of restaurant? I have no idea, and I won't need to hire anybody or have a kitchen, but if I put tables out, somebody will come in! Uhhh....alrighty, then. Good luck with that.)

Somebody probably has tried it...but I'm guessing that they didn't need a consultant nearly as badly as they needed a bankruptcy attorney and a psychologist.

[cowboyardee]

You have a problem with the concept of restaurant consulting firms?

The restaurant failure rate is around 60%. There should be plenty of room for experienced and methodical consulting firms, not that the above example qualifies.

Really, that attitude that anyone can open a restaurant and impose their own ideas (of staffing, equipment, menu, etc) without doing their homework accounts for much of the problem. Ideally, people wouldn't sink money into a restaurant unless they had great personal expertise in that industry, but we know that's not always how restaurants are run.

[sunshine842]

whoa, cowboy (ROFL - been waiting for a reason to say that -- kinda like "follow that car!" to a taxi driver)

Anyway -- no, I have no problem with consulting firms of any kind -- I've earned my crumb by consulting.

And I absolutely "get" that people don't do their homework (God knows I've seen enough of that, too!)

But it's the implication in the ad that someone might open a restaurant and THEN decide that they need to figure out what to serve....even the most misguided soul out there has narrowed it down that the world needs a place to go and eat jello salad in his view.

The reality of success or failure after the place is actually open really wasn't a part of my comment at all.

[cowboyardee]

"But it's the implication in the ad that someone might open a restaurant and THEN decide that they need to figure out what to serve"
_____
I'm not really an industry insider, but I suspect that most places that hire menu consultants once they are already open are ones that are against the ropes, financially speaking. To an extent, that's what Gordon Ramsay does on Kitchen Nightmares.

A lot of menu consulting isn't about figuring out that the locals really want a place that serves wedge salads (or whatever), but making for more efficient use of ingredients, streamlining preparations (and training staff to execute said preparations), shortening customer wait times, minimizing food costs without compromising quality, and other nuts and bolts concerns that many people who sink their savings into a restaurant don't fully consider until their restaurant is a year or two old and still losing money.

[sunshine842]

all true, but still not what I was referring to.

The exact sentence is "Essentially with new restaurants we will come in ask a few questions to get the feel of what type of place you would like to be then we will come up with a menu , equipment (pots,pans,staffing ,space ect. )lists for you. "

New restaurants kinda means they haven't been open for a couple of years.

[cowboyardee]

I read that as offering consultation to restaurants that are still in the development phase, which is also a good idea IMO (though again, these guys are probably not the best consultants for the job).

[monku]

Maybe it's coincidental, but I've seen menu's that could have been written by those people.

[hazelhurst]

I was sitting in the office of a restaurant owner years ago..his shop is near a University. There was an employment application on the desk and I could plainly see the applicant had an English Degree. He was applying for the job of "waitor."

[monku]

And now he's on Craigslist selling his menu re-writing biz.

[Chris VR]

menus or menu's ? ;-)

Despite the fact that I'm a spelling sticker, I actually wouldn't hold poor spelling or even grammar against people promoting themselves in the menu development arena. I spent years learning how to write correctly. While I was doing that, people in the food industry were spending just as much time learning a whole different set of skills. I'd cut them some slack, although I would hope someone with my skill set would be consulted before they present their work to the public.

[southernitalian]

Stickler?

[Chris VR]

Ha, exactly! More often than not, posts in the Internet nitpicking about other people's spelling contain their own spelling error(s), and I'm proud to participate in that time-honored tradition.

[southernitalian]

Me too! Even Spell Check has its limitations.

[MplsM ary]

I'm with you. Have you noticed more and more apostrophes appearing on TV crawlers and graphics? Last week a local newscast had a story about Conneticut. I almost called the station to report idiocy, (they always have those "If you see breaking news..." so I was thinking I could contribute). I'd like to sell myself as a TV graphics editor/nag.

[sunshine842]

my son laughs at me because my text messages to him are spelled out with proper spelling and punctuation.

[Squint]

My sons too Sunshine! I don't use any acronyms and I always make sure there is a period at the end of the last sentence!

[MGZ]

I watched part of a local NY newscast where the reporter stressed that the fadish, new cookies were "macarons, with one 'o'." All the while the graphic at the bottom of the screen read "Macaroons - The next cupcake." I didn't wait around for the third strike.

[porker]

Now THATS hilarious!

[porker]

That's hilarious...I'm still cringing...
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago where a professor from the E-Z School of Gynecology does an introductory course.

I will say that there were people helping me when I opened a restaurant ages ago. Some of them did not have a firm grasp of English (it being their 2nd language) but their experience was priceless. Then again, they did not try to sell themselves on Craigslist, nor try to write a menu.

[Whinerdiner]

Is it maybe a joke?

[sunshine842]

Biggest objective of a menu re-write is to make people WANT to have those dishes, NOW.

If you can't sell YOUR business (cripes, if you can't even write a grammatically correct sentence), you sure as hell can't sell MINE.

[tcamp]

That sounds grate. Due you think they also right term papers for studants? I NNNEEED help with mine.

[gaffk]

Good thing I was just drinking water . . . it didn't hurt so much coming out of my nose when I laughed at your post!

[small h]

Something about that ad makes me question their attention to detail.

[jujuthomas]

seriously, wow.

[DoobieWah]

Wow.

(That's all I have.)