Big Nights

Cheers, March, 2003 by Libe Goad

Big Night may be one of the best food films to hail from the 90s. The rich plot revolves around two Italian brothers trying to keep a failing restaurant afloat. Pascal, the owner of a wildly successful Italian catery across the street, may be shady, but his success is no secret. "Give people what they want: ten later you can give them what you ant," he proclaims.

A similar mindset applies outside Hollywood. Everyone knows customers want an excellent meal and appealing environment. But shrewd restaurateurs and bar owners know that the secret weapon lies in the hands of a highly trained waitstaff. Give your customers excellent service, and they'll be more likely to spend like a movie mogl when you suggest a high-end single malt or exotic wine.

Staff training can be a daunting task. Despite good intentions, most training still takes place during impromptu sessions with a distributor between the lunch and dinner rush hours. Recently, however, some beverage companies have decided to kick it up a notch to help on-premise clients. Instead of dolling out educational pamphlets. certain companies have created training programs that can turn any competent that can turn any competent waitstaff into a well-oiled service machine."

WELCOME TO WINE U

A number of the large wine suppliers have geared up their wine training apparatus. Constellation's wine division, Canandaigua, recently re-introduced CORK, which stands for Canandaigua On-Premise Resource and Knowledge, a training program that allows operators to help servers increase their own income by suggesting and selling wine. In one hour, says Canadaigua, a staff can go through the entire CORK program and gain knowledge and confidence about wine sales and service. The revamped CORK kit includes a training program book, server pocket reference card, video and searchable CD-rom. MS and MW Doug Frost narrates the CD, with help from Canandaigua's premium wine specialist director John Bleese. (Visit www.cwine.com/index.jsp?link=ournews/CORK-factsheet.htm for more details.)

Allied Domecq Wines USA has stepped into the training limelight recently as well, with the formal introduction of its Academy of Wine & Service Excellence, headed by its exuberant director of wine and hospitality education Evan Goldstein,

"It's one-stop shopping for people who really want to grow their wine service and knowledge about those things in general for professional audiences," Goldstein says.

Goldstein, a master sommelier, says the ambitious program caters to a broad range of on-premise operator needs. The series of classes will include several levels of training on wine geography and production, viticulture and wine making, food and wine pairing, wine tasting stills, comprehensive tastings and loads of on-premise server training.

BE SPECIFIC

The Academy can offer courses on more specific topics, such as staging a successful winemaker dinner, conducting an effective blind tasting, developing a wine list and building effective incentive programs that encourage customers to try new products and come back for more, Classes can be customized to personal liking or operational demands.

"If you wanted to do a program on desserts and desert wines or ethnic foods and wine, you can take those classes from us," Goldstein says. "We're simply not going to go in and deliver the same program for everybody. Restaurants are as different as snowflakes, and you need to give them what they want for what they're doing."

Goldstein emphasizes that operators will find the program worthwhile, especially once the official Academy campus is built in the wine country. Then more clients will have the ability to partake. During a class on viticulture, participants will be able to study in a vineyard. If the class covers barrels, then everyone will have the chance to see, touch and smell the difference between, for instance, oak and pine barrels.

Due to an overwhelming response, smaller groups may have a difficulty finding a place at the Wine Academy in its introductory months. Goldstein says ADWUSA will try to remedy the situation within a year, by taking a smaller version of the Academy on the road. Also, once the official Academy campus is completed, independent operators would be able to pay for and participate in individual seminars.

Our initial efforts," Goldstein explains, "will be more mountain to Mohammed' stuff.., on the road, dealing with accounts directly. Then we'll layer over the traveling one-day rock show tours--spend a Monday in Minneapolis, Tuesday in Cleveland and Wednesday in Wisconsin." (Detailed information on the Academy and contact info is available at www.wineacademy.org.)

SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN

Many wine companies have tuned in to training restaurant and bar staffs. Trinchero Estates focuses on its Vine to Dine Program, currently used to train staff at nationwide restaurants such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

Barry Wiss, Trinchero's director of hospitality and trade education, says they've taken basic wine education classes and given them a game-show twist, featuring training tools such as the Aroma Wheel of Fortune, the Tongue-Fu Challenge, the Let's Make a Meal, a Family Feud-style event and an Iron Chef-type competition.