The New Steps of Service

To understand how the New Steps of Service is shaping the future of restaurants, we have to first take a step back.

The first full service restaurant opened in 1765 in Paris, and it set the stage for how restaurants all over the world would go on to staff their front- and back-of-house teams. Then, in 1916, White Castle broke the mold with the first quick service restaurant. But since then, more than 100 years later, the way we staff and operate restaurants has remained largely the same. We’re still using the same tipping models and the same service structure, resulting in the same tight margins and high turnover. Now, many restaurateurs are looking for a change. 

The New Steps of Service is a modern way of structuring your front of house that combines the traditional touchpoints of hospitality with the efficiencies of technology. It streamlines the flow of service by empowering your guests to order and pay whenever they like, and it keeps the orders coming to increase average check sizes. 

By putting ordering and payment technology in the hands of their guests, servers can embrace a more rewarding role: welcoming guests, helping them choose the right menu items, checking in, and not having to spend time running to the point of sale and swiping credit cards. And guests are given the opportunity to keep ordering food and drinks whenever they’re craving them – not having to hesitate while flagging down a server. 

Restaurants that use the New Steps of Service can become more profitable, with more satisfied guests and better-paid employees. 

Check out the following results from some restaurateurs who use this model.

The testimonials above reflect the experience of the merchant and results may vary.

Top Benefits for Staff

Implementing the New Steps of Service is an opportunity to create more rewarding careers for restaurant employees. Working in a restaurant has rarely been a stable, financially sustainable career path. With the New Steps of Service, reduced labor costs and higher profits mean restaurants can pay their employees higher wages and offer more rewarding jobs. 

“It definitely gives them the ability to focus more on the customer service aspect and then assist anyone that needs help with anything,” shares Sean Southwell, Operations Manager of Roc ‘N’ Ramen. A focus on great hospitality combined with responsibility over more tables helps employees learn faster and find more fulfillment in their jobs. 

1. Staff can earn higher wages. Some restaurants, like HOUSEpitality Restaurant Group, implemented a service charge instead of tips when trying this new model, and it led to significant increases in pay for staff across the board, both in the front- and back-of-house. Floor captains — what they now call their servers — and cooks are making upwards of $20 an hour, with bussers, dishwashers, and food runners earning $15 - $17. “The beautiful thing is people are leaving additional tips as well,” Kevin said.

2. Parity between front- and back-of-house staff. By implementing a service charge that’s divided among the staff, everyone makes more per hour and the front- and back-of-house divide can start to close.

3. Front-of-house staff don’t focus on processing payments. Instead, they focus on connecting with guests:greeting them, teaching them about the ordering system, giving suggestions and upsells, doing table touches, offering next rounds, checking on water glasses and guest satisfaction, and saying goodbye. Overall, they’re presented with a more satisfying job, where the bulk of their time isn’t spent swiping credit cards and running back and forth to the point of sale terminal. 

Top Benefits for Guests

Guest expectations have changed significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and guests have become more comfortable with technology. The New Steps of Service maintains what they love about dining in at restaurants — eating great food and connecting with staff who can consult about their order and give them a great experience — and combines it with technology that increases speed and convenience of dining. 

1. Speed of ordering. Guests can place their orders as soon as they’re seated, no need to wait for a busy server to come to take their orders. In fact, drinks can be delivered even before they interact with their server. And when it comes to getting a second round, there’s no wait and no lines: “The guest doesn't have to disrupt their conversation, go stand in what could be a pretty long line to get a beer, and then go back to the table. They're more apt to order another beer because it comes quickly,” says Michelle Monterossa Qadri of Alpine Inn Beer Garden.

2. No more waiting to pay. Guests can pay and get up and leave as soon as they’re ready, and they don’t have to sit around, bellies full, waiting for a busy server to come back with the check and the receipt. 

3. Order accuracy. Since they’re putting in their own orders, they can be sure that their “no cheese, please” makes it onto the order chit every time. 

4. More comfort and control for guests with allergies. Order accuracy is even more important to guests with allergies, which is why many prefer ordering online where they can select their own modifiers so they can be sure the cooks see them. Now, that functionality (and that comfort) is available when dining in.

5. Customization. Since guests put in their own orders, they’ve got more opportunities to customize their dishes with add-ons.

The New Steps of Service is designed to provide seamless service throughout the dining experience, with the experience flexing between guest-led and server-led.

This model empowers servers to become the “captains” of their sections. It helps them better serve their guests through technology-assisted dining, and it frees them up to focus on high-hospitality tasks like doing table touches and connecting with guests  — instead of spending many minutes per table dealing with low-hospitality tasks like swiping a card, walking it to a point of sale terminal, and bringing it back with the receipt. 

As Ryan Rose from Zócalo put it, “Before Order & Pay, we had a floor captain and servers. The captain created a sense of hospitality, while the servers took the orders. With this, we now have a room full of floor captains.”

At Eventide, a counter service restaurant that runs on this model, cross-training and collaboration are what powers the restaurant. “We sort of cross train everyone — we want anyone to be able to step into any of those [front-of-house] roles. Certainly Order & Pay allows you to scale back on the number of staff, [but] you want to make sure you have people available to run food. You want to make sure you have someone that's there to see people explain the process and you want someone that's doing the continued service. But you don't need as many people on the floor taking orders as you would in a traditional model,” shares John Myers, General Manager at Eventide. 

Check out this floor plan comparison that shows the difference between the traditional full service model and the New Steps of Service, how they tally up over a four-hour shift, and how front-of-house staff spend their time.

Comparing the Ordering Process

When guests order in a traditional restaurant, there are few opportunities for buying more drinks or any extra side dishes they’re craving. With the New Steps of Service, the menu and ordering power stays with the guests, and this keeps the food and drinks coming whenever they want — no need to wait on a table touch. 

Comparing the Payment Process

The payment process is where we see the starkest differences between the traditional service model and the New Steps of Service. Check out how much waiting is eliminated for the guest, and how much walking back and forth is eliminated for the server. 

How to Apply the New Steps of Service to a Quick Service Restaurant

The New Steps of Service can help bring some of the most profit-driving and hospitable elements of full service dining to a counter-service environment. The New Steps of Service, when applied to a QSR environment, encourages guests to go from a single transaction per visit to multiple transactions. 

How? It’s simple: a front-of-house staff member emerges from behind the counter to meet guests where they’re seated and see if they want another round of drinks or food. This second touchpoint from a front-of-house staff member makes for larger check totals and leaves guests feeling looked after. These extra orders can be processed on a handheld point of sale, or through Order & Pay technology that uses QR codes and a guest’s smart phone. 

Re-Train Your Staff to Embrace New Titles and Prioritize Connection

Servers can be wary at first when they hear that they won’t have to spend all that time punching in orders and swiping credit cards. But the work they’ll be doing instead is even more rewarding: providing great hospitality.

Servers can become the “captains” of their sections to make sure their guests have what they need. This can mean more table touches, more time spent making recommendations or suggesting specials, or simply making sure water glasses are full.

Training your staff to sell this way of dining to their customers each shift is an important piece of the puzzle as well. “Arming your staff with the right verbiage and the right way to make a guest feel comfortable in a sort of non-traditional ordering environment is very important. So make sure your staff is prepared and empowered to speak about why you're doing things a certain way, and have faith in why you're doing it that way – and to be able to explain to the guests why you're doing it,” says John Myers from Eventide.

Teach Your Customers to
Order & Pay

Since this is a new model, customers will need some hand-holding at first, and staff will have to spend some time talking guests through the model on their first visits. 

At Alpine Inn Beer Garden, staff training includes a role-reversal. “We put them in the guest’s position. We sit them down at the table and everybody scans the QR code and goes through the menu and places an order so they know each step that goes into the process,” says Sean Agoliati from Alpine Inn. 

When front-of-house staff greet guests at your restaurant, they should explain that guests can order and pay at their convenience to provide a more seamless experience. It’s important to also reiterate that their server will still be there to make sure they have everything they need -— whether it’s making recommendations, filling up water glasses, or sending in another round of drinks.

Many restaurants are also setting expectations even before guests arrive at the restaurant by promoting their new mobile dining experience on social media and websites.

Consider Eliminating Tipping

Many restaurants are seeing success by moving from a model that is reliant on tipping to one that includes a flat service charge for every order, including HOUSEpitality restaurant group. Kevin Healy eliminated tipping at all eight HOUSEpitality restaurants and moved to a 20% service charge as part of their adoption of the New Steps of Service.

This newly captured 20% funds their labor costs for the front-of-house staff, resulting in zero server labor costs most days — and they were also able to redistribute the savings out to their staff. In other words, the best servers ultimately received a pay raise, even during the pandemic. Currently, captains and cooks are making upwards of $20 an hour, with the bussers, dishwashers, and food runners earning $15 - $17.

As an added bonus, “people are leaving additional tips as well,” Kevin says. “With that, our average employee is making an additional $3 an hour from tips, on top of that increased hourly wage.”

“It’s such a great thing,” Kevin said.

Get the Tech You Need to Bring the New Steps of Service to Life

The New Steps of Service can be implemented at your restaurant a number of different ways, but it all starts with tech that's made to meet the needs of today's restaurants.