By Ed Avis
Small gestures can play a big role in the success of a restaurant. That’s one key piece of advice in a fantastic new book by Pepe Stepensky, owner of Margarita’s Kitchen & Cantina and three other restaurants in San Diego. His book, The Burrito Effect (ISBN 9798188429058), is now available on Amazon.
“Lasting success isn’t built on marketing campaigns. It’s built on sincere gestures that turn transactions into relationships,” writes Stepensky, who has written advice articles for el Restuarante – “Ask Pepe” -- for more than three years.
What makes the book successful is the genuine advice Stepensky provides from the front-lines perspective. This is not generic guidance you can get from any management book – Stepensky taps into his four decades of fast casual restaurant experience to teach readers lessons that distinctly apply to restaurant owners.
For example, he tells a touching story about what happened when their soda dispensing machine broke down. A repair guy who had been working all day in hot weather stopped by, tried fixing the machine, and finally told Stepensky that it was beyond repair. Rather than griping, Stepensky offered the poor guy a meal. Here is the excerpt:
“He looked at me the way people look at you when you have said something they were not expecting, which is a specific kind of look that is part gratitude and part mild suspicion, because unexpected kindness always carries a faint question mark until it proves itself genuine.
“’You don’t have to do that,’ he said.
“’I know,’ I said. ‘Sit down.’
“He sat down. He ate. He drank something cold. We talked for a few minutes about nothing in particular, the way people do when the pressure of the immediate problem has been briefly set aside and there is just a table and some food and two human beings in the same room.
“And then he stood up, looked back at the machine, and said, ‘Let me try one more thing.’
“He found the problem in ten minutes, and miraculously even had the parts in his truck.”
That simple story embodies a fundamental concept that Stepensky espouses: You should see the people in your restaurant – employees, customers, and service providers – as genuine humans, not just parts of a profit-making machine. When you take that concept to heart and apply it to all your interactions, your restaurant has a big head start towards success, Stepensky advises.
The book contains 18 chapters and covers topics from successful hiring to firm decision making to finding the right business partner. Each chapter offers at least one, and usually many, tips that you can apply to your restaurant immediately.
Stepensky’s story-telling ability also needs to be mentioned. When he explains something that happened in his restaurants, you feel like you are right there with him. It’s no surprise that he has a second career as a documentary film director and has won four Emmys.
The Burrito Effect is available in English and Spanish. Order it today!