Good Service from Good Management

As has been aptly demonstrated in the 2009 F1 Grand Prix season if you take a team of people and put an inspirational leader in charge of them it is not long before they reach fantastic results. The Honda F1 team spent millions in its time in F1 but only in 2009 after Ross Brawn had been in charge of the team and gave them the leadership they needed did they then produce a championship winning car that won the first few races before the other teams came close to catching up.

This sort of behaviour occurs in all walks of life. In schools, industry and even pubs the people who lead these organisations are the people who ensure if the operation is a success or failure. In my times of visiting pubs to be thirty two years after my fifteeth birthday later in Jan 2010 I have seen the Good, the Bad and the downright Ugly.

One of the pubs I 'found' which ended up in its first year in the Good Pub guide as Oxfordshire Dining pub of the year - the Baskerville Arms is a classic case of good pub management. The Landlady would carefully walk the floor of the eating area during service checking for violations to what was an expected pattern of perfect organisation. Unless you looked out you did not even realise she was doing it. As soon as she spotted something potentially amiss she would go and speak to one of the staff - not dive in and correct it herself. I am sure she would speak to a member of staff and ask them if they also saw what was wrong. Much better they spot the error then be prompted for it.

The reverse is not hard to find - where staff are poorly managed and the service then suffers. A good barman when he pours the drinks should always be ready to spot something not right - a cloudy beer, a corked wine and so on. We recently visited a pub where my wife ordered a second glass of wine - different from her first glass only to be brought another glass of the original one in error. The waitress apologised and did the worst thing - explaining how she made the error. She simple told us by the time she got the the bar she had forgotten the order and took a gamble on it being the same as last time! That night the service was terrible in that pub.

Remarkably the food was good. The landlord was walking about and even contributed to errors himself unaware of the service chaos around him.

The welcome you get from staff and owners of pubs makes the difference. You can walk into the most downbeaten pub in the UK but if you are welcomed in and you are made to feel like your presence is appreciated you will stay and enjoy yourself. Karen the landlady at the Duke of Wellington in Twyford is my local. Whenever I see her or met her in the village I get a smile and a chat where I am asked how I am doing and so on.

Given the price of drink in pubs that welcome is a good reason to visit a friendly pub. You can go to your local supermarket and buy beer and wine cheaper than you pay in a pub but unless you want to spend the evening smiling at yourself in a mirror you can pay that little extra and enjoy yourself down your local. Another pub we know we got attacked as we entered. We had muddy boots on and were looking for a suitable place to put them. The landlady shouted to us where she wanted them - she was not even polite about it. We might as well had trasped around the pub already and spread sticky mud over her carpet. We then inquired about coffee to be told in no uncertain terms coffee was only served with food. Believe me we could not get our boots back on and out of there quick enough.

It is easy to vote with your feet and patronise friendly pubs and avoid those that are not. It is much harder to tell a unfriendly landlord where they are going wrong in the hope they mend their ways. I had a bad experience at another local pub where the staff / owners are usually most welcoming. This time both owners were away. The service was not good at all. We emailed the owners afterwards and got a swift apology.

We knew they would be horrified at what happened that night. Our reward for telling them what happened was a free meal for both of us. I can't promise all landlords will offer similar payement for positive/negative feedback but if you have been put off providing feedback before hopefully this will encourage you to do so!