The last restaurant I ran for a year and a half was a flop.

I could chalk this up to the location, interior design, exterior design, unpleasant clientele, or troublemakers, but in retrospect, looking back, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not the wrong part of Glasgow or Scotland. Not in the wrong part of town, but in the wrong part of the restaurant.

I should have paid much more attention to the kitchen. My energies were concentrated on the staff, the bar and the decoration. I should have paid a lot more attention to the food. The quality and quantity of the kitchen.

If I had put as much effort in the kitchen as in running the restaurant, the website, the staff, the decor, if I had put that in the kitchen, tasting the food, looking at the food, creating new recipes. Maybe I would have been better.

The thing to do was make sure everything that came out of that kitchen was perfect, get familiar with new menus, food items, and expand tastes. Creating a BUZZ about the food is what it should have done. I was in the wrong place, not externally but internally. My advice to anyone with a restaurant in trouble… get in the kitchen and get to work. If you don’t have the “thrill” to cook, find someone who does! Ask customers as they leave “How was the meal?” Get the right opinions, the reviews.

“Good” or “Excellent”… no, “FANTASTIC! I’ll be back” is what you need to hear.

A kitchen porter told me many years ago “this is the most important place in the restaurant”. I was pointing at the trash can! The most important place!? This is where the food comes back if it’s not good enough. Think about it. People are hungry, they should have finished their food. If the food is excellent, the dishes will come back clean.

At another restaurant I ran in Edinburgh, the head chef asked me who I thought was the most important person in the business.

I said it was. After all I kept it all together! I took care and paid the staff! How wrong I was. The chef is the most intrinsic, of course, because the food has to be better than A1.

Being in the right place in the restaurant. Being in the kitchen.