Q&A with Kelley Jones
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What leadership traits make a good bar owner?
Passion is probably one of the most important traits as well as knowledge and being a student of your craft. If it ain’t broke, break it—how do you continually improve? I don’t care how good it is, it can always be improved upon. Also, the big thing is leadership creates followership. People don’t follow companies—people follow people. And there’s no other way to lead than by example.
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President & COO, Partner of Hospitality Alliance
H
ospitality Alliance is a bicoastal consulting, development, and management company made up of experts in the hotel and food and beverage industries. It provides services for hotels, restaurants, bars, and developers including concept development, leasing, construction project management, hiring, training, opening of new concepts, and ongoing operational management. The team has developed, opened, and operated high-profile restaurants, bars, and clubs across the country. “What happens all too often is that developers get to the master planning and setting up prior to concept development. So you’ve got the tail wagging the dog instead of the dog wagging the tail,” says Kelley Jones. “We typically come in from the very beginning. The concept development will drive the design, the design drives the kitchen and bar setup. And we’re also a management company. We can do as much or as little as our clients want.”
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Bar Business Magazine
Advice for managing employees?
Here’s what I know for a fact— my restaurants and bars can open every single day without me, but they can’t run one day without my staff. So I look at it from an upside down organizational chart. Every single guest that meets every server or bartender in one of my properties—they are that property to that guest. What I think a lot of owners fail to recognize is that how you treat your team is a direct impact on how they treat your guest. Always be evolving, bring in your people and let them collaborate, and make sure you’re training. The more you expect from people, the more you have to train them.
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Advice for training employees?
[In the majority of training in our industry,] there’s no true road map to what the goals are that you want your employees to know. And my only goal is very simple—I want them to know every single answer to any question a guest might ask them. So my training is different. I don’t make my staff memorize the menu. I make them memorize the questions that people are going to ask like: What’s the portion size? What are the ingredients? Who’s the designer [of the bar]? What other things has the designer done? Who are the managers? What’s the address and phone number? I think training is the most important thing because there are two answers I hate: A, “I didn’t know.” Well, that’s an indication that we didn’t train you well enough, or you don’t care enough to know. And B, “Because that’s the way it’s always been.” Just because it’s been that way for the last two years, is that the best way for it to be now?
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Advice for managing Millennials?
From a generational standpoint, understanding what motivates different generations is important. With Millennials, they’re no different than any other generation in the workforce, but they’re motivated not necessarily just by money, but by being inclusive, by being socially conscious. One of the biggest things is how you identify and onboard the Millennial. Have their pre-printed business cards ready for them. That immediately sets up the relationship of we’re here for you, you’re here for us; we represent you, you represent us. It gives you the ability to truly set the tone of what it’s going to be like to work together, and you start that at day one. The first 90 days are critical at any job. The top three reasons people leave jobs are number one, because they don’t like the people they’re working with. Number two, because they don’t understand what they’re growth path is. And number three, money, obviously. A lot of people are shocked that money isn’t the first reason people leave, especially Millennials.
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What should bar owners look for in a new hire?
My biggest thing, especially with the Internet, is to check references. I’m going to go and find out what your work history is, and I’m going to go and take the time to reach out to those restaurants and find out what they really think of you. I can train the mechanics of our business, but I can’t train hospitality—warm, personal, engaging. And so that’s what I look for in new hires. What’s your energy? Are you smiling? Are you making eye contact? We really want to know people’s personalities.
June 2018 barbizmag.com