Sales Increase!

I am proud to announce that this month Chick-fil-A at West Oaks Mall enjoyed a sales increase! This is only the 3rd month in the last 2 years that West Oaks has had an increase in sales! It wasn’t much (less than 1% up), but an increase is an increase!

I can see 3 main contributors to this increase:
1. The Twilight movie…drawing traffic to the movie theater in our food court (sales up over 40% that weekend)
2. 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year (an extra day without limited hours)
3. Back to School Sale in mall on last weekend of the month (sales up over 20% that weekend)

All in all it was an exciting month!

A More Systematic Approach

I have continued to make observations of the restaurant throughout my time here, and about midway through the month I started to notice some consistent negative trends. These were all issues that were easily remedied by creating and implementing basic systems.

Food Prep
We were preparing far too much food each day for our low sales volume. I created a food prep list that is based on sales volume. Therefore, on slower days – like Mondays – we do not prepare as much food in the morning as we would on a busier Saturday.

Chicken Rotation
We were consistently forced to quick thaw chicken when I first arrived. This seemed ridiculous because of our low volume. I created a system to ensure that we always had enough chicken thawed based on our sales volume, without thawing significantly more than we need. Since the implementation of this rotation system, we have not had to quick thaw chicken even once!

Waste Tracking
The team was trained to ring in waste on the register and discount it like a coupon. While this is great for food cost – simply putting waste into the marketing category – it does not give us an accurate picture of our food cost gap or giveaways. Now, team members track waste on paper by marking an easy-to-use waste tracker that is kept in the boards area.

Build-Tos
There were no build-tos created for truck ordering. This caused us to frequently run out of some items and have way too many of other items. An inconsistent inventory can encourage team member theft and can also be extremely frustrating if not enough stock is ordered. The build-tos enable us to manage inventory in a much more effective manner.

Under Pressure

After examining the unit's situation, we decided that it was necessary to pressure wash the entire back of house at West Oaks Mall. The walls and floors were caked with dirt and debris and this seemed like a great solution. Check out some of the before and after pics….

As you can see, I was able to remove an extraordinary amount of dirt and debris from the walls and floor of the restaurant. I had unrealistic hopes that the store would look brand new when we were finished, but it is a nice consolation that by moving all of the equipment and pressure washing we were able to remove so much dirt.

If there is time to lean...

A major focus this month has been on cleaning the unit. This has been an intensive – and time consuming – project, but we are really beginning to see results. The goal of this blog post is to give you a glimpse of what we have accomplished.

Food Safety

We focused on the basics during my first week at West Oaks Mall, specifically Food Safety.

Health Inspection Audit
A company called Steritech performed a health inspection audit early in the week. This was a rigorous test that closely examined all the food safety areas of the business. It was clear that I had my work cut out for me after this audit.

Training
I instructed all of our team members to watch the Safety and Security dvd and pass the certification test with a 90% or higher. To ensure their understanding of the fundamentals, I went over crucial areas like the Temperature Danger Zone, proper hand washing, and fire safety individually with each team member.

Cross-Contamination
When I arrived, there were no systems in place to separate raw chicken from ready to eat food. For instance, there were no yellow handled tools in the restaurant and yellow gloves were not used to bread chicken. After ordering the right equipment we are now able to easily differentiate tools and gloves for raw chicken and ready to eat foods.

Biological Contamination
Proper hand washing procedures were not in effect, even when a team member would switch from breading raw chicken to preparing ready to eat food. After much discussion and many reminders, the team has significantly increased their hand washing. Also, employee drinks being held and consumed anywhere in the restaurant. This was solved by creating drink stations where team members could store and drink their beverages away from food and service areas.

Chemical Contamination
A lack of organization posed the biggest problem regarding our use of chemicals. We did not have all of the appropriate bottles which caused us to put incorrect cleaners in incorrect bottles. We discovered this because there were 2 bottles with multipurpose labels next to each other with different colored liquids inside. We also did not have adequate storage for our chemicals, which encouraged team members to hang bottles wherever they saw fit – including over paper and food products. This was easily remedied by purchasing and installing bottle shelves by the mop sink.

We were also not using sanitizer in any fashion outside of the dish sink. There were no sanitizer buckets or bottles in the entire restaurant. While there were green packets of sanitizer in the building, nobody in the store knew what they were used for. Everything, including all food surfaces and prep areas, were cleaned with multi purpose and degreaser. This was a MAJOR area of focus and each team member is now fully informed on how to prepare, test, and use sanitizer properly.

Physical Contamination
There were a few areas regarding physical contamination that we needed to work on. Team members were wearing too much jewelry, including multiple rings, dangling earrings, gaudy necklaces, and bracelets. Another team member issue was a lack of hair restraints. This was solved simply by having the leaders strictly enforce the rules laid out in the employee handbooks. Also, a majority of our light shields for the fluorescent lighting were cracked and broken and needed to be replaced.

It was a busy first week at West Oaks Mall but was all worth it when we passed our REAL health inspection with relative ease at the end of the week!

Cow Appreciation Day

We celebrated everybody’s favorite holiday of the year this past Friday: Cow Appreciation Day! We had a great day and represented the brand well inside of the mall.

Earlier in the week, we handed out reminders and cow costumes (spots and hats) to the mall employees to create a buzz around the mall. All of the team members handed personal invitations to customers welcoming them to come back on Friday to celebrate with us. We also encouraged the team members to dress up by having a contest to see who could be the best “cow”.

We had a great turnout for Cow Appreciation Day – about double the “cows” from last year! We had the Great American Cookie Company make us special cow cookies and had the kids “spot” the cows with black and white icing. The team did not disappoint with the contest, which really added to the festivities. Even the team members who did not dress up were given cow balloon hats made by a local balloon artist (or they were forced to don the cow costume and patrol the dining room)!

Cow Appreciation Day at West Oaks Mall was quite the celebration!

On the Road Again

After spending 3 months with Doug Bizerra at Gardens on Havana in Aurora, Colorado...I am back on the IM circuit! This assignment is at West Oaks Mall in sunny (and HOT) Orlando, Florida. West Oaks is a low volume unit and also is my first experience working in a mall. It has been quite an experience making the adjustment to such a low volume (our monthly sales are less than my previous stores' weekly sales)!

Since I am headed for Chicago next month, my primary objective is to maintain a sense of stability in the restaurant. Most of the team has worked with the previous operator for 4 or 5 years and they are going to have to go through ANOTHER transition in one more month. I really want to set up the next IM for success and inheriting a well functioning team seems like the best way to do that.

My other objective this month is to take care of the basics. Right now the store could use a good cleaning and there are a number of areas where the team members need recalibration – most notably in the areas of food safety.

I am confident that this month will be a success simply by focusing on maintaining a sense of stability and focusing on the very basics of the business – cleanliness and food safety.