Len Panaggio, Beverage Consultant
Are You Prepared?
By Len Panaggio
June is here and with it the promise of multiple months of solid business for resort and coastal communities. The cities quiet down quite a bit after June, but programs like Restaurant Week(s) help to stimulate business until it naturally picks back up by Labor Day.
As we dive headfirst into the season, here are a few topics I’d like to tackle based on recent experiences. Having the correct glassware and using it properly is imperative to having a successful beverage program—and that’s no exaggeration. Recently, I witnessed an ice-cold beverage being served in a very warm glass that just came out of the dishwasher.
A few things happen here. There is a good chance the glass could break, but if it does survive, the customer is not getting the nice cold brew he or she is looking for, sending a message that staff either doesn’t care or isn’t trained properly. If this issue is because of a glass shortage, then it’s a signal that the restaurant is not being managed well. To avoid this, bartenders should alert management when they don’t have enough glasses in the trenches to handle the volume of drinks. At this point, have you educated your team to report such outages or are they just complaining to each other?
Beyond having glassware at the ready, serving a beverage in the correct glass is also an important aspect of quality service. Recently, I was having a meal at the bar of a local restaurant and ordered a Pinot Noir with Burgundy glasses to properly enjoy the wine. This was a place with a solid wine program, but it didn’t back it up with the proper glassware, instead offering standard, all-purpose wine glasses.
Serving a pricey bottle of wine in a standard wine glass does not cut it by today’s standards of wine service and, again, speaks volumes about the quality of service. Simply put, a good wine program will be diminished if staff does not have the proper tools or education to provide good service.
And speaking of pricey bottles of wine, as of this writing, tariffs are still a lingering issue, one that I hope resolves satisfactorily, especially as we move into summer. With on-again, off-again tariffs on European goods, wine costs will go up, if they aren’t already. Accordingly, some places are holding out hope for the best and some places are buying deep if they can afford the cost and space.
Distributors are faced with the same problem and there is no real answer … you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t! As I said a few issues back, the silver lining in this cloud is that American products may enjoy a significant uptick in sales and all those manufacturers will see some gains, something they haven’t seen since COVID.
As for holidays, June has Father’s Day on the 15th and relatively new but significant is the federally recognized Juneteenth on the 19th, which falls on a Thursday this year and may encourage folks to enjoy a long weekend. June ends in the week leading into the Fourth of July weekend. Again, many people will take the week off prior to the weekend, so clearly be prepared! With staffing still a problem with little relief in sight, scheduling has to be done smartly. As I always say, it’s easier to call staff out than to call them in—especially in the summer.
As we all start to soak in the warm weather and enjoy the uptick in business, get yourself staffed and stocked to make hay while the sun shines!
Len Panaggio’s career in food and wine spans more than three decades as an owner and as a beverage director at some of the top restaurants in Rhode Island. Currently a hospitality consultant, Len is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and has attended the Culinary Institute of America Master Sommelier program and the Sterling School of Service and Hospitality.
