Title:
RL: Classic style rewards its regulars
Author(s):
Lisa Bertagnoli
Source:
Crain's Chicago Business.
35.40 (Oct. 1, 2012): p0017.
Full Text:
Byline: Lisa Bertagnoli
The service at RL, the restaurant adjacent to the Ralph Lauren boutique on
North Michigan Avenue, is smooth as a perfect Hollandaise. Captains, waiters
and busers glide around the room, taking orders, refilling water glasses and
coffee cups, dropping checks, doing whatever needs to be done. Customers
seated at the white-clothed tables get whatever they want, whether it's
cottage cheese (it's not on the menu), sauce on the side or half a club
sandwich.
Overseeing the clubby dining room is Rich Varnes, RL's general manager
since 2001. Elegantly clad in a Ralph Lauren suit, he patrols the room,
greeting regulars, picking up stray napkins, brushing microscopic bread
crumbs from tables, changing light bulbs if need be, and listening, always
listening, to customers. When some regulars told Mr. Varnes that they
disliked leaving the restaurant smelling like cooked meat, he decreed that
steak Diane, a signature dish traditionally prepared tableside, would be
cooked in the kitchen instead.
Mr. Varnes, 48, delights in upending popular notions of customer service, and
these upside-down notions anchor the service philosophy at RL.
To start, he's hardly a boss. "I'm a servant," Mr. Varnes
says. "They put me in a suit and call me a GM but I'm a
servant." Customers, he insists, are customers: To Mr. Varnes, the
euphemism "guest" symbolizes how "watered down"
restaurant service has become.
Waiters at RL are waiters. They aren't anybody's buddy, and they
certainly aren't salespeople. RL waiters do not "up sell,"
that is, suggest appetizers, desserts, top-shelf liquor or side dishes.
Waiters, in fact, are judged not by sales but by how many people ask to sit
in their sections. "That's the Holy Grail of service for us,"
Mr. Varnes says.
"That's smart," says Bonnie Riggs, a Rosemont-based restaurant
industry analyst at NPD Group Inc. "Customers don't want to be
pressured. They want to be in the driver's seat."
At RL, they are. The restaurant's back-to-old-fashioned-basics approach
to service, paired with meticulous attention to detail, has earned it an army
of regulars. Locals, as Mr. Varnes calls frequent customers, account for 70
percent of business. They are seated where they want without asking: Mr.
Varnes, who reviews the reservation list every day, knows to place friendly
ladies who lunch near each other, business competitors and some politicians,
far apart.
KNOW THY VIPS
Mr. Varnes knows who his customers are. He consults Crain's
"Who's Who" list to keep fresh on high-profile executives and
trains younger staff members to recognize VIP guests by face. He instructs
new executive assistants to drop their bosses' names when making
reservations, because at RL, locals come first, especially if they want a
last-minute table.
It's unfair, Mr. Varnes realizes, but it's good service, not to
mention good business. "Any of our great customers we will make priority
customers," he says. "If you don't make them a priority in our
business, then what are you doing?"
Frequent customers, some of whom dine at RL twice a day, are a priority in
the kitchen, where Ryan Pitts, executive chef for the past 10 years, posts a
list of their preferences, from the way a salad is composed to portion sizes.
Mr. Pitts, 38, permits no rancor between the dining-room and kitchen staff,
as that rancor can cripple the finest restaurant.
"I tell waiters that they are an extension of our customers," he
says. "I tell them, 'We're here for you. Anything you need,
let us know.' "
New waiters are told to ask for help when they need it. They're also
trained to take control of their own stations--no need to ask a higher-up for
permission to do anything. If they make a mistake, they fix it and move on;
no excuses.
"You can't B.S. our customers, and you shouldn't even
try," Mr. Varnes says.
Rogers Park resident Barbara Ireczek didn't like her food at RL when she
first visited the restaurant last spring. "The steak Diane was
cold," recalls Ms. Ireczek, 57, a retired city of Chicago crisis worker.
(She says she didn't complain to the waiter because she was
"speechless" that a signature dish wasn't up to par.)
Yet Ms. Ireczek returned to RL for lunch (she says her burger and creamed
corn were "very good") because of the way she was treated.
"The service was excellent," she says, recalling that four or five
people waited on her table. "They knew what we wanted, and they were
there when we needed it."
-- RL RESTAURANT
General manager: Rich Varnes, 48
Seats: 80 inside, 40 on the patio
Check average: $25 at lunch, $65 at dinner
Service secret: "It boils down to service, and the table, and the
experience of the customer," Mr. Varnes says. "Are they having a
great time having a meal with us?"
Why it works: "People like to be pampered," says Bonnie Riggs,
Rosemont-based restaurant industry analyst at NPD Group Inc. "They like
to be recognized. And the more they pay and the more loyal they are, the more
they expect."
Copyright 2012 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source Citation
(MLA 7th Edition)
Bertagnoli, Lisa. "RL: Classic style rewards its regulars." Crain's Chicago Business 1 Oct. 2012: 0017. General OneFile. Web. 30 July 2013.
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