Yes, Chef...

Lessons from The Bear on the art of service

Listen up, Lizards. Taking a quick break from our Bootstrapping Growth series.

Like a lot of you I’m sure, I’m obsessed with FX’s show, The Bear.

*no spoilers here if you didn’t see it but plenty of easter eggs for those who did

I could talk all day about the art, the characters, the story, the insane one-shot episodes, and my experiences in restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. I get so amped up that you’ll find me in the following days answering with a sharp “heard” or affectionately calling everyone “cuz”.

It’s well documented that I’m a huge process nerd so this should surprise no one, but there’s just something about watching a team operate at such a high level, even if it’s crazy and chaotic and messy. Maybe even because of those things. They’re harnessing absolute madness behind those kitchen doors and turning it into precise, repeatable magic.

But there’s something else.

The service.

Incredible service has become a lost art - probably as a result of mass A/B testing, automation at scale, and -and I accept some responsibility here- analytics. The mindset has become: how do I blast something to 100 people so that it sticks for 3 of them. Which isn’t wrong tactically but the more things that philosophy gets applied to the less an individual interaction matters. To us at least. It ABSOLUTELY still matters to the customer.

Which is why, even at scale, we should pay attention to the customer experience at a micro-basil-level of detail. Even if it’s going to 100, 1000, or 10,000 people, make the experience matter. Don’t just play the numbers and automate away any intentionality. Have some respect for the craft of service and a customer experience.

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So with that in mind I wanted to pull out the lessons that have made The Bear required viewing for the Ground Control team and why it probably should be for your team as well. 

No, I don’t mandate that everyone affirms with a disciplined “YES, CHEF”.

Yes, I thought about it.

Here we go:

1. Respect at all times

While movies like The Menu make practices like “yes, chef” seem cultish and toxic, The Bear shows us this is about respect. Everyone contributing to the experience is “chef” and it’s meant to elevate everyone to a level of respect that that responsibility deserves. It serves as a signal that even when there are literal fires raging we address everyone respectfully. You can be frustrated, you can set a high bar, you can disagree, you can be intense… but you will do so with respect. 

Did I say “respect” enough to hammer it home?

2. Constant over communication

A kitchen is full of hot surfaces and razor sharp edges and everyone is in a hurry. A dish might require 6 items all prepared by different people with different cook times which all culminate at one moment where it is immediately shuttled to a table. To avoid getting stabbed or burned, as well as not ruin dishes or food, everyone has to communicate. They develop a shared language that transmits quickly and unambiguously things like status, position, and action. 

3. Systems and process

A high end restaurant delivers a high caliber product consistently, hundreds of times, every single day. You can’t deliver on that kind of promise without great systems. Those systems have to be well established and religiously followed. Checklists and protocols are not to be viewed as bureaucratic limitations robbing a team of autonomy but instead as tools for harnessing the talents of a team consistently and delivering peak performance. 

When I stress SOPs with staff or clients often there’s a bit of a groan, maybe an eye roll, or at the very least a dismissive yeah yeah yeah nod. But here’s a quick list I made of jobs that follow strict protocols:

• Surgeons

• Special Forces

• Jet pilots

• Rocket scientists

Still feel that checklists are beneath you?

4. Blow-your-f*cking-mind culture of service

There are a thousand advantages a larger company has over us as bootstrapped small businesses. One place you can beat them every time is in the unscalable details of an experience. Good service is the expectation. Customers are annoyed if it’s bad but you really have to go above and beyond to make it something special. This is where the art is. You can’t process map this out. It comes from listening closely and thinking not just what does a customer want, but what would delight them. For inspiration I suggest season 2 episode 7 “Forks”.

5. Pride in excellence

Above all else, I think the most important thing to be established -no- seared into a team is pride. There’s one way to view a lot of these restaurants as overly demanding or even abusive -and certainly some are, which isn’t cool -don’t abuse people. But I feel we’ve gotten really quick to label anything hard as unreasonable.  

There’s another way to view it and that’s through a lens of pride. These expectations are not unreasonable annoyances, but instead badges worn proudly. These are the attributes of the exceptional.

This isn’t romanticizing the hustle or encouraging toxic work life balance. It’s just math and how “average” works. If everyone does something, no matter how good it is, it’s average. Nothing wrong with average in a lot of cases. But if you want to really set yourself or your company apart, you have to do things that set you apart.

So find things worth doing at a higher level and take pride in doing something most are unwilling or unable to do. 

Require a higher gear from your team. Teach them, give them the tools they need, support them - but hold them accountable to the best versions of themselves. Then take pride as a team in doing the hard work and delighting customers.

If you haven’t seen The Bear, I highly recommend it. Two seasons out on Hulu, they both deliver. And then look at your business and think about where you can blow some minds with above and beyond service.

Let it rip.

Chase…forks…Spenst

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The Tangent is produced by Ground Control where we help founders build cash-flow machines that work for them. Here’s how to get more:

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