Saturday 01.18.25 Jenn/Lauren/Ian

Manager Communication: 

Clue opened the building up with a bustling service, and then the rest of the building kept service steady, but definitely mellowed out in terms of service until the late afternoon.  Looks like a similar opening tomorrow, but the impending weather may lead to a lot of day-of e-credits. JH
So I know I am a broken record with certain things, but I do think that adding sound proofing panels to the ceiling at Trees would make customer experience much better.  The private party tonight just sounds like loud chatter that resonates. It would massively improve ambiance and make it a safer environment for hearing loss, speaking as someone who has lost a lot of hearing at their job.-LB

In a note for the sound, it is really hard to expo efficiently when the sound of the room is so loud. Ian is killing it, but he is using his acting skills to the max.-LB

I am placing a box of gloves on top  of the dishwasher so it is easier to clean out the gunk that accumulates. A lot of glassware has been subpar. -LB 

I had to go off walkie at 8:18pm because mine is not working and there are no more, Jared told me to check Chef's office, found one. -LB

Wow Saturday, you came for us. -LB

Agreed. That was a slammed party/service, but the team was really on top of their game. Also just wanna thank Lauren for being so on top of everything - tonight was a lot easier because of her presence in the building. Big Ups! - IP

Customer Comments: A server was asked for us to carry more than one non-alcoholic beer, this is definitely on my vision board for the upcoming menu change.-LB

BAR Staff Observations: 

Matthew held down Lobby without issue all morning, and was able to send some back up citrus and coffees when needed.  Natasha absolutely crushed the opening hour of service, and then navigated a pretty bustling Trees crowd once the first round movies began to get out. JH

Greg was managing the busy situation at Trees pretty well. He did break glass over an ice well two times tonight. However, I don't really blame it. It was crazy with three theaters loading in with 75 people for a private event trying to get drinks.-LB

Greg broke a pint glass over the ice well a third time. I imagine this is either the soda gun tubing knocking into the glasses and pushing them over, unsure. But again, this was a pretty thrown into the fire event.-LB

The bar team was driving me mad today when they would not keep a stack of clean dishes under the POS. The system kept getting broken down and I did not appreciate having to have a bunch of dollies propped up where people can trip and then not having one when clean dishware came out. I will emphasize the protocol to them tonight and again when I am not so fired up about this.-LB

I concur with Lauren - something we can emphasize at our full bar staff meeting would be for everyone to slow down in moments of duress and lean on the systems we have in place. People get squirrelly when they're slammed, and when we're running out of glassware and everyone is attempting to pull from the same well, etc. things get harried and that's when mistakes and glass breakage happen. We have these systems in place because they work, and when we start to go rogue, things get weird.  We also have a large amount of new-ish staff and since the holidays things have been full steam ahead with little time to lay the foundations - so I think a general refresher for everyone will be great. Lastly, a big shoutout to Lydia and Jeshua who absolutely held it down at Trees when things went sideways.  Everyone was super supportive and helpful with Greg and I'm very proud that our bar team lifts each other up when it would be super easy to get frustrated and judgmental over having to burn a well multiple times during a busy service. But Lydia jumped right in to help reset, and Jeshua just went full Iron-Man mode and pumped out a Brutalist intermission and a Nosferatu rush pretty much by himself (as Greg and Darius were handling the 75 people at the bar, and Lydia was resetting their bar). - IP

FOH Staff Observations: 
Raekwon is great at running events. -LB

Hiring/Training:

See notes above re: Greg - just gonna put here, despite the glass breakage, dude did a bang-up job with an extremely busy evening on his first live shift. Once he gets his bearings and feels confident that he can afford to be a little bit more methodical and less rushed, he's obviously got the goods to be a real asset to the team. - IP
 
Special Events? Double birthday party and it ISN'T a Saved by the Bell episode. It is going really well however no one has migrated upstairs at all, as of 8pm. -LB
75 people is too many to have for half Trees rental with the food downstairs. I can't even bus plates or glassware because the guests are huddled tightly together with no one upstairs. It is not viable.-LB 

Again, agreed with everything Lauren has put down here. I think going forward we should be a little more intentional with our preparations for events like this. Everything ran smoothly as far as the guests were concerned, but it did get a little crazy for a good chunk of the party (mostly when we were low on glassware from the very busy theater service). 

• I'm all about a trial by fire, and I definitely think Greg is up to snuff, but that was a lot to throw at someone on their first live shift. Just a thought to keep in mind people's strengths when we're staffing big events.
• I think we can all come together to try to come up with a better flow for Half-trees events, as far as the actual space is concerned. 
• This is the easiest one - when we know Trees is going to be busy, and people are ordering lots of menu items, we should make extra store'n'pours for customer facing to keep the service pass free of three bartenders all running out of the same well. I think that would reduce the traffic jams, and the frantic energy that sometimes creeps up when we're knee-deep in theater tickets and several deep at the bar.   - IP

Prep List: Natasha got us going on arbol tequila, FWWM, Lemonada, CLS. I am going to make some cacao water-LB

Walk-in looks pretty good for tomorrow morning, only thing you might need to make would be Princes of Maine as there is no back up besides what we have at the bars. - IP

Ordering/Receiving/Shipping: 

Just a note, I never actually sent the Baldor order from last night, so it will now be arriving Monday.  Nothing urgent, no stocked product will be affected until then. JH

Jenn I can't see your orders in my Baldor account, if you can forward me what you ordered so I don't double order anything.-LB

Maintenance: It would be really helpful if the rolling dollies were maintained better. Maybe some WD-40 and hair removal monthly would keep them moving. This would also keep the volume down when going through the hallways to not disturb guests.-LB

The ice bucket holder at Trees is falling off the wall again. Idea, we mount a few of them to mitigate them coming out of the wall sooner.-LB
I know that fixing the magnets on the front doors is a whole thing, but based on the temperatures dropping and the kind of erratic customers we have been having, being able to lock them is pretty clutch. -LB

I noticed that the racks of liquids at bar prep look like they might pop off the wall too. I know the dry wall mounting is a routine issue, but perhaps we can get ahead of this one.-LB