[Mack184]

Originally Posted by l2ridehd

Yesterday I was having lunch at Tony's Pizza in Northern VA. This is a small 5 or 6 restaurants chain all in Northern VA. I was alone eating lunch kind of late so the place was empty and there was a new older person behind the counter, very full head of white hair and very Italian. He came over and asked me if lunch was good, which it was, in fact excellent. I asked him who he was and had a good discussion with him. Turns out he was the "Tony", from Italy and the owner of all the establishments. I asked why he was working at this one place as it is the furthermost West one of his restaurants.

This is his business model. He rewards his managers by showing up one hour before the manager starts, meets them at the door, takes the key and sends them home and pays them for a day off. He manages the place for that day. He sees who shows up for work at what time, checks inventory, works the counter, meets the customers, checks the kitchen, quality of the food and service, and does everything the manager should do on a typical business day. He shows up completely at random, usually once every couple of weeks and runs his business to make sure it is operating the way he wants. He will even on occasion show up two days in a row.

I was impressed. I have always liked the food and service at all of his places, and now I know why. The manager and the employees never know when he will be there. But they know he will. What a great way to manage a business.

Back in days gone by Col. Sanders was famous for showing up at the various Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise restaurants unannounced to see how things were going. If you were running things the way they should be done it was a very pleasant visit, but woe to the store & it's manager where they were not!