by Bruce Harris

Negotiating for service and service ratios is one of the areas most overlooked by planners. How important is it? Service creates the value in food and beverage functions. Consider a $90 per plate dinner that takes two hours to serve. Regardless of the quality of the food and the magnificence of the setting, slow or poor service will diminish the appreciation and enjoyment of the meal.

Too few waiters and waitresses will cause meals to be served "out-of-sync." While some people are waiting for their main course, others may already be finished (still others might be digging into dessert). This means that when the head table or VIP table, which usually receives the best service, is finished and ready to begin the program, they must either wait 20 minutes for the rest of the room to catch up, or else start the program while people are still being served. Either choice will detract from what was supposed to be a smashing opening dinner or a fabulous finale. Good service is not something that automatically happens... it is something that experienced meeting managers ensure during negotiations.

Recently, during negotiations at one of the foremost meeting destinations in the United States, our client demanded service and menus that far exceeded the hotel's standards. (It was for the 50th anniversary of the association. One dinner, in fact, was double the cost of the highest menu price shown.) Wine, both red and white, was to be served throughout dinner.

The hotel offered one waiter for every 20 people – the minimum that is acceptable for most plated meal functions. When requested to improve the ratio to one waiter for every 12 attendees, we were told: "This is the hotel's policy. Since it is standard for all other groups, it will also have to do for you."

During the negotiation on this issue, we pointed out we were buying a meal that required five courses as opposed to the standard three, and therefore, the workload was heavier than normal for the wait staff. The hotel countered by saying that their waiters "could serve five courses just as fast and professionally as they could a three-course meal." That was hard to imagine.

How Much Service Do You Need?

If you are unsure of what ratio of "wait help" – to – attendees is correct, use common sense. Logic dictates that...

The more courses involved, the fewer people per waiter.

Russian or French "Tableside Service", the fewer people per waiter.

The more VIP the event is, the fewer people per waiter.

While the above is logical to most people, it is not common practice at many hotels.

Some Tips:

Minimum service for standard plated dinners – one waiter for 20 guests.
At rounds of 10 – one waiter per two tables.
At rounds of 8 – two waiters per five tables.

Minimum service for standard plated dinners with wine service (Bottles being poured by waiter, NOT just left on the table) – one waiter per 16 guests.
At rounds of 8 – one waiter per two tables.
At rounds of 10 – two waiters per three tables.

For meals requiring Russian or French service – same ratio as above.

For meals requiring Russian or French service and poured wine service – one waiter per table.

The irony was that by doubling the menu price, we were doubling the gratuity for service, yet service did not increase. We were paying a service charge on the wine; yet when the waiters were serving wine, unable to devote their full attention to serving the full course meal and obviously, when they were serving dinner, they were not fulfilling our desired standards for wine service.

The suggestion came up that "If you want more waiters, then you'll have to pay for them." This request was entirely reasonable – if the food and service charges being paid were already more than double the hotel's "standard."

Persistence and a hard look at the facts finally won out – only because we were prepared to go elsewhere if the hotel's service standard's were not modified to meet the demands of the meal. To make a point, we figured out the gratuity difference between the hotel's highest menu priced dinner and our dinner. Then we added the wine which was estimated to be $64 per table (3 bottles per table of 10 guests).

Our Dinner: @ $90 x 18% = $16.20 gratuity.
Wine Gratuity (Per Person): = $1.15 gratuity.
Hotel Highest Dinner: @ $45 x 18% = $8.10 gratuity.
Thus, Our Dinner total: $17.35 gratuity and Hotel Highest.
Dinner total: = 8.10 gratuity.

We were paying more than 200 percent of the gratuity that the hotel would normally get from its highest menu priced dinner. The food and beverage director and sales manager realized that their position was indefensible. They finally made the needed concession and tried to save face by saying that they were only doing so to keep the business from going elsewhere. But if this had not been negotiated in advance, before the contract was signed, the hotel would not have had to make a concession and our meal function would have been a disaster.

Moral: Match the service needed to the type and quality of the function when you negotiate.

First published in: Convene Magazine, November 1994