Success Stories from Profitable Hospitality Members p. 1

Sharing business strategies and achievements...

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Our Profitable Hospitality membership has been a great investment over many years. It is an invaluable resource and our first port of call whenever issues arise. We can access it at any time and the content, particularly around the area of staff and marketing, has saved us our membership fee many times over. Ken Burgin has a wealth of knowledge and a ten minute chat with him can bring great clarity and insight!

Rhonda Longo
The Telegraph Hotel, Geelong West Vic

Our Profitable Hospitality membership is money well spent. The team uses many of the systems and templates regularly when preparing quotes, and to assist with efficient administration practices. The education provided by Ken Burgin and the Profitable Hospitality team whether in-house, at webinars or workshops, ensures all our staff are able to participate in ongoing training which is relevant for them.

Rob Morrison, General Manager
Frankston RSL Victoria

I wish to thank you for all the valuable information you provided over the past 5 years. Your useful and entertaining newsletters, your life saving downloads, your kind advice and your webinars made running our business less overwhelming.

Nicki Kelly
Palate Pleasure Café, Bowral NSW

Thanks to Ken Burgin and the Profitable Hospitality website. I have been a PH Member for many years and consider my membership has contributed significantly to the continuing growth of my business. I can always find relevant and helpful information about any issue or query I have, and the hundreds of forms and templates save me so much time and effort. It has been very exciting to have also watched the progress of the Profitable Hospitality website, and the many tools and resources it provides. This website is amazing. Best of all, I can go to it any time, day or night!

Andrew Sibley
Caterscape Aust Pty Ltd (Caterers & Events), Brisbane Qld

'This site is soooo incredibly helpful and useful. Why recreate the wheel when it has been done so well - thank you!!!'

Sarah MacDermott - Hotel Manager, Perth WA

We have been members of Profitable Hospitality for over 10 years.  The resources provided, the regular newsletters, the webinars and the access to personal communication have made it easier to run our business.  

Business operators/owners have so many jobs.  Keeping up with Social Media has been particularly difficult for us, but Ken makes it seem easy.  In addition, the website resources, such as Position Descriptions, How to Deal with various issues in the workplace, etc, have been incredibly helpful as we defined our roles and actions.  

We have been grateful to have such a wealth of quality resources available, at our finger tips, whenever we wanted to access them.  Thank you, Ken for your ongoing support and in assisting with our professional development.

Lesley Thies - Owner/Host
Emeu Inn Restaurant
Heathcote, Victoria

I just wanted to write and thank you so much for the fantastic help and support we get from Profitable Hospitality. After a few months of looking around at what else was out there your support was well above everything else we had looked into. We joined the First Class Lounge a year ago and there has not been a time that we have not found exactly what we needed for the restaurant in one of the sections. For example the job descriptions, the safety matters, the educational sheets for the staff, the tips and hints to save money and my favourite are the excel spreadsheets for either cost control issues, menu analysis, roster costings etc etc. I especially look forward to Tuesdays for your weekly tip as it is completely in tune with the current state of the nation or world, enabling us to ensure we are up to date with our strategies and marketing.

Honestly Ken you have saved us $1000s of dollars, time and our sanity. Thank you also for monitoring the forum and answering questions on there. It is like having our very own personal hospitality coach in the next office. With this being such a hard industry to stay afloat we could not be more thankful!

Jan Lees, Owner
The Balcony Restaurant, Townsville Qld

One of the best investment opportunities is to provide a passionate team with education and training opportunities. There is no doubt that the results generated by motivated people, fired up and willing to get into action, following participation at a conference or training event can be quite extraordinary. According to Jenny Wilson, Catering Manager at Caloundra RSL Services Club, the investment in sending her and the Executive Chef to the 2009 Club Food & Beverage Summit (organised by Profitable Hospitality & the Club Managers Association) is generating very healthy returns indeed!!

"I left last year's F&B Summit inspired to take things to a new level, and introduce some healthy eating options to the club. Through some creative thinking and working with the best in the field, I believe we have done so with fantastic results" said Jenny.

Successful Australian presenter and motivational speaker Annette Sym is also the author of the "Symply Too Good to be True" series of Low Fat cookbooks. Ten years ago, Annette's husband Bill, a well known chef in Club land, had developed quite a following for his low fat meals on the Clearwater Cafe menu, whilst working as a chef at Caloundra RSL. The success of Annette's books however, meant a change of direction for Bill who is now fully immersed in publishing and food nutrition.

On her return from the F&B Summit, Jenny approached Bill and Annette, who were only too pleased to work with the team at Caloundra on this exciting project. The Club now boasts low fat meals and low fat desserts in the Clearwater Cafe, and Low Fat meals and Low Fat kids meal in the Viva family restaurant.

"Just because meals are low fat does not mean they are not tasty, and we have had a fantastic response since going this way. We have changed all the cornflours and sauces used in the meals to gluten free ones, so we have the added benefit of being able to advertise Gluten Free, Low Fat and Low GI with complete confidence. This project entailed a lot of research and hard work but the results have been amazing. At least two Low Fat meals are in the top 10 dishes served in each restaurant."

According to Jenny the children's Beef Macaroni is very popular, served only with steamed vegies, as is the simple Beef Sticks dish -- a new twist on the traditional crumbed sausages. The parents are loving this.

"For any clubs thinking of what they can do to generate some interest into their boring old menus, this is the way to go."

Jenny Wilson, Catering Manager
Caloundra RSL Services Club, Queensland

Just love the members area - I wish I joined years ago. In an industry that is striving to be environmentally friendly your site has fantastic resource material to get any switched on Club manager started. I'm very impressed with what I have researched so far.

Wayne Mudge, General Manager
Club Oatley, Sydney

I have followed Ken Burgin and the Profitable Hospitality member website for many years. I have the greatest respect for Ken's depth of knowledge and understanding of hospitality in general, and the world of club catering, and food and beverage, in particular. I welcome his weekly newsletter and find the resources on the website invaluable as a prompt to keep me on track and continually doing the things that keep me ahead.  

Any chef who does not keep up with Ken's wealth of information is doing themselves a disservice.  

Gerhard Spatz, Executive Chef
Ballina RSL Club, NSW

Just sitting at home relaxing after a hard day of catering reading your latest newsletter. I would like to let you know that I really enjoy your interesting articles and that most of them have great tips for us which we can use. Thanks for a great product/service.
Nicki Kelly, Proprietor
Palate Pleasure, Bowral NSW

I just wanted to email you and thank you for all the hard work you put into your newsletters, I look forward to seeing them pop up in my inbox and the articles take me away from working in my business to working on my business. So far I have attended one of your workshops on restaurant marketing in Melbourne and have purchased 300 marketing letters and the Profitable Recipe Manager, and find both very useable business tools. So keep up the good work I am sure there are so many more restaurateurs out there looking forward to hearing from you.

Ben Higgs, Owner/Chef
Wild Oak Cafe, Olinda, Victoria

I just did a reference for one of my staff. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate Profitable Hospitality! It saves so much time and makes me look so professional! Thank You!

Franziska Prosser, Restaurant Manager
Platinum Blu, Gosford NSW

I find your resources excellent and a continual way to improve our business...our function business is 50% above last year YTD and we hopefully will be opening another conference room (to take the total to 7) next year to cope with demand.

Alvin Kan, General Manager
Gosford Golf Club, NSW

We have found the manuals very helpful in many areas of the restaurant. The helpful advice, new procedures and staff systems have helped us change many things for the better. We have implemented practically everything from the manuals -- from recipe costers, kitchen diaries, many daily procedures through to warning letters to staff. The manuals have been so helpful at Otto, because as we grew very quickly we did not have everything written down as systems. Now we do!

Sara Lincolne
Otto Ristorante Italiano, Woolloomooloo, Sydney

The Profitable Hospitality manuals have been an exceptional help to me running an extremely large catering company with many staff. They have saved me a great amount of time and money. I have implemented every section of the manuals over a few months (except the bar sections since we don't serve alcohol).

I can now get precise information quickly with the Menu costers and it is great to be able to save money on staff by using the rostering systems. The Job Descriptions have helped me give exact information to staff. And with warning letters, when the staff get one -- they know its serious!

Mark Taylor, Owner
VMT Catering Management, Cooma NSW

Staff are impressed when they are given their manual. It shows we are dedicated to employing and keeping great employees. I have easily adapted the Staff Manual for both of our hotels. This includes for 2 Front Office departments, 2 Restaurants, 1 Café and 2 Housekeeping departments. The recruitment and appointment forms have been used for all new staff and we now use the Job Descriptions for all new and existing staff members. The manuals have been so easy to adapt to our needs. They have saved me much, much more than the cost to purchase -- and I now have systems that are a lot more professional than I would have possibly produced.

Andrew Taylor
Blacket Hotel, Sydney

Thank you for your help. Your kitchen and recipe management systems have helped me to achieve the correct % on food and labour. I am also able to run a kitchen which has clearly defined rules (no animosity!). Love your work!

Damian Heads, Head Chef
Pony Dining, Sydney

I just wanted to say congratulations on your website. We have a sandwich bar in the Brisbane CBD which we have had for 3 years, before which I had no experience in hospitality at all. The info on your site has been great and I only found it a couple of months ago. Thanks again and all the best for the new year.

Scott Graham, Owner
The Blue Lemon, Brisbane's Premier Catering Venue

Becoming a member of Profitable Hospitality was most beneficial for the preparation, opening and constant updating of our restaurant business. They provided us with very useful marketing tips and techniques, great resources for managing staff effectively, useful spreadsheets to improve profits, top menu planning techniques and tricks as well as essential information on the general operations of running the business successfully.  

The Q & A forums were useful and Ken is always there to help out with any problems you might face. Overall, the memberships exceeded my expectations and I would strongly recommend it for anyone serious about running or setting up a successful hospitality business.  

Damien Smith, Head Chef
Firefly Restaurant, Georges River Golf Course NSW

These Manuals have taken a huge administrative weight off my shoulders. Implementation of our Liquor License was so smooth - just by using the systems outlined in the manuals. In only a few months I have implemented most sections of the manuals, covering all aspects of staff management (even the termination procedures -- unfortunately but thanks!) My management efficiency has more than doubled, just by having all the forms ready to use and answers to my questions readily available. I find the Operations Manual very useful because it has all the nuts and bolts for running each department. When implemented correctly, these have a direct effect on the bottom line.

Graham Murray, Owner
The Market Café, Stirling, Adelaide

As a major dairy supplier, the Profitable Hospitality Tour to the USA really gave me a greater appreciation of my customers' needs and businesses, and equipped me with the knowledge to serve them better. I highly recommend the Tour to all in the hospitality and foodservice industry - it's an industry 'MUST DO'!

Tony Telgenhof, Parmalat Australia Ltd.
Brisbane, Australia

An area of considerable concern to me was systematic kitchen management. Since we introduced the Profitable Hospitality systems, time required for me be active in managing the kitchen has halved. I have been able to concentrate my efforts on what I was employed to do - focus on the important areas of marketing and building membership. I am free of the paper warfare of old, and confident in the knowledge that our staff are working as a team and the kitchen is operating efficiently - and profitably.

These excellent systems take the guess work out of management. Flexible and versatile they can be tailored to suit the individual club's requirements while clear job descriptions, staff application forms and other valuable documentation can be modified to suit individual requirements.

Mark Wilkinson, Manager
Noble Park RSL Club, Victoria

I first heard about Ken when I was the manager of the Eastern Suburbs Business Enterprise Centre. He is a well known and respected hospitality industry professional who understands the real world issues that owners confront. So it was only natural that when we needed to develop systems and structures for a business we'd purchased (Lauralla Guest House & Grapevine Restaurant) that we turn to Ken for practical, real world support.

His workshops are informative, well structured, and engaging. His manuals, planners, and template systems are invaluable. Thank you Ken... our business would not have been as successful as it was without your assistance.

Stuart Horrex, Sydney

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