An in-depth study of the operations of Bistro Villemanzy

Résumé du document

Bistro Villemanzy is part of the "Bistrot des Cuisiniers" group (10 Bistros located in Lyon), which itself is a part of the Leon de Lyon/ Jean-Paul Lacombe group. Bistrot des Cuisiniers is a group aiming at offering upper quality meals in a bistro way. Leon de Lyon: created in 1904, from a simple "bouchon lyonnais" with Paul Lacombe to the unique restaurant which welcomed G7 members in 1996, Jean-Paul Lacombe is nowadays one of the most famous chefs all over the world. First of all, we decided to go to Maison Villemanzy as mystery guests to check the quality of the service operation. We followed the Ishikawa model for our criteria. We went for dinner at Restaurant Maison Villemanzy on Saturday, May 12th. We booked a table for 8pm. When we arrived, we were directly shown our table on the terrace. The maitre d' straight away gave us the menus and took the order for aperitif. A waitress served our drinks with olives five minutes later. The maitre d' came back to take our food order ten minutes later and also suggested some wine to match our choices. The starters were served about ten minutes later and after they cleared the plates, they brought our main course quite quickly (10mn), same for dessert.

Extraits

[...] It can be mornings as well as evenings and beginning of the week as well as weekends. Orders stand for about 1000 to 1500 a week so about 6000€ a month. Payment conditions: Suppliers pay at 30 days. Qualitative delivery service The chain has a decentralized purchasing department for its foods and beverages. We tried to find out the degree of accuracy of the suppliers bills that it has been receiving (An inaccurate bill maybe one where the price or the quantity delivered is incorrect, the price discount given is not the amount promised, delivery date is wrong We selected a random sample of size 30 for each of the last 12 months of the bills it has received Inventory Management: Inventory is held separately for the foods and for the beverages. [...]

[...] Variety of foods More “specials”, “drink of the week/of the day should be implemented. As we saw, the cocktail of the month is a success so more offers of that type should be realised. That could push sales significantly. Quality of foods A special attention should be made concerning cooking: standards of quality should be implemented since complaints have been arising about over- and under-cooking of meat and fish. Friendliness of staff Some major complaints arose concerning service. It seems to be very variable which absolutely abnormal. Major improvements need to be made. [...]

[...] Recipes are most of the time imposed by the group management. The chef has poor control of what he offers. He tries to add some sauces, to “standardized recipes”, but it is pretty much all about it. Changes in the menu occurs officially almost every day since the menu is re- printed every day, with the date of the day and with the annotation “today, the chef offers but in fact, foods vary very few and the menu does change, the change only concerns a few items at a time. [...]

[...] However, if 2 services are implemented, new organisation will be needed since guests will be more likely to arrive at the same time. Location: “Organization” means decor too. The service should be more adapted to the decor. Indeed the decor with terrace and veranda; chairs and tables of wood should inspire more luxury than now. Other way, the view is the main reason way people do come at the moment. Consequently more rearrangement of tables should be realised so that more tables can actually have a nice view of Lyon. [...]

[...] We tested the cocktail of the month formula. The owner told us that he wanted assurance that there is a probability greater than 70% that 30 customers or more, at dinner time, at any week night, order the cocktail of the month. Past data of the last 3 months indicated that 35 customers ordered the cocktail of the month, on average. To test whether the implementation of the cocktail of the month is successful, we use a Poisson distribution. Results are following: Conclusion: the percentage of customers ordering, on average, cocktail of the month is (100- 22.69 This it meets the manager's standards. [...]