Restaurateur Marcelo Fernandes talks about mistakes and successes of the profession

With more than 20 years of experience in the area, Marcelo Fernandes is the restaurateur Brazilian that most inspires thousands of professionals in the area. He collects a lot of awards, both for his trajectory and for the quality of services and dishes in his ventures. Fernandes was a founding partner of DOM, by Alex Atala, in 1999, and is at the head of Gastronomia MG, a group that brings together the restaurants Kinoshita, Attimino, Foglia Forneria, Mercearia do Frances and Tradi Hamburgueria.

Marcelo Fernandes ended the FoodCo.Experience program at the beginning of February. The event brought together more than 70 businessmen and restaurateurs at Cozinha Bom Gourmet for a sequence of lectures with the presence of Nathália Royo, from Galunion, and Ivan Achcar, director of EGG Educa. FoodCo.Experience was sponsored by Gold FoodService, Champers Embalagens and Agência Reset and supported by Nomaa Hotel and EGG Educa.

Before the last lecture of the afternoon, the digital agency Reset made a pitch about paid traffic to restaurants. The company specializes in the service and works with consultants for the field, including online ads and digital advertising.

Reset’s consultancy includes a brand diagnosis before starting the services, such as detecting the online presence and optimizing the restaurant’s content to be better found by search engines.

delighting customers

The keynote of Fernandes’ opening speech was customer enchantment. “When you reach the customer’s expectations, you feel invigorated. You know you’ve transformed a moment. It’s very gratifying”, he defined, when talking about what attracted him and what keeps him in the area.

For him, the main points for the diner are the quality of the food, the hospitality and the environment, and he gave a preview of what he considers will be fundamental for the coming years: “The era of experience ended with the pandemic. Now restaurants need offer welcome, and for that it is necessary to give oneself genuinely”.

The amount of data, provocations and questions posed during the afternoon made Marcelo Fernandes change the route of his presentation. Instead of speaking alone, he called Nathália and Ivan back to the stage to answer questions from the audience and comment on shared experiences.

“When we started the DOM, in 1999, there was little market and research information. Today we have so much information that we are lost”, he summarized.

Below, the main points addressed by Marcelo Fernandes about good restaurant management:

learn from mistakes

Despite being mentioned with an impeccable trajectory, Marcelo Fernandes identifies mistakes in his career. “The Clos de Tapas was a stumbling block. You can’t keep punching a knife. The restaurant had everything to succeed. People were willing to travel and live an avant-garde experience elsewhere, but not in the country itself. It was a restaurant way ahead of the moment,” he revealed. For him, the experience is valid when the error is identified and one prepares oneself for the next conscious endeavor so as not to repeat it.

company culture

Essential for maintaining cohesion among employees and a smooth day-to-day life, the company’s culture also involves an internal organization policy, even for points that seem simple and basic. An example is the internalization of non-waste behaviors: “The common guideline is: if it opened, it has to close, if it turned on, it has to turn it off”, exemplifies Fernandes.

pay better

It is necessary to constantly train the team and remunerate all the kitchen and salon labor better, in addition to offering more benefits. “It’s not just about retaining talent, but understanding what the employee’s goals are and how to help develop them,” he said.

The Gastronomia MF group has even studied a career plan for cooks, in which the ascent is not funneled to the position of chef.

maintenance and depreciation

Ivan Achcar defended the automation of tasks such as washing dishes. In addition to the investment in equipment acquisition, preventive maintenance and item depreciation need to be included in the financial planning, so that the machinery has a longer life and management is able to replace it before the equipment breaks down or cannot be repaired.

listen to everyone

Customer feedback will not always be given directly to traditional listening channels. Marcelo Fernandes advocates listening to all people who have contact with the customer. “You have to listen to the valet, the maitre d’, your employees. Often, we underestimate the employee and don’t want to hear what he has to say, but they are very important to your business and identify things that sometimes we have no other way of access”, he defended.

different pains

Asked if there is a common pain in all his ventures, Marcelo discussed the issue with Ivan. “Different undertakings will have different pains. A sushi restaurant will have the issue of fresh fish, a more perishable input than flour for a bakery, for example”, compared Ivan.

“Products of animal origin tend to suffer a greater price increase and this impacts on the final value”, completed Marcelo. But both agreed that all ventures have the same goal: enough revenue to pay for itself.

focus on the process

Having well-defined processes for all areas of the restaurant makes it easier to train new employees, the day-to-day flow, and also to identify bottlenecks that can be optimized. “When I started to have control of the processes, I started to sleep peacefully”, stated Marcelo Fernandes. Documented processes also allow the operation to be structured enough for expansion.

Expansion is not always good

“Expanding depends on your breath: you have to have a process, people and training”, listed Fernandes. “Don’t grow if you don’t have a strong branding, well-detailed processes and a structured brand. Growing doesn’t always mean increased revenue”, he pointed out.