Donald Burns presents a short framework mapping five restaurant culture levels as a pyramid: toxic (bad restaurants), training (good restaurants), learning (great restaurants), leadership, and admired (legendary). He encourages viewers to examine which level their restaurant currently occupies.
If we're gonna break down the culture part in the same pyramid at restaurant level, here's what you have, and it kind of goes up in it. Up in toxic culture. Bad restaurants have toxic cultures. That next level up, the good restaurants, they have what I call a training culture. The next level up from that, what I call are the great restaurants. They have what we call a learning culture, and then we have a leadership culture. And at the very top, you know, that legendary thing, we have what I call an admired culture. Examine where you're at right now.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
