BE LIKE A CROW

Restaurant Safety Awareness: Be More Like the Crow

Crows are some of the smartest animals on the planet.

Scientists have studied their incredible problem-solving abilities, memory, and awareness of their surroundings. They can solve puzzles, use tools, recognize people, and remember what they learn.

In other words, crows pay attention.

Restaurants and bars could learn something from them.

Restaurant Safety Awareness Requires More Than Book Smarts

Crows have ingenuity. They have problem-solving skills. They have awareness. Most importantly, they remember what they learn.

Those same qualities matter in restaurant safety awareness.

In the restaurant and bar business, you have to be smart. You need the book smarts of restaurant industry standards. However, you also need reasonable, basic common sense.

You have to know what is happening around you.

You have to recognize when something isn’t right.

And you have to remember what experience has already taught you.

Otherwise, things can get ugly in the blink of an eye.

Pay Attention and Remember

Crows also have an amazing memory.

I know this firsthand.

There’s a family of crows on the sixth hole of a Wisconsin golf course that still hates my guts. I bothered one of them as a teenager more than 40 years ago, and apparently the family hasn’t forgiven me.

Now that’s a memory.

Restaurant managers and employees need a good memory, too.

Training should not disappear the moment the class ends. Lessons learned from incidents should not be forgotten. Safety procedures should not become something everyone knows but nobody follows.

Good restaurant safety awareness means learning, remembering, watching, and acting.

Restaurant Safety Starts With Awareness

Restaurant hazards can develop quickly.

A wet floor. An intoxicated customer. An unsecured coffee lid. An escalating argument. An employee ignoring a safety procedure.

The warning signs may be there before the incident.

Someone simply has to recognize them.

That’s where training, experience, common sense, and restaurant safety awareness come together.

After decades in the restaurant industry and years analyzing restaurant-related incidents as a Restaurant Expert Witness, I’ve seen what can happen when people stop paying attention.

If everyone were a little more like the crow, our restaurants and bars would probably be a lot safer.

And I wouldn’t have nearly as many cases coming across my desk.

This article draws from Howard Cannon’s Restaurant Ridiculous series.

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Howard Cannon – America’s most respected Restaurant and Bar Expert Witness. His unique and memorable perspective will change the way your audience thinks about restaurants and bars.  He will share shocking, real-life dirty secrets that plaque the industry.