Bebo Trattoria, Chef Claudio Sandri in Crystal City - Closed.

[claudio]

Claudio, I do appreciate your posts, but as someone who has had an unpleasant meal at Bebo within the last few months, I do take a little bit of exception to your request about not posting any bad reviews. When I choose a place to dine I am investing limited time and my hard-earned money and want to know that I will be delivered excellent food and a good dining experience, even when a restaurant is going through transition. This blog is a resource to me in making those decisions, so I do want to hear all aspects - the good, the bad and the ugly. As someone who loves, loves, loves to eat out I do not want to see any restaurant fail, but I do want honest assessments of peoples experience. I do wish you luck - but as with any restaurant, you should expect and welcome input from your diners.

tank you Divine One

I love input from our diners,trust me, bad, ugly and good, but it sound hard to belive that any post is at list bad if not ugly.

and sorry to all of you for my last post, but I was very upset.

[mdt]

Claudio, I do appreciate your posts, but as someone who has had an unpleasant meal at Bebo within the last few months, I do take a little bit of exception to your request about not posting any bad reviews. When I choose a place to dine I am investing limited time and my hard-earned money and want to know that I will be delivered excellent food and a good dining experience, even when a restaurant is going through transition. This blog is a resource to me in making those decisions, so I do want to hear all aspects - the good, the bad and the ugly. As someone who loves, loves, loves to eat out I do not want to see any restaurant fail, but I do want honest assessments of peoples experience. I do wish you luck - but as with any restaurant, you should expect and welcome input from your diners.

I did not read it as do not write about negative experiences forever, just the next couple of weeks. It appears that they are reworking things and after the changes are implemented revisit and re-comment. Hopefully the changes, and subsequent posts, are positive.

[claudio]

This kind of says it all for me. I spend a retarded amount of time reading about food on the internet and I don't think I've ever seen a chef admit their food was mediocre in a public forum. That's a whole lot worse than anyone else posting a negative report could ever be.

you are probably right, but for me a CHEF is a human being, bad days, things going the wrong way, and you need to be ready to admit if some times something is not perfect or good or is not delivering the best experience possible to our guests.

maybe, I am wrong but is my way to think

[jparrott]

Claudio, thanks for engaging the board. I think a large number of the concerns expressed on this board have not been about food, but about the front-of-house, from the greeting at the door, to table and bar staff. What is the approach to improving matters there?

[Divine One]

tank you Divine One

I love input from our diners,trust me, bad, ugly and good, but it sound hard to belive that any post is at list bad if not ugly.

and sorry to all of you for my last post, but I was very upset.

I also thank you for engaging the board and apologize if I mis-construed your last message as well about posting during this transition period. Good luck with everything, I do wish you luck.

[claudio]

Claudio, thanks for engaging the board. I think a large number of the concerns expressed on this board have not been about food, but about the front-of-house, from the greeting at the door, to table and bar staff. What is the approach to improving matters there?

first is having the servers happy, second and we already done it, have more servers in the dining room, and any way we are looking for more, and also more bussers and food runners, we start over another training to the servers.

I hope this can change a little the service problems.

for the front door, the best way, for me, is having there the manager

what you think?

[lackadaisi]

Since soon after Bebo opened, all of my experiences in the restaurant have been really great and memorable. Wonderful food coupled with good to great service. Honestly, we stopped going because we could never figure out when it was open. The website was inconsistent, and the phones were rarely answered and provided no messages as to the hours. After several different times that it was closed after I checked in every possible way, we gave up. Give me a way to trust the hours, and I would love to try it again! We miss the food that we have had at Bebo and speak fondly of it frequently as we are driving elsewhere.

[claudio]

Since soon after Bebo opened, all of my experiences in the restaurant have been really great and memorable. Wonderful food coupled with good to great service. Honestly, we stopped going because we could never figure out when it was open. The website was inconsistent, and the phones were rarely answered and provided no messages as to the hours. After several different times that it was closed after I checked in every possible way, we gave up. Give me a way to trust the hours, and I would love to try it again! We miss the food that we have had at Bebo and speak fondly of it frequently as we are driving elsewhere.

go to www.bebotrattoria.net

thank you

[jpschust]

first is having the servers happy, second and we already done it, have more servers in the dining room, and any way we are looking for more, and also more bussers and food runners, we start over another training to the servers.

I hope this can change a little the service problems.

for the front door, the best way, for me, is having there the manager

what you think?

I haven't been in for ages, partially because I moved, partially because my food trips to DC are quite limited in space. Just one suggestion, and perhaps I misread your post, the worst place for a manager in the restaurant is the front door. In my mind, and from my experience, the best place for the manager is to be at every single table at least once during service to ask how service is going and to act as a filter for comments, good and bad directly to their source. In the case of positive comments they should be shared, in the case of negative comments they must be communicated immediately and rectified as soon as possible. The front door is important, but the activity of the restaurant occurs far beyond the front door.

[acevedo81]

I haven't been in for ages, partially because I moved, partially because my food trips to DC are quite limited in space. Just one suggestion, and perhaps I misread your post, the worst place for a manager in the restaurant is the front door. In my mind, and from my experience, the best place for the manager is to be at every single table at least once during service to ask how service is going and to act as a filter for comments, good and bad directly to their source. In the case of positive comments they should be shared, in the case of negative comments they must be communicated immediately and rectified as soon as possible. The front door is important, but the activity of the restaurant occurs far beyond the front door.

I don't understand your rationale and I assume you speak as a person that has zero restaurant experience. But of course, I can be wrong. You assume how easy it is to be at the host stand, that the market is full of capable hosts, when reality of the restaurant business proves the opposite. The reality is that Managers have to spend time at the host stand in order to ensure tables are seated strategically and in a timely fashion, so reservations can be seated at the stipulated times. You speak of an ideal situation that does not reflect the reality of the business. While ideally a manager should be checking on the tables during the shift, that is just not scalable nor effective since they are not the ones speaking to the tables. Managers should focus on providing extra attention to regulars as well as diagnosing and problem solving sticky situations with tables that are not having the experience the restaurant would like their patrons to enjoy. If you had a manager coming to your table while you were having a good time, you would then probably complain about having people all over you and being overwhelmed by the service and constant interruptions to conversations with your fellow diners. While this scenario assumes that servers are more competent than hosts, in a time constrained environment, I would much rather live by this assumption.

[chef4cook]

I haven't been in for ages, partially because I moved, partially because my food trips to DC are quite limited in space. Just one suggestion, and perhaps I misread your post, the worst place for a manager in the restaurant is the front door. In my mind, and from my experience, the best place for the manager is to be at every single table at least once during service to ask how service is going and to act as a filter for comments, good and bad directly to their source. In the case of positive comments they should be shared, in the case of negative comments they must be communicated immediately and rectified as soon as possible. The front door is important, but the activity of the restaurant occurs far beyond the front door.

I have to disagree with you. Every manager that I have ever worked with has worked the stand and the floor. The manager should be the front face of the restaurant.

[uvaeer]

Bye-Bye, Bebo

[claudio]

WE ARE SORRY BUT BEBO TRATTORIA CLOSE HIS DOOR WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

THANK YOU TO EVERY BODY FOR ALL THE SUPPORT

CLAUDIO