Introduction to Food and Beverage Service Operations

Types Of Food And Beverage Operations And Service: From Hotel Room Service To Outside Catering To Concession Operations And Managed Care

Food and beverage service operations can be independently owned and operated, leased, franchised, or operated under management contracts or part of the hospitality complex such as a hotel. For this context, “wending” has not been included since the early 1990s; food and beverage service facilities are incredibly diverse in typology and food and beverage choices produced and served (Johnson et al., 2005).

One could describe the wide choice as somewhat chaotic to the guest. One factor is that much diverse food served in restaurants today is a part of the continuous inventive process and does not become part of our eating culture. To highlight the status, one must understand that patrons are regularly exposed to new food never tried before.

Moreover, because it cannot easily be reproduced at home, it is not becoming a culture. For example, spaghetti today is an integral part of most households around the world, while the Pizzone is neither originally from Italy nor anyone can reproduce it at home. Dishes served in luxury restaurants such as those prepared with Emu or farm-raised Elk for example, are only available in commercial service facilities and not in regular supermarkets; therefore, not all consumers and potentially restaurant guests are exposed to it. This type of food cannot and will not become a culture. Besides, patrons exposed for the first time to specific foods can only judge their liking with a yes or no.

Contrary to the preceding observation, if a patron orders a steak in a restaurant, he or she can easily judge if it was better or worse than a steak consumed elsewhere or prepared at home; that is because a steak is part of our eating culture. What happened to the “simple” restaurant? One could say it does not exist anymore. There are food and beverage service facilities very deeply diverse, with only one common denominator: the production and service of food and beverage. At the beginning of the 21^st century, we see more evidence of irreversible differences, whether professional or cultural, economic or dimensional. In general, there is evidence that the consumer has more disposable income, and well over 50% of the meals are now consumed outside the home. From the food and beverage cultural evolution, consumers are learning what the French call “Métier de bouche,” translated as “trade of the mouth” and everything related to it. From a “baretto” (small bar in Italian), which serves small plates out of the freezer that pass through the microwave, to the wine bar which serves pre-cooked and reheated meals because it has no kitchen facilities, to the bistro-trattoria which serves everything that has nothing to do with bistro food, to the authentic restaurant whether fine dining, large or small classic or contemporary, patrons are becoming educated with a very large choice. That is to say that among all variables, patrons play a very big role in the viability of any food and beverage service facility whether they eat to nourish themselves while away from home or eat with friends or family or eat just for everyday pleasure; they do have a choice as where to eat and what to eat.

In talking about the dichotomy between the necessity to eat or to eat for just pleasure and therefore defining “pleasure at the table,” we can entangle all reflections of the restaurant of the future and on this context, the future of the restaurant of quality regardless of its rank whether luxury or simple a cafeteria. Quality should not be a response to a hungry patron; instead, it should be the most important variable in satisfying all patrons with diverse pleasure and expectations the restaurant can offer. Quality needs to be part of the social encounter between food and palate, between emotional experience and its intimacy to consume food or wine and paring them while discovering unknown flavors, thus looking forward to a new experience.