"Civilized restaurant" in Cua Lo town: Improving service quality for tourists

(Baonghean) - With the goal of building a civilized - modern - friendly - hospitable coastal city, in recent years Cua Lo Town has proposed many solutions to serve tourists better and better. In 2013, for the first time the town recognized "Civilized Restaurant" for 6 restaurants that met 3 standards. It was like a brand affirmation to improve the attitude of serving tourists of the restaurants.

Huong Son Restaurant - Thu Thuy Ward, Cua Lo Town.

As one of the 6 restaurants recognized as “Civilized Restaurant” in 2013, Huong Son Restaurant - Thu Thuy Ward is upgrading, expanding, renewing the roof and installing air conditioning in the dining room… to welcome the tourist season. Happily stopping to direct the workers, Mr. Duong Cong Son - owner of Huong Son Restaurant said: When deciding to switch to restaurant business, he and his wife determined: To compete with other restaurants, there is no other way but to build a brand, and the restaurant's brand can only be service attitude, fresh food and affordable prices.

Thanks to that, many tourists who have enjoyed the dishes at Huong Son restaurant have introduced their friends to come too. As the number of customers increased, the couple decided to expand the scale, hiring trained staff to have a professional service style, although compared to untrained workers, the salary is one and a half times higher (on average, trained workers earn 5 million VND/month, untrained workers earn 3 million VND/month, head chef earns 10 million VND/month). During peak season, the restaurant provides jobs for more than 30 workers, mainly students of Cua Lo College of Tourism and Commerce.

In 2013, Huong Son restaurant was recognized as a "Civilized Restaurant". Mr. Son said: "The important thing for a businessman is to build a brand and create trust with tourists. There is no advertisement or propaganda like the tourists themselves. In fact, visitors to Cua Lo are not only from Nghe An, but also from many other places such as Hanoi, Thanh Hoa, Lang Son, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Hue, Da Nang... and also foreign visitors. And as a guest, the service attitude must be the same. Even if you are upset inside, when you come to serve guests, you must be happy and enthusiastic. And the secret that Huong Son restaurant attracts many tourists is its rich menu: besides dishes such as steamed shrimp, squid sticky rice, steamed crab, grilled shrimp, clam porridge, the restaurant can also prepare 7 different dishes from the sea urchin such as crispy fried skin, stuffed skin, crispy fried bones, mixed stir-fried intestines... with unique flavors that satisfy tourists.

To prepare for the 2014 tourist season, Huong Son restaurant is upgrading and renovating some items with a total value of over 500 million VND, striving to reach 2 billion VND in revenue this tourist season. Mr. Duong Cong Son's wish is to serve tourists all four seasons, not just one season like now.

With the same viewpoint of "Please customers when they come, please customers when they go", Thang Beo restaurant - Nghi Thu is chosen by many tourists. The restaurant has a team of professional service staff, guaranteed facilities, and a kitchen built to standards. The restaurant always implements the town's "5 no" policy, especially not to increase prices, and to publish prices clearly and transparently on the board. The above criteria not only attract more and more customers to the restaurant, but this is also the basis for the town to recognize Thang Beo restaurant as meeting the standards of "Civilized Restaurant" in 2013. Ms. Thai Thi Hai - Restaurant owner said: "Being recognized as a "Civilized Restaurant" is difficult, but maintaining the brand is even more difficult. To maintain the brand, the restaurant determines: food quality is number 1, staff is number 2 and reasonable prices are number 3. Therefore, in business, we always put reputation first. Changing the menu to suit tourists".

To become a "Civilized Restaurant", businesses must ensure 3 standards and 11 criteria, focusing on the following contents: Business must be healthy (doing business in accordance with State regulations, paying taxes and fees in full; Having a price list; Not violating the "5 no" policy; Fair competition). Business must be effective, stable and developing (Restaurant has prestige with tourists; Creating jobs for 5 or more workers; 80% of employees have appropriate vocational certificates; Spacious and synchronous facilities). Implementing a cultural lifestyle and civilized environment (staff wear uniforms, hang name tags when serving, friendly and hospitable attitude; Restaurant has a clean and beautiful campus; Ensuring food safety and hygiene; No employees have social evils; Fully participating in campaigns in the area). In 2013, the town awarded the “Civilized Restaurant” recognition to 6 restaurants: Huong Son, Tuan Nhat, Thang Beo, Quang Yen, Binh Cuc and Lam Giang. In 2014, it is expected that the whole town will have 20-25 restaurants recognized as “Civilized Restaurant”.

In order to improve the attitude of serving tourists, at this time, most wards and communes in the area have organized training on cultural behavior in communicating with tourists for all accommodation establishments and restaurants in the area. Ms. Kim Anh - cultural officer of Thu Thuy ward - one of the key wards with the largest number of restaurants, hotels, motels in Cua Lo town said: "Currently, the ward has 400 restaurants, motels, hotels, in 2013 Thu Thuy had 2 restaurants recognized as "Civilized Restaurants". On average, each tourist season, businesses in the area create jobs for about 4,000 local workers, not to mention workers from other places. To effectively implement the town's policy of building "Civilized Restaurants", Thu Thuy ward has organized training and propaganda on the ward's loudspeaker, widely publicizing 3 standards and 11 criteria of a "Civilized Restaurant" for businesses to understand. In 2014 alone, Thu Thuy strives to have 4 restaurants recognized as "Civilized Restaurants".

The town’s policy of building “Civilized Restaurants” is the right and necessary policy for Cua Lo to develop sustainably. Because no matter how beautiful the landscape is, how fresh the seafood is, if the service people here are not friendly in communication and polite in behavior, it will certainly be difficult to satisfy tourists.

Thanh Thuy