Recent research findings reported in a September 2014 Harvard Business School Working Paper show the value of open kitchens in foodservice facilities and restaurants (Open kitchens are also referred to as exhibition or display kitchens).
The most surprising research finding was that customer satisfaction with the food increased 10% when the cooks could see the customers, but the customers couldn’t see the cooks. However, when the customers could see the cooks, but the cooks couldn’t see the customers, there was no increase compared to when neither could see each other. Most striking was that when customers and cooks could see one another, satisfaction went up 17% and service was 13% faster. Transparency between customers and providers improves service.
In another study led by Ryan W. Buell, one of the researchers, customers who preordered a sandwich and could watch it being made, such as at a Subway Sandwich shop, rated the service higher than customers who couldn’t see the sandwich being made, although the sandwiches were identical.
Buell, in a interview in Harvard Business Review, commented, “We’ve learned that seeing the customer can make employees feel more appreciated, more satisfied with their jobs, and more willing to exert effort. It’s important to note that it wasn’t just the perception of quality that improved—the food objectively got better. . . This work highlights the humanity of interactions, or service. There’s something refreshingly human about the idea that just seeing each other [in a work environment] can make us more appreciative and lead to objectively better outcomes.”
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t hide the kitchen, both from an overall employee and customer satisfaction standpoint, but also in terms of the speed of service and quality of the food.
About Randy White
Randy White is CEO and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. The 31-year-old company, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries throughout the world. Projects the company has designed and produced have won seventeen 1st place awards. Randy is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on feasibility, brand development, design and production of leisure experience destinations including entertainment, eatertainment, edutainment, agritainment/agritourism, play and leisure facilities.
Randy was featured on the Food Network's Unwrapped television show as an eatertainment expert, quoted as an entertainment/edutainment center expert in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Time magazine and received recognition for family-friendly designs by Pizza Today magazine. One of the company's projects was featured as an example of an edutainment project in the book The Experience Economy. Numerous national newspapers have interviewed him as an expert on shopping center and mall entertainment and retail-tainment.
Randy is a graduate of New York University. Prior to repositioning the company in 1989 to work exclusively in the leisure and learning industry, White Hutchinson was active in the retail/commercial real estate industry as a real estate consultancy specializing in workouts/turnarounds of commercial projects. In the late 1960s to early 1980s, Randy managed a diversified real estate development company that developed, owned and managed over 2.0 million square feet of shopping centers and mixed-use projects and 2,000 acres of residential subdivisions. Randy has held the designations of CSM (Certified Shopping Center Manager) and Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX) from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
He has authored over 150 articles that have been published in over 40 leading entertainment/leisure and early childhood education industry magazines and journals and has been a featured speaker and keynoter at over 40 different conventions and trade groups.
Randy is the editor of his company's Leisure eNewsletter, has a blog and posts on Twitter and Linkedin.
