I concur with Donna Martinez’s assessment of the market-driven imperative that guides Gordon Ramsay’s enterprises. I wrote about the Ramsay approach a couple of years back, and had lunch in the New York restaurant a little over a year ago. Not inexpensive, but clearly geared toward creating the most positive customer experience. It’s worth noting that serving the customer also means following the customer through economic up- and down-turns, and the restaurant was struggling to maintain a client base in a still declining economy even then.
Over the past two years, worldwide recession has forced Ramsay to restructure his approach to restaurant ownership, selling off the NYC location in The London Hotel, which continues to operate under license (menu and other services by the Ramsay organization) since my visit. Even at that time Maze (the less formal London Hotel restaurant) was trying to cut costs without cutting quality to stay afloat.
In Ramsay’s own words: “One thing that this recession has taught every restaurant and every restaurateur in this country is the value of the customer – the customer is king.” Even post-recession, that will be one that the wise entrepreneur remembers.
Corrected
