Venetia Elaine van der Westhuizen

Handling of all Corporate, DTCM, Travel agent and private group booking inquiries, Planing and Creating a Bi weekly Duty Roaster for all FOH staff, Complaint handling and investigating complaints to avoid repetition of such events. Conflict handling and resolving . Inventory management, Maintaining guest relations, Conducting training's boosting team morale. Annual Appraisals and training plans, Annual vacation plans, filing of sick leaves, maintaining records of incident reports, food poisoning allegations, disciplinary action reports. Creating internal incentive plans to help boost revenue and achieve targets.

Plan, organize and direct all processes of the outlet to ensure the outlet provides quality food and beverage service that is consistent and achieves maximum revenue and profit in line budgeted and forecasted projections.

• Manages a team of 75 members that consists of both front and back of house
• Meets restaurant financial objectives by setting and achieving sales targets
through exhaustive analysis and planning of sales levels and profitability
• Collaborates with the head chef in planning menus
• Identifies marketing opportunities, develops and organizes marketing activities
such as promotional events and various discount schemes
• Ensures that all reports and control procedures in the operations, customer
service, quality of production, food safety standards, cash handling, maintenance
and general administration are completed and in place.
• Builds customer loyalty by communicating with customers, providing great
customer service and positively handling customer feedback and suggestions
• Manages manpower resource effectively and minimizes labor costs through
efficient man-hour allocation

Reporting to the General Manager
Leading a team of 30 staff
Part of the pre-opening team of 150 staff
Staffing and training according to Hakkasan standard to ensure the staff commitments and understanding the concept
Designing & implementing operation procedures

Handling guests inquiries and requests on food & beverage service. Responsible for opening and closing the restaurant.
Ensuring that the place of work and surroundings area are kept clean and organized at all times.
I was in charge of staff schedule, vacation plans, assisted in hiring, staff appraisals, training of new staff.
Assisting the chef with menu printing and updating of new dishes on the menu.
Spend a few months ( 3 months ) in reservations to gain internal experience.

I was fully in charge of a 50 seater Terrace Restaurant serving light meals to full A La Carte Menu, wnie and drinks.
I was responsible for standards of service, staff schedule, making sure that all staff were neat and presentable, punctual for work.

I gained a lot of experience in how to handle and control large volumes of people.
The Team and I made sure that all MEP list were done for big events, assisted in menu plannings, weddings set ups and decor of functions and food and wine pairings.
Assisted the spa with when help was needed, , taking bookings for treatments, made sure that all systems were running smooth.

My duties included Guest Liaison, Updating future reservations for the Restaurant as well as getting more involved on the floor as a waitress.
My goal was to experience all areas of the Restaurant to gain valuable experience.

My Duties as Front Office Manager included answering of the switchboard, guest liaison, dealing with complaints, handling of cash and daily cash up, taking reservations for the Restaurant and guest suites, wine sales, as well as interaction with the waiters and Management.

I was also involved in checking i guests and preparing check outs and bills.