What Gets Measured Gets Done But What’s Fun Gets Done Brilliantly: A Restaurant Survival Guide
What Gets Measured Gets Done But What’s Fun Gets Done Brilliantly: A Restaurant Survival Guide
In today’s restaurant world, labor margins feel like razor blades. Burnout is not a risk. It is a rhythm that sets in every weekend morning. The question isn’t culture. It is survival.
The Origins of “What Gets Measured Gets Done”
The old saying “What gets measured gets done,” often credited to management guru Peter Drucker, has murky roots. Some trace it back to the 1500s, to the mathematician Rheticus. Others link it to 19th-century physicist Lord Kelvin. “What gets measured gets done,” a Forbes author wrote, “is clear, but its origin is less so.”¹ Lord Kelvin himself insisted, “I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it. But when you cannot measure it, you have scarcely advanced to the stage of science.”² Metrics offer authority in chaos. They promise control.
The Power of Hard Numbers
Restaurants cling to metrics because numbers do not lie. They turn intuition into action.
Operational control by the second: food-cost variance, table turn times, speed-of-service.
Shared targets: upsell percentages, ticket averages, shift-by-shift goals.
Scalable systems: data lets chains reproduce their best nights. Chick-fil-A shaves seconds off every drive-thru cycle with real-time analytics. Sweetgreen predicts inventory to cut waste. Panera times guest flow to staff just enough.
Data builds clarity when the dinner rush smothers you. It carves a path through the mess.
When Metrics Become Shackles
But let metrics rule without a human heart, and what remains is a spreadsheet with tables that stare back at you. Hospitality devolves into headset choreography and heat-map hell. Guests feel it. Staff feel it. And passion drains out faster than a keg at last call.
The Case for Fun
Joy is a metric too. It cannot sit neatly in a column, but it shows up in smiling eyes and louder tips.
At New York’s Apothéke, bartenders don lab coats and wield beakers. At Los Angeles’s Cafe Jack, a Titanic-themed Korean café floats guests back to 1912. At Washington’s Camlann Medieval Village, servers speak in Middle English and pour mead by candlelight. These places do more than feed. They transport.
When teams play, they innovate. They debate. They stay. Guests catch the spark and want more. Fun without structure, however, is just noise. Birthday sombreros and empty kegs don’t make culture. They make chaos.
The Blend: Measuring Fun, Designing Flow
The finest kitchens and bars marry data and delight. They measure what matters and make what matters fun. Here’s how:
Gamify the Grind • Server bingo cards for upsells and guest compliments. • Shift MVP awards for teamwork or salvaging a busy night. • Bar Olympics with speed rounds, pour-accuracy contests, garnish artistry.
Track Culture Like Sales • One-minute post-shift morale check-ins via emoji surveys. • Laughter logs and guest “wow” moments jotted in a shared notebook. • Retention rates and vibe ratings in weekly huddles.
Use Tech with Heart • Platforms like Toast and 7shifts can marry performance data with anonymous feedback. • Let the team vote on playlist picks alongside labor-hour forecasting. • Schedule team building with the same care you schedule service.
Build a Fun-ctional Dashboard • Put gross sales next to shift energy scores. • Shout-outs beside side-work numbers. •Make it visible in the break room.
Celebrate Everything • Ring a bell at goal time. • Post a meme on the wall. • Award “Turn Time Terminator” trophies. • Turn small wins into big moments.
Train Culture into the System • Pre-shift huddles that mix tactical goals with laughter. • Role swaps that let cooks host tables and bartenders run the line. • Best guest-interaction story wins a mocktail.
Review. Evolve. Repeat. • Weekly ask: What worked? What sparked joy? What comes next?
The Real Takeaway
The most magnetic restaurants do more than track service times and profit margins. They measure how it feels to work there. They design culture. Because what gets measured gets done. What is fun gets done well. But what gets measured as fun? That gets done forever.
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Footnotes
¹Ruth Henderson, “What Gets Measured Gets Done. Or Does It?” Forbes, June 8, 2015.
²Michael Nathanson, “What Gets Measured Gets Prioritized - and That May Not Be A Good Thing,” ChiefExecutive.net, March 16, 2023.