Chris Maclean: quantity or quality?

Really good advice rarely comes from where you expect it and often in a form you do not recognise.

But this week I have been gifted a gem and it has helped enormously.

Earlier in the week one of the local restaurateurs, who has a much admired and highly awarded restaurant, dined here. I have known him for years and always enjoyed his company. He and his brother took one of the most awful pubs in a dreadful location and transformed it into an operation ranked amongst the best in the country. He runs the front of the house, his brother runs the kitchen.

I was explaining to him about the fractious relationship between the two sides of my business. I want, and need, the restaurant to be full as much of the time as possible, with as many meals being served as possible and with the customers spending as much as possible.

The chef is obsessed with quality and delivery.

The two are not always compatible. I am trying to squeeze as many people in as I can. The chef is saying he cannot cope with the numbers. I keep hoping that, eventually, we will resolve things so that we can achieve capacity without the risk of compromise. But until then I expect tears.

So to listen to this experienced operator, with years of successful trading under his belt, reveal to me that my own experience is by no means unique and that, despite his calm and gentle demeanour, he explained that he and his brother on several occasions had come to blows over the issue. Two fully grown men in their middle ages, and big with it, fighting over seating plans. It is too ridiculous to contemplate. And yet I fully understand.

For me it is the complete and sudden realisation that my relationship isn't a temporary aberration as the restaurant develops. It is a permanent, inevitable and inextricable part of the nature of the beast.

I am just going to have to get used to the shouting.