Banquets
Celebration and merriment are an indispensable part of our lives. They make our lives enjoyable and worth living, especially after the problems faced during this pandemic recently. The pandemic taught us to never miss an opportunity of getting together and celebrating. And weddings are undisputed occasions for being together and making every moment memorable and happy.
To plan an elaborative and distinguished wedding, one needs exquisite banquet services. They are a necessary and basic requirement of hosting an enjoyable event. They can be as varied as the event you’re attending. The word banquet means a sumptuous feast and is arranged to cater for a large number of people. Banquet service in today’s time is an elaborate meal than a regular family dinner, along with various other facilities, activities, and hospitality, due to the scope of the event or the size of the crowd present. These services can be as varied as the marriage, meeting, conference etc. and they are decided by the extent of the event, menu, and crowd.
Types of Banquet Services
Many hotels and resorts form the core of great and unforgettable banquet services. They are renowned and known for organising and offering people sumptuous food and time. But before that, let’s look for various types of banquet services, such as:
- Buffet: This is a popular banquet service, chosen in events with a large number of attendees. There is a buffet line of food choices, which the guests pass through and serve themselves. It is a convenient way of choosing what an individual wants to choose.
- Reception: It is a popular term known across countries involving a gathering where people mill around the room while eating and chatting. This is a special gathering of a varied number of people, came together for a special occasion.
- Food Stations: This is an event that comprises food stalls or stations offering various cuisines, courses and dishes to the guests. Many times, these stations are manned by chefs who prepare food in front of the guests. The most common food stations include pasta bars, sushi stations, desserts, etc.
- Cafeteria-Style: This is very similar to the buffet-style banquet service, with a difference that servers themselves serve the food. The practice is used to control the portion sizes.
- Plated: In this service, the guests are seated, and servers bring food already portioned into the plates from the kitchen. This is believed to be one of the most efficient types of banquet service. The plated style is the most common one seen at formal events, seminars, conferences, and formal dinners.
- Pre-Set Service: If the food is already showing up on the table at the time of your arrival, it is known as a pre-set arrangement. This is applicable The design and décor of function rooms can take many forms. The best layout of a room is dependent on various factors such as space available in the banquet hall, number of attendees, expected level of activity and interaction required, and place required for dinner tables, meeting tables, and head tables. The various types of banquet style setups are:
- Theatre Style
- Boardroom Style
- U-shape Style
- T-shape Style
- E-shape Style
- Wedding Style
- Round Style
- Hollow Square Style
- Classroom Style
- Comb Style
Tips and tricks for waiters and waitresses will have you on the right foot, server etiquette-wise.
- Be pleasant. Greet everyone who enters warmly.
- Don’t refuse to seat three guests just because the fourth isn’t there yet.
- Be attentive, but not intrusive. Constantly scan the dining room, and if a guest needs attention—even if they’re not at your table—either help them or say you’ll send their server immediately.
- Your job is to help. Never say “I don’t know” to a guest’s question without immediately following up with “… but I’ll find out.”
- Be patient, and choose your moments. Never interrupt a conversation; wait for a lull to list the specials—and always include the prices. Don’t clear any plates until everyone is finished.
- Check the restaurant POS before approaching a table and inform guests if the restaurant is out of something before they read the menu and order a dish you don’t have.
- Always bring all appetizers, entrees, and desserts at the same time. Never leave one guest hungry while everyone else is enjoying their food.
- Serve from a guest’s left, using your left hand, and clear from their right, using your right hand.
- Cutlery crossed in an X means a person isn’t finished with their plate. If the knife and fork are parallel, the guest is finished and you may remove their plate (assuming everyone else is also finished).
- Never touch a customer for any reason—especially if you’ve spilled something on them.
- If you ask a patron how their meal was and they say something isn’t right, fix it.
- Never blame a co-worker for something that goes wrong, whether the hostess, the chef, the busboy, or the weather is at fault. Just fix it.
- Don’t draw attention to the fact that a newly arrived guest may be dining alone. Ask if they have a reservation and if not, whether they would like to sit at the bar.
- Be discreet. Don’t have audible conversations with co-workers in customer earshot, or eat or drink where customers can see it. Don’t gossip about guests or co-workers within guest earshot.
- Never touch the rim of any glass. This means handling wine glasses by their stems (and silverware by the handles).
- Don’t let a wine, beer, or spirits bottle touch the glass you’re pouring into. Bottle dust and dirt is not a flavour enhancer.
- If someone orders a drink “straight up,” that could mean one of two things. Find out if they mean “neat”—served from the bottle at room temperature—or served chilled. This is because “straight” can mean a neat pour of dark spirits, while “up” and “straight up” typically describe a white spirit that is chilled with ice (shaken or stirred) and strained into a glass (typically a cocktail glass) e.g. a martini. ?
- Never reach across a guest to serve another guest.
- Avoid bumping into tables or chairs.
- Never clear a plate full of food without asking what was wrong.
Food and beverage service department in banquet
Banquet department functions fall under the control of the banquet manager. It is responsible for organizing various types of formal and informal functions within and off the premises. Usually, the banquet business is a seasonal business, but the hotel must devise a plan to sell its banquet facilities throughout the year.
The following are the designations found in the banquet department:
The Banquet Manager
The banquet is a large range of service styles for catering activities such as weddings, award ceremonies, charity dinners, and sports teams where food & beverage are served for a pre-arranged and pre-fixed number of peoples, date & time, menu and price agreed. There is service characterized by uniform décor, including round dinner tables topped with utensils and drink-ware for each guest. It is a place where guests having their Food and Beverage together.
The banquet Manager is over-all in-charge of the events. He administrates, deals with guests, and coordinating all the arrangements. The Supervisor assists the banquet manager, he/she coordinates the function arrangement, set up, control staff, and allocate the job. The Waiters and Assistant Waiters make the actual agreements and do the service. The banquet representatives are present with the fact sheets, layouts, and ensure functions that guests are satisfied completely. The secretary is responsible for handles all correspondence and filing and often take bookings on the phone.
Banquet Booking Procedure
A special information sheet called a Function sheet or Function Prospectus is used to record the details of a booking. The type of information recorded is:
Name of booking party, Name of person to whom the bill is to be sent to, Nature and type of function, Date and Time of function, Maximum number of people expected and Minimum number guaranteed ( guaranteed minimum number of people for whom a charge will be made even if the numbers are lesser then minimum), Menu and Type of service requirements, alcohol and Non-alcoholic drinks to be served, Type of table layout, Special arrangement such as, band, microphones, lectures, ramps, flowers, ice-sculptures, etc., Price to be charged per person, Price for hall and special arrangements
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