Jillian’s is FUN! Community Blog

Microsoft - a WOW in Seattle!

This past Monday Seattle hosted another Microsoft buyout. The host was blown away with all the little details and touches - colored themes for the divisions spread throughout the club including balloons, wristbands, and framed signs, as well as buffet decorations, food and service. Most impressive to the group was the ice sculpture placed at the front door in which the guests were taking pictures with all evening. The host even requested pictures of this to be sent to her so she could show her senior leaders the added touch that was created for them.

The best part of the evening was the host explaining that they are currently hiring 15,000 more people over the year and will be an even bigger convention next February. They were already talking about securing Jillian’s of Seattle for the next convention before the event was even half way over!

Cidnee and Lauren really blew these guests away beginning with their heartfelt hospitality while planning this event all the way down to perfect execution of the event including many small little touches. This is a relationship that will continue to grow with this property for years to come! Thanks to Victor, our KM, our superstar ESM team, Cidnee and Lauren and the service team also who made this evening go off exactly as planned!

Jillian’s - Indy receives a Thank you!

Jillian’s of Indianapolis received a special “Thank You” from the kids at the Midtown Summer Camp Program. Jillian’s provided a FUN exciting atmosphere for the kids to bowl, play games and enjoy great food! The Midtown Summer Program pairs mentors with young people offering strong role models as advisors for young men and women. By developing friendships with their students, the advisor encourages them to improve not only their approach to studying, but also their character, sportsmanship, and willingness to serve others, especially family and friends.

Jillian’s is proud to serve the local community and charities of Indianapolis!!!

Karaoke IS the KRAZE in Seattle!!!

I feel like a dork writing another blog about Sunday Night Karaoke here at Jillian’s Seattle, but it REALLY IS that BIG of a FUN-DEAL!!!  This last Sunday was our biggest turn-out ever; 41 guests singing, dancing, and having FUN!!! The group picture I am posting was a bunch that came in and where actually disappointed we had Karaoke, but a few hours into it…I think the picture tells it all!!!  They are rockin’ out to Journey, having a blast, and I think sang the most songs all night!!!  DJ Chameleon does an AMAZING job every week here at Jillian’s Seattle, and we are SO lucky to have him!!!

 

Seattle’s Jillians and guests on YouTube

Recently Seattle has picked up karaoke on Sunday nights to give a push to our standard Service Industry Night. Our one and only, DJ Chameleon has brought karaoke to Seattle like you’ve never seen before. Not only does he offer over 30,000 selections in his library for our devoted growing fan base but he also goes many steps ahead to include strobe lights, smoke machines and his very own video recording. As we all know, the internet is no longer for just keeping in touch with our loved ones but an essential piece of everyone’s life. YouTube works as a social and advertising outlet and grows in popularity day by day. DJ Chameleon goes one step ahead from recording our guests, he offers it to them live on YouTube. Our guests and the general internet browsers can find these videos by searching Jillian’s and karaoke. Jillian’s of Seattle is the place to karaoke and gets bigger and bigger each week. This added advertisement and perk just reinforces how Jillian’s makes it their own!

As you all know, karaoke draws a unique and entertaining crowd. Our favorite star here in Seattle— Straight A! Click on the link below (and make sure to watch the whole way through with sound up!) Yes, you will see our very own Straight A dance on his head through our Mayor’s Room. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfVqvz9_JZwhttp:/

Networking in Seattle - the “wow” factor!

On Friday, July 18th, Jillian’s in Seattle hosted “The Toast of Seattle”,  a round robin style networking event put on by the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. We cleared out the entire mayor’s room and fit 100 guests (sit down style) for a great breakfast - something we normally do not do!

We “wowed” all of our guests with great presentation, great service and the opportunity to showcase our space to a lot of potential clients for future events. The club looked great, and after a lot of hard work and preparation, the entire event went off without a hitch!

Kudos to our KM Victor, our entire kitchen staff, and the wonderful servers who all got here bright and early on Friday to make this event a success!

Q2 Giving back to the Community

This past Q2 the BOH team of KM~Martin and AKM~Memo headed up the initiative.  The team selected to provide cleaning and grounds keeping effort to St. Anthonys Church in Oakland.  The church is in a somewaht depressed area and needed this TLC more the ever.

 The team did a great job. They showed up in the early morning dawn on June 24th to the suprize of the Pastor.  Not only showing up with big crew of helping hands, the team showed up with over $200.00 in cleaning supplies and tools to leave behind at the church for their future use.

The church was so greatful they sent me a letter of thanks and recognition for this great donation of time and materials. The church especially went out of the way to mention the entire team by name and thank them for the efforts to make the church beautiful once again.

 Thank you team San Francisco for making this Q2 initiative so successful. You make us all proud!!  Up next in Q3 with our community initiative is AGM~Burke and jack of all trades Robbin, this should be interesting!!!!!

A sharp eye siezes opportunity, confirms system check!

I must stop and take the time to recognize Martin Tamayo our Kitchen Manager for jumping all over a great opportunity.

As we all know prices of everything have being soaring! On review of some invoices Martin noticed our fresh Salmon jumping from $5.75 per pound to almost $8.00 a pound.  This is a huge sales item for us and the cost has a big impact on COGS for our property.

Martin pointed out the issue to the vendor and after several calls, diligent follow up and maintaining a great supplier relationship our vendor found the issue, and resolved it very quickly.  The cause of this error was a simple as fixing a programming issue.

It seems that the owner of the Seafood Company locked in our prices into their system for a year. It just happened that while the owner was away on vacation the price lock expired!!  So the staff at the seafood company just kept shipping but at the open market price.  Since we have been a loyal client for almost 8 years we get very special pricing, as well as a volume discount.

The end result is that there was an error and our pricing is back to the $5.75 rate. We have received credits for the over charges and better, more aggressive pricing across the board on all seafood items from this supplier.

A good lesson for all of us is…..high tech is great, but there is still a margin for error. Basic receiving procedures pay off huge dividends when we follow the systems we have in place.

Great job Martin!

cudos to our kitchen!

as i sit in my windowless office trying to book business for these tough summer months i am obliviously to the 350 guests that have come in for lunch from the convention. i walked back into the kitchen to ask tamayo ( our kitchen manager ) a question about a future party and was stopped in my tracks when i looked at the line with 30 + tickets hanging - robbin our all around godess ,  expediting  and servers running me over with full hands in and full hands out- it was poetry in motion. i am so impressed with our team…. and come to find out we only had 10 minute ticket times! way to go!!

jennifer

Worcesters Buds and Suds

Saturday the 5th, Worcester Held our First(hopefully annual) Buds and Suds Bikini Car Wash! It went GREAT! We attained a permit for a one day liquor licence to serve beer outside, and had a Cook-out Bikini car wash. The weekend of the 4^th as you all know, can be a very hard time to bring in sales. Worcester holds it’s Summer Nationals that weekend and has a “block party” that takes over down town. Car shows, burn-outs and trick bikes. It’s Mardi Gras for Worcester! We are located about 1 mile too far away, so this year we wanted to bring them over to us!

  The weather was far from perfect, but everyone that worked it or stopped in had a BLAST! The Girls that worked it ROCKED! They were all over the cars that came in, that people could have waited in there cars and left, but took advantage of the event and parked there cars and just hung out!!! Eric and Leo manned the grill and the beer, and did a great job making sure that everyone was fed and happy! Our “guys” that visit us almost everyday are part of “hole shot racing” brought their crew down with them and showed off some pretty great cars! Thanks guys, for getting the word out!

The day turned out better than expected, and we are actually looking to do this again before the end of Summer! I talked to a few people that were here and come to find out they live walking distance to a different billiards club, but said that after this, we are going to be there new hang out!!! Talk about a great way to get people talking!!!!

Indy’s Proud Conductor of the FUN Train!

The rumor is true and the picture is here to prove it! Jim has been wearing the hat proudly here in Indy!

“We are the conductors on the fun train and will be driving the train for a long time!” –Jim Brown

Here’s to the Head Conductor and his Chief Engineer, Rokeena!  Toot, Toot!!!!

Making a Difference in Indy!

Jillian’s was one of three sponsors who donated and catered lunch for everyone who attended the event at Butler University’s Butler Bowl. Four members of our management team were matched with a Celebrity Colts player to compete against the other businesses. Indy’s General Manager, Jim Brown, slaved away at the grill all day long cooking hamburgers and hotdogs, while the Sales Managers served and catered the buffet! Although some of our players walked away with battle wounds, everyone did a tremendous job and it was a wonderful experience! We definitely plan to make an annual appearance. Jillian’s in Indy hosts several charity events for Gary Brackett’s IMPACT foundation each year. All of our employees take great pride in such events and it is very awarding to see these children so happy!

embracing opportunity in san francisco

last week we had the pacific builders conference in town and were pretty busy from it. i had a client call about space during the height of the chaos and after chatting with her about what she wanted she set up an appoinment to come in to check out the space. i greeted her with a contract so if she liked what she saw she could sign on the spot.  of course she liked it but was still looking around… i called her a few hours later to see what she decided on and told her someone else was interested in the space ( ok not really but i wanted the sale ) she decided to take it but couldn’t get to a fax machine to send in the contract till the next day so i told her to stay where she was and that i would meet her to get the credit card to get the space reserved. i had a lovely walk over to the convention center, made the sale and impressed the client! moral of the story: embrace everything - make it what you want it to be!

jennifer

Thunder on the Ohio in Evansville!!

This past weekend, in Evansville, the 30th annual Thunder on the Ohio hydroplane races were held as part of the city’s Freedom Festival celebration. This 4 day event on the riverfront occurs each year at the end of June and draws 25,000 to 30,000 people to the downtown area each day. The Evansville Jillian’s had the opportunity to particapate in many different ways, including being one of the sponsors for the Seattle based Formula Boats.com racing team. We catered their lunches in the pit area on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, in addition to hosting their team dinner on Sunday night. The teams also made multiple visits to Jillian’s during their stay in town, as they viewed us as their “headquarters”. We had employees dressed in bright orange Jillian’s t-shirts up and down the street all weekend long and almost always had someone in the pit area with the racing team. We fielded questions during the heats and races about “when the Jillian’s boat was going to race again” as many people noticed our sponsorship. Our adopted team had great success during the event, winning their heat on Saturday evening, and then finishing in 3rd place during the actual race, with the Jillian’s logo prominently displayed on the cockpit! We also staffed the Bud Light Hospitality Lounge all weekend long, which is a 3 story tent that samples Bud’s new products, and is one of the main attractions at the festival. All of the Evansville Jillian’s employees were very excited to particapate in such a huge community event, and took great pride in our new partnership with the race team!