OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITYCollege of Hospitality and Institutional Management

Valenzuela City Campus

A RESTAURANT DINING EXPERIENCE

Max’s RestaurantSM North Edsa, Quezon City

October 24, 2015

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the subjectHRM 111: Intorduction to Hospitality Management

For a degree inBachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management

Submitted by :Soriano, Mhon Spencer

Sucob, Anne Cyril Lapid, Karl MichaelDela Cruz, Erickson

BSTM 1y 1-9

Submitted to:Ms. Rowena MagcaleHRM 111 Professor

Submitted on:October 26, 2015

I.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It gives us immense pleasure to be associated with this project. The project was a joyous

learning process. The presentation of the report in the way required has been made

possible by the way of contribution of various people.

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to Ms. Magcale for her kind help and

encouragement . We are very thankful to her for her advice, assistance, and constant

support throughout the preparation of this report.

We would like to thank all our beloved professors and classmates for their support and

confidence on us.

We would also like to express our deep gratitude to all the responders whose response

was of utmost importance for the project.

We would also like to thank our parents who have helped us with their valuable

suggestions and guidance that has been helpful in various phases of the completion of

project.

II. TABLE OF CONTENTS

I . Acknowledgement Page 1

II. Table of Contents Page 2

III. Introduction Page 3

a. Background Page 3

b. Geographic Page 4

IV. Reaction Paper Page 5

III. INTRODUCTION

Background

Max's Restaurant's beginnings started in 1945, after World War II. Maximo Gimenez,

a Stanford - educated teacher, befriended the American occupation troops stationed

at Quezon City. Because of this friendship, the soldiers regularly visited Maximo's

nearby home for a drink or two. Later on, the troops insisted that they pay for their

drinks. This prompted Maximo to open a cafá where the troops could enjoy food

and drinks.

The cafá initially served chicken, steak and drinks. Maximo's niece - Ruby, who

managed the kitchen, created a special recipe for chicken that became an instant

favorite for the GIs. Soon, the Filipino public heard about the delicious chicken -

tender, juicy and crispy - and they came too! Max's Restaurant was born.

Over the years, Max's Restaurant's popularity grew and became known as "the

house that fried chicken built". It has expanded in Metro Manila, Southern and

Northern Luzon, Cebu and California, USA.

We choose Max’s restaurant because we feel at home by their deliciously Filipino

inspired meal at very affordable price compared to other fine dining restaurants.

Geographic

The restaurant that we’ve decided to dine in was located on Quezon City specifically at

SM North Edsa. From Our Lady of Fatima University the travel time range to 20-30

minutes with the fare 20-30 pesos.

While traveling on our way to SM North our company ( Spencer , Karl , Anne and

Erickson ) have plan to dine on Max’s restaurant. We truly missed the taste of their

original dishes and menu so we decided to eat there.

Max's Restaurant currently has over 127 branches in the Philippines. The chain also

has branches in the U.S. states of California, Hawaii,New Jersey and a Nevada branch

soon to open. It has 2 locations in Canada in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British

Columbia with a new location in Edmonton, Alberta opening soon. In a September 2014

press event, it was announced that more branches will be opened by 2015

in: Sydney, Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Queens, New York.

IV. SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

In earlier television and cinema advertisements, the restaurant usually marketed itself as a place for Filipino families to get together. It also established its slogan "Sarap to the bones!" ("Delicious to the bones!").

From April to June 2004, a popular series of television advertisements, entitled "Forever Yours" told the story of a Max's employee who was the childhood love of a popular TV celebrity, played by Piolo Pascual. The series showed the two characters as children, then as adults accidentally meeting at Max's. The denouement of the story is when the celebrity recognizes the employee from their childhood. This commercial became so popular that it launched the showbiz career of Isabel Oli, the model who played the employee.

Aside from its advertising, the story of how Max's Restaurant started has entered into popular culture. It was portrayed in the episode "Sino si Max?" ("Who is Max?") of the long-running Filipino drama anthology Maalaala Mo Kaya. Max's has 4 celebrity endorsers: Gary Valenciano (1995-1998), Piolo Pascual (2002-2009), Isabel Oli-Prats (2004-2009) and in recent years, Coco Martin. All these endorsers are signed to ABS-CBN.

Max’s was recognized because of their advertisers and ofcourse Max’s itself. Dining in this kind of establishment shows Filipino tradition. Their crews were equipped to be very approachable, they give more smile than others, they also have an overwhelming welcome to the customers that will make them/ us “feel at home”.

The original classic fried chicken that made Max's popular. It is cooked to golden perfection, processed in a very unique way which gives it the unforgettable "Sarap to the Bones" quality, spiced just right and totally MSG-free. More sales because of their professional employees.

Max’s is a full service family style restaurant chain that has been around for 80 years. They currently have 80 restaurants across three states. The restaurant serves basic cook to order American style comfort food. Most of the restaurants are open 24 hours and all restaurants are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The chain has a strong company culture based on treating, not only, their guests but also, their employees with respect and appreciation. Historically, they have offered full benefit packages to their employees such as meal discounts, paid vacations, profit sharing, 401K plans, health, life, dental, and vision insurance. In order to stay competitive with the industry they have continually benchmarked the competitions’ benefits and have added benefits over the years such as flexible spending accounts and paid time off banks. Max’s has done a great job revaluating their benefit package every few years.

Max’s, also, has a strong employee development program. This program allows Max’s to hire employees with little or no skills at a minimum starting cost which implements a market lag pay philosophy. In addition they focus on building personal relationships with employees and supporting them in times of crisis, thus building employee engagement and retention.

In addition, Max’s values the communities in which they serve. They give back to each of the communities in which they conduct business. Not only do they donate money, but they also donate their time by running a very successful employee volunteer program.

Max’s is financially strong but recently sales have been declining. They realize that the nationwide family style restaurant segment has been losing market share to fast casual restaurants. The marketing reports indicate that this will not change in the near future. Another national concern is that labor unions are growing in the restaurant industry. Labor unions decrease profits and make doing business more complex. In addition because of the size of a full service restaurant the initial capital investment needed is large. A larger investment needs a higher sales volume to achieve an acceptable rate of return on the investment. With their decreasing sales Max’s can not project the return on investment which is financially acceptable.

Weaknesses

Max’s Restaurant has been in the operations since 1945. Presently, it already has built

more than 114 branches all around the Philippines including company owned and

franchise stores. It also has franchises in USA as well. One of its branches is in SM North

Edsa where the system study was conducted.

Data gathering was done on the different parts of the system namely placements,

persons, raw materials, information, method, equipment, utilities, environment and

performance. After documenting and discussing the present system, the strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) were identified. Through WOT-SURG

analysis the main problem was determined. It was found out that the restaurant is

facing a problem with regards to the speed of service delivery. According to the Quality

Assurance audit, the restaurant received a grade of 90.35% which deviates from the

standard grade of 92%. Customer satisfaction was also taken into consideration through

conducting surveys which also turned out to be low or far from the expected value.

In the Problem Analysis part, the initial why-why diagram was constructed for the

speed of service delivery problem. We identified the causes and validated through

observations of the restaurant operations. For us their system must be more speedy to

get the customer satisfaction.

Opportunities

Max’s Group was able to complete the acquisition of the Pancake House Group earlier this year, merging the two groups via a share-swap deal that resulted in the creation of a giant in the country’s casual dining segment.

“New brands, whether these are local brands that are available for acquisition by the company, foreign brands that are being offered for franchising, or brands that may be created by the company, will allow the company to reach out to new or underserved markets, reinvigorate and reinforce interest and loyalty to the company,” the merged entity of Pancake House Inc. and the Max’s Group of Companies said.

Max’s Group said both foreign and local brands are eyed to be added to its current portfolio depending on “market trends, readiness and acceptability of the target market, market potential and forecasted growth, as well as fit of the target brand into the company’s current offerings and corporate culture.”

The firm said it shall likewise evaluate and consider brands targeting the middle to upper market segments to address the demand for premium products and in line with the rising income of the middle class.

There are :

• No assigned personnel/equipment to signal the waiters

• Low stove capacity

• Lack of training of workers

• No motivation program implemented in the restaurant for the workers

• Layout design

Different solutions were made to further improve the speed of service, customer

perspective and employee performance. Here listed are the proposed solutions for the

root causes identified. The following solutions were selected through Kepner-Tregoe

Decision Analysis:

• Assign workers to bring cooked foods closer to the kitchen, transfer bar to the Ruby

Room, and install a buzz system

• Andon System

• Have one (1) additional stove installed in the kitchen

Proposed solutions for customer perception were also made namely:

• Putting up fish tanks/aquariums

• Put televisions in the other two dining areas that would feature movies

• Provide interesting things to do (i.e. through the use of paper placemats)

• Provide free light appetizers

• Put up memorabilia that could be viewed by the customers

Threats

The restaurant lacks ambiance. Max’s will catch more eyes if they will make the establishment more classy and more beautiful. People will enjoy dining in an awesome place. The place is good but for us we search for a place were we can enjoy the view. “Place must be appetizing to the our eyes.”

High Competition with other establishments. Nowadays there are lot of food establishments wherein the people bite in. Many restaurants are now reighning because of their quality service but in a low price. Max’s is not that cheap, the price of their food compared to other restaurants is more expensive.

Our suggestions or our opinion for them to be more catchy they should put up student meals, value meals or they should also have more promos. Max’s should be also a budget friendly for them to be more famous all over the world.

When a new Max’s restaurant is establish it is a threat because the location might affect their sales. They should choose a perfect place for them to reach their goal. Max’s might have limited owners capital funds. Max’s may be threatened if the have loan burden or space for low profit margin.

V. CASE PRESENTATION, DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Case no.1 : Dining In

a.) Food

The problem we discovered on the food is that the food is not truly pleasing to the eyes compared to the pictures on the menu. Customers expect a lot on what they see so that they should focus on the looks of the food and also its taste.

The condiments on the table ( banana catsup , soy sauce and the hot sauce ) were nearly to be empty.

b.) Work flow process

Because it’s a fine dining restaurant for us the server should not go away from us .

One crew attempt to provide what we need because the assigned server to us had something to do.

c.) Ambiance

When we arrive and seated on the table for some instances the plate and its utensils are not yet ready. The set of eating utensils does not fit to the number of us who are going to eat.

Optically perfect arranged but we want to experience more relaxing seat.

d.) Price

The price is not that cheap. The lowest cost of menu order ranged Php184. We hesitate to eat expensive menu because we might not finish eating it.

If you are a student you cant afford eating there in a manner.

e.) Sanitation

There are no table napkins.

The comfort room is a little bit slippery.

Recommendation no.1 :

We recommend that they should not only focus on the taste of their menu but also they should be more critic when it comes to the food looks. It should more be appetiting ang pleasing to the eye. The price of the meal should not contrast to the quality of it’s look.

They should also come to meet the table and see what is there or not there. In our case the condiments is nearly to be empty and it’s not good to see. Max’s is a classic restaurant we expect a lot from it compared to other restaurants.

The crew or the server of the food should be more alert. He should not go nowhere because he is in service. He should stick with us because he is assigned on our table .

We recommend that Max’s should be more considerate on the customers convenient. The utensils must be prepared as we have expected .

As a student our opinion is for them to have more lower price menu. They should have the student meal, value meal and must have promos. They need to make lower price for them to be able to be bite by the people. They should be able to propose a good deal with people who would like to experience to dine in that kind of restaurant.

In sanitation we just recommend that they should put table napkin because we all know that it is important. In addition, they should focus on the impact of the person who is going to there establishment.

VI. REACTION PAPER

Max's of Manila, popularly known as Max's Restaurant is a Philippine-based restaurant chain. Its specialty is the Max Fried Chicken, cooked in a distinct way and differentiates itself from the starch laden fast food alternative. Aside from the fried chicken, the restaurant also offers standard Filipino dishes such as Kare-Kare, Sinigang, Crispy Pata, Dinuguan, and Lechon Kawali.

In earlier television and cinema advertisements, the restaurant's "Sarap to the bones" (which translates as "Delicious, to the bones") usually showed scenes of Filipino family get-togethers, with Max's serving as the venue.

We enjoyed the service of Max’s Restaurant. We the Filipino people love chicken! Everytime we have our meal we make sure that chicken dish will be served. Max’s is one of the few restaurants that offer one of the best tasting chicken .

This restaurant is a true blooded Filipino. It catches our taste so that we come to eat even the price is not that affordable for some. The employees were pleasant and over all we can say nothing. Max’s restaurant in its finest.

Every penny is worth paid for. The food is a nightmare. Eating their was truly fun and relaxing. As we reminisce, the assigned server to us ( Kuya Ace ) was good , approachable, friendly and sociable. He gives us a big smile. His smile give us warmth and welcome as we dine in there.

We will eat there as we can. We expect a lot of promos from them. When they had the promo “unlimited chicken” we don’t come to meet the promo. All of the sudden it’s once in a bluemoon. We can eat chicken as many as we can. Pinoy would loved to. Max’s is great!

VII. APPENDICES