I live in a neighborhood that is 35 years old and have lived here for 12 years. A lot of transient families move in where the breadwinner who works for a major corporation gets transferred to Pittsburgh for a new position with a company and then they buy a house in our neighborhood. They choose this neighborhood, I'm sure, partly because of the nice wooded lots and the established landscaping that takes years to cultivate.

So they move in and immediately call the local tree removal company and within a month their yard is leveled and I mean, leveled. Then they call a landscaper and turn over all the grass and plant sod or, more amusing, pay tons of money for tons of top soil and spray their yard with a combination of seed and fertilizer which looks like spray paint to plant a new lawn. Then they remove original stone walls and replace them with treated landscape timber or formed concrete block and rip out the established vegetation and plant seedlings. After about six months, they replace the siding and the shutters. Window replacement to a newer style usually follows, where the windows might be five or six years old when they moved in since the last person moved.

By the time these folks are finished, they end up with an entirely new house and new yard that does not seem remotely connected to why they would buy the house in the first place. And then their company moves them out and the process starts all over again with the power saws and the trucks and the contractors as my husband and I watch bemused.

This is an example of the public we are dealing with: new, improved, better, different, throw it away.

As restaurateurs in the last part of the 20th century, where the public has been flooded with choices, we, too, have gotten caught up in the hysteria: new, improved, better, different, throw it away.

Dining in the 20th Century took us through a whirlwind tour from Europe to the Americas, bringing cultural influences to a land of agricultural-plenty morphed with home-cooking methods down on the farm influencing the rural, family owned roadside diningrooms of the 20s to the emergence of the elegant fine dining restaurants from New York to Hollywood from the 30s to the 50s. With the automobile no longer a luxury, came the drive-in restaurants which postwar were replaced with the coffee shops and vendomats of the 60s. Then the beginnings of real franchising and the development of the bolder theme-style concept restaurants of the 70s emerged. In the early 80s, we had the chain restaurant explosion with restaurants in every concept and style from quickservice to upscale available. In the 90s, most grocery chains joined the take-out segment of foodservice operations. In the last two decades, a lot of operations scrambled to survive. Some did and many didn't.

The last decade or so of uncertainty for a lot of us wasn't projected in the actuarial tables when Mom and Pop built the family's restaurant. We expected that our hard labor and family treating staff like members of our own would be enough to keep them and, at the same time, keep our customers coming back. We were so busy in the revolution of our industry, that we didn't discover until it was too late what was upon us. We took comfort in the historical circumstance of how it was just the locomotion of change "out of our control" and a sense of delight in the fact that we lasted longer than most deciding that, "Today's public is fickle anyway."

As the chain sector expanded into new markets, planning was handled by some of the world's most sophisticated marketing strategists. But moving too fast or too slow in the precarious process nearly toppled some well-established enterprises. That same damned unpredictable public was at it again.

In this Millennium, we have new decisions to make and an opportunity to step out of our shadows past. But before we dash forward to the next new concept of Gothic Inns or Clockwork Orange Juice Bars we may want be more circumspect and seek a new restaurant reality where dining and hospitality is as it should be. As we want it to be. Not dining pitting operation against operation. Not bankrupting ourselves emotionally with worries and fears about who's going to "steal" our next customer. Not putting pride above common sense and reducing our prices to fill our tables when our costs exceed delivering.

We can choose to review rather than revolve, focus on ourselves rather than predicating our decisions based upon what everyone else is doing and perhaps, in the process, get back to the basics of providing good food and professional service which is what this industry is supposed to be all about.

Operations need a sense of renewed possibility, of determined viability, of a sincere purpose. We have a thriving economy and more people dining out more than ever, but we cannot find enough qualified staff to serve them -- partly because we do not take the time to train them. We have ever-changing demands for products and services, but we are either stuck and afraid to change our menu and try something new or we just toss our menu up in the air and decide it's all no good. We know what we can buy and, if we don't know, we have vendors clamoring at our doors. But we don´t know what our customers will want because we are moving too fast to even think about it.

The strength in the rigidity of our past is what has made some of us last, but that very rigidity is what has kept some of us on this merry-go-round unable to break free. The future requires taking bolder, creative steps and thinking about new possibilities. The future is about thinking about what our customers want before they think of it themselves within the spectrum of what we can truly provide.

Our past has been littered with disposables which hopefully are biodegradable:
"Not producing? Close the doors."
"Ineffective? Fire him/her."
"Save that venue here? Nah, too much work."

We need improvisation -- not obliteration. We need to be reasonably concerned about aesthetics, but more concerned about what and how we deliver. We must seek new ways to reach out to our customers and connect with them. I have seen the grandest of restaurants sit idly as an icon of "what was". The people are all gone. The brick and mortar now only a monument.

We need to care for and cultivate our staff for the brazen world of customers who are out there. We must embrace them with not only respectable salaries and benefits, but also with our heart so that they feel valued. Most of all, we must rid ourselves of the foolish notion that they are lucky to be working for us when we know better. If we are fortunate enough to participate in these actions, maybe then we will not have to fight the public decry of overall poor service and the associated lack of professionalism tagged to our industry.

This time calls for revised hospitality operations intelligence. We must be aware of the broad impact of social and economic implications that have affected our industry. We must make the time to study our market and feel its pulse. We must adjust and shift our position attentively with enough industry prowess so that we call attention to ourselves to capture the right kind of customers lost within the media blast inside an industry attempting to outdo itself. If we are lucky, some may take notice. And those who do will be our best voices.

In the final analysis, is the human element that will outlast all the concepts and structures. The rural diningroom. The upscale restaurants. The drive-in restaurant and coffee shops. The vendomat and theme restaurants and chains. It is the human element that offers hospitality. Those customers who meet dining professionals who are pleasing will embrace them. And those guests who meet dining professionals who are inattentive will jilt them.

We must recognize that restaurant success is always a deliberate act of will. It's really not that complicated. You must always watch your food and labor costs, but you can always afford to be generous with your consideration and creativity. It'll be worth it. Your new customers will be taking advantage of you in no time.