Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter [Hardcover]

Paul Clarke (Author), Charlie Trotter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1999

Charlie Trotter's Chicago restaurant is not only one of the premiere eating experiences in America, it serves also as the model of a thriving business whose cutting-edge approach to management is setting new standards for quality, efficiency, and profitability. In fact, people in just about any field can learn from Charlie's methods. For this breakthrough business guide, journalist Paul Clarke conducted in-depth interviews with Charlie and his associates, distilling invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs and hospitality professionals who are committed to creating highly respected and innovative businesses. Anyone who wants to improve their business will be sure to learn something new from this Midwestern dynamo.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Creating a world-class restaurant requires command of more talents than cooking alone. A wise chef must master all the arts: painting, music, architecture, and even dance, all of which combine in any consummate dining experience. A chef must also acquire business skills: accounting, human resources, management, finance, media relations--an error in any one of those compromising dining perfection. Chicago's Charlie Trotter has conquered all those areas, and Clarke has focused on Trotter's noncooking aptitudes to find insights into the success of Trotter's restaurant and, by extension, any other thriving enterprise. Based on Tom Peters' standards of excellence, Clarke's analysis reveals how Trotter himself works and how he engenders similar excellence in his restaurant staff. It may offend conventional wisdom to enthrone a chef as a paragon of outstanding business leadership, but given the choice in leadership role models, what makes the world a better place: Attila the Hun's heads on pikes or a creative chef's savory pike on fiddleheads? Mark Knoblauch

About the Author

Paul Clarke is VP sales and marketing at Sandelman & Associates, a San Clemente, Calif.-based independent research company that provides the restaurant industry with consumer insights. For five years, Clarke was editor of Chef, a trade magazine read by chefs nationally. For the past 15 years, he has worked as a public relations and marketing executive, working with leading restaurant and food and beverage companies. Clarke is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago, where he earned a BA in English literature and an MBA. He is a native of the Chicago area and resides in Barrington, Ill., with his wife and four children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; 1St Edition edition (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898159083
• ISBN-13: 978-0898159080
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tasty read, December 16, 1999

By 

A. C. Shellhase (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter (Hardcover)

What does a $100 per person, prix fixe', 7 course gourmet dinner have to do with your business? Everything, if you believe Paul Clarke.

For those who might not know, Charlie Trotter's is an award-winning restaurant located in Chicago. I haven't yet been able to save up the $300 needed to eat there, but, from what I hear, it's an experience you'll not soon forget.

Back to the book -- this is a tough call. I like it. I hate it. I can't make up my mind. And maybe that's because it's almost like reading three different books.

First, it's a semi-bio of Charlie Trotter: his restaurant, how he runs it, his marketing strategies, his continual quest for excellence, his ongoing mission to make the dining experience in his restaurant extraordinary.

Secondly, it's an examination of how you can apply the pursuit of excellence to your business. Both these aspects make it an interesting read.

Then there's this underlying, ongoing discussion of having employees 'buy in' to your vision for your business. Though Clarke emphasizes rewarding this loyalty, and Trotter does so, I can say from my own experience, it just ain't so!

I found myself talking back to Clarke as I read. My husband thought I was going gaga. But I was so angry!

Much of what Clarke says feels manipulative to me. When I was an employee I was an excellent employee. I was the one who came in early, stayed late, did whatever it took, asked for more responsibility -- in other words I played the game.

It seems as though all the suggestions favor the employer rather than the employee. And this is where I get bogged down. I'm torn.

As an employee, I was used & abused too many times by the companies I worked for. And I know I'm not the only one.

But, as a small business owner, I'd want my employees to act exactly as Clarke suggests. It feels wrong, although I can't put my finger on exactly why that is.

I suppose any book that elicits this kind of response must be read. That's my recommendation to you. If you hate the management advice, you'll love the discussions about food, wine, & the restaurant experience.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I strongly recommend this book -- it is excellent!, October 4, 2007

By 

John B. Spence "Making the very complex... Aw... (Gainesville, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter (Hardcover)

As a management consultant to top companies world wide (Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Abbott, PepsiCo...) I read a minimum of 120 business books every year, and have since 1989. My personal library is nearly 3,000 volumes and I would put "Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter" in my top 5 for books on understanding what it truly takes to build a superior business.

I agree with another reviewer that you will likely not find any ideas that are shockingly innovative, but what you will find is a clear and detailed description of the business philosophy that has allowed Charlie Trotter to create one of the most respected restaurants in the world. You will also see that the fundamental strategies that Charlie Trotter focuses on are absolutely 100% transferable to any business that is serious about achieving excellence in their industry.

I have recommended this book to my clients for years, I use Charlie Trotter as a case study in many of my workshops, I have applied the ideas in this book directly to one of my other companies (an advertising firm I own) with tremendous success, and I have dined at Charlie Trotter's restaurant to verify that they actually live the ideas in this book... and they do!

If you are genuinely serious about building a business that is passionate and disciplined in striving for excellence - this is a must read.

John Spence
www.johnspence.com

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where are the Lessons?, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lessons in Excellence from Charlie Trotter (Hardcover)

I found the book to be void of any new leadership "Lessons" and to be particularly skimpy on any real "Lessons from Charlie". Ok, so someone leads each guest to the restroom and checks to see that it's in order and his servers wear double-stick tape on their shoes. But other than those two specifics, there's just no Charlie Trotter flavor to the book. (And, I'd personally be totally uncomfortable having someone follow me to the ladies' room every chance I got up. Can't they straighten the room on someone else's time, not while I'm waiting to use it?)

The book talks about Trotter's passion, but fails to explain or illustrate his inspiration and execution. The book is dull, with no feeling for the fire that incents Trotter. I'd love to know how he goes about changing the menu every day. There has to be a process to his creativity, not just the outcome. But we're left with nothing.

For the first time in my life, I threw the book away. There was no one I could imagine who would be willing to waste the time I had on the book.