Reflective Report: Evaluating TGI Fridays in the Hospitality Industry

This reflective report evaluates the operations of TGI Fridays, specifically its Melbourne branch, within the UK hospitality industry. It begins with an introduction outlining the report's purpose and providing background information on TGI Fridays. The main body of the report covers the restaurant's name, location, cuisine type (American, burgers, and steaks), and its classification as a casual dining establishment. It then delves into different types of restaurant services, including buffet, fine dining, casual, a la carte, and set menu restaurants, with a preference expressed for buffet restaurants. The report further explores the roles of back-of-house staff (kitchen, chefs) and front-of-house staff (managers, servers) in the restaurant hierarchy. The report concludes by summarizing the findings and reiterating that TGI Fridays' operations are conducted effectively. The report includes references to academic sources used in the research.

Reflective Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Name, Location and Type of Cuisine..........................................................................................3
Type of Food and Beverage Establishment.................................................................................3
Types of Restaurant Service........................................................................................................4
Favourite Dining Establishment..................................................................................................5
Back of House Staff.....................................................................................................................5
Front of House Staff....................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
This is a reflective report created to evaluate the operations of a food and beverage
establishment operating within the hospitality industry of UK. For the purposes of this report,
TGI Fridays – Melbourne branch is chosen, which is an individual branch of the global chain of
international restaurant chain known as TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays was created in 1965 and
operates from its operational headquarters in Texas, USA. TGI Fridays has its operations span
the numerous countries in the entire globe expect for the sub Saharan African region. TGI Friday
is an acronym that stands for ‘Thank God Its Friday’.
MAIN BODY
Name, Location and Type of Cuisine
The name of the chosen food and beverage establishment is TGI Fridays. It is located in
Melbourne Central, Level 3, Corner of Swanston Street and La Trobe Street, CBD, Melbourne,
which is in a central area on Melbourne, that can be easily accessed by great numbers of
consumers and tourists alike. TGI Fridays – Melbourne branch offers various types of different
cuisines to its customers specialising in selling American, burger and steak cuisines to its
customers within the hospitality industry of Australia. I have found that the food menu of TGI
Fridays – Melbourne branch includes various ranges of burgers, salads, wraps, chicken dishes,
with significant emphasis also placed on the alcoholic beverages that the restaurant offers to its
customers.
Type of Food and Beverage Establishment
Based on the research conducted by me, it is assessed that, TGI Fridays – Melbourne
branch falls under the restaurant type of food and beverage establishment. I found that a
restaurant is a food and beverage establishment that prepares and serves various assortments of
dishes, cuisines and beverages to its customers, with the food generally being consumed by the
customers within the restaurant’s premises, however current trends push restaurants to offer
delivery and takeout services to their customers (Erkmen and Hancer, 2019). In my view, this
matches exactly the operations of TGI Fridays – Melbourne branch, as the customers can choose

to have food within the premises of TGI Fridays – Melbourne branch, have it delivered or take
out on their own.
Types of Restaurant Service
Through my research on the topic, I found five main types of restaurant services which I
have detailed as follows:
Buffet Restaurants: I found out that a buffet restaurant implements a dedicated system of
serving meals by which the food is prepared in large quantities by the restaurant and is placed in
a public area so that the customers of the buffet restaurant can choose the dishes that are most
appealing to them and serve themselves as per their wishes and demand (Namin, 2017). Buffet
restaurants offer dishes on an ‘all you can eat’ basis pricing their services in such a manner that
the restaurant is able to generate profits despite selling huge quantities of food and beverage
items.
Fine Dining Restaurants: Through my research, I found out that these types of restaurants are
full-service restaurants that specialise in serving the customers with various numbers of
dedicated meal courses, depending on the restaurant. Fine dining restaurants make use of high
quality ingredients and materials, with the fine dining restaurant implementing certain rules and
regulations that the customers have to adhere by such as professional formal dress codes, so that
the intended decorum of the restaurant can be maintained (Ghobadi and et.al., 2018). Fine dining
restaurants feature dedicated servers, with the customers only being responsible for ordering
their meal courses.
Casual Restaurants: I researched that casual dining restaurants tend to serve food and beverage
items to the consumers in a casual atmosphere, with the pricing of such casual restaurants being
moderate, so that their services can be afforded by huge number of customers within the global
hospitality industry (Chen and Peng, 2018). Most casual restaurants offer table services to their
customers and possess a dedicated bar to satisfy the beverage or alcoholic needs of their
customers. I researched that TGI Fridays – Melbourne branch is also a casual type of restaurant.

A La Carte Restaurants: Through my research I have found out that such types of a la carte
restaurants offer the ability to their customers to order any kind of individual dishes from the
created food and beverage menu of the restaurant based on the personal needs, demands and
preferences of the customers (Meng and Choi, 2018). Ordered dishes may come to include side
dishes, or various assortments of different menu dishes. ‘A la carte’ is a French term that roughly
translates to according to the menu in English.
Set Menu Restaurants: I found out that a fixed or set menu restaurant is a type of restaurant that
offers few options to the customers through its menu dishes at a fixed total price. Such
restaurants offer mainly two different types of menus to their customers to make their order
from:
 Table d’Hote: Restaurants offering table d’hote menu services possess food menu that
offer a choice of appetizer, desert and entrée to the customers at a set price (Chen and
Chen, 2017).
 Prix Fixe Menu: Such menus offer appetizers, entrees and deserts to the customers, but
they have no individual choice to modify these based on the individual demand, need or
preference of the customer.
Favourite Dining Establishment
My favourite type of dining establishment relates to buffet restaurants because they
provide me with a huge list of food and beverage choices to choose from and i am allowed to eat
as much as I want from the buffet restaurants, without having to pay any kind of extra amount
for trying out new and unique dishes. In my experience buffet restaurants are great to visit as part
of a group so that all members are able to enjoy themselves, without having to worry about the
eventual check, which is also a great feature of buffet restaurants, with them always possessing a
happy and engaging atmosphere for all the customers.
Back of House Staff
Through my research, within a traditional restaurant hierarchy, the back of house staff of
a restaurant includes all the operations and employees that a customer does not engage or interact
with. These include the kitchens, executive chefs, kitchen managers, sous chefs, line cooks
kitchen callers and dishwashers, who are of immense importance for the restaurant to be able to

conduct its daily operations in an effective and successful manner, however are not required to
personally interact or engage with the customers in any sort of manner. When a restaurant is able
to conduct its operations in a truly successful manner, then the back of the house staff is not even
seen or made aware of to the consumers.
Front of House Staff
Based on my conducted research, I have also found out that within a traditional restaurant
hierarchy, the front of house staff consists of all the operations and employees of the restaurant
that are required to interact and engage with the customers of the restaurant so that optimum
levels of customer service can be provided to the consumers of the restaurant. The front of house
staff includes the general managers of the restaurant, receptionist, host or hostess, servers,
bartenders etc., basically all the employees of the restaurant that are required to engage and
interact with the customers of the restaurant.
CONCLUSION
Through the findings of this report, it can effectively be concluded that the operations of
TGI Fridays- Melbourne branch are conducted in an effective and efficient manner, which allows
for the busines organisation to effectively satisfy the varying needs, demands and preferences of
their customers in a successful manner. This report is a personal reflection on the evaluation of
chosen food and beverage establishment- TGI Fridays – Melbourne Branch.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chen, A. and Peng, N., 2018. Examining consumers’ intentions to dine at luxury restaurants
while traveling. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 71. pp.59-67.
Chen, C. and Chen, Y., 2017. The impacts of different types of cuisines and restaurants on
gratuities. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management. 16(2). pp.154-173.
Erkmen, E. and Hancer, M., 2019. Building brand relationship for restaurants. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Ghobadi, S. and et.al., 2018. Acid and peroxide values and total polar compounds of frying oils
in fast food restaurants of Shiraz, Southern Iran. International Journal of Nutrition
Sciences. 3(1). pp.25-30.
Meng, B. and Choi, K., 2018. An investigation on customer revisit intention to theme
restaurants. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Namin, A., 2017. Revisiting customers' perception of service quality in fast food restaurants.
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 34. pp.70-81.