Vice President of Training Debbie Fox believes the recession offers front-of-the-house staff a chance to enhance service levels at the upscale steakhouse chain. Listen to or download an extended interview with Debbie Fox.

Let's begin by talking about the impact of the slump. How is The Palm addressing this issue?

I'm trying to look at the issues affecting the industry as opportunities, telling our [general managers] to use the extra time they have to focus on training, service and food. I imagine business will be slower this holiday season, though I hope it won't. But the trends suggest we will be slower. The best way to deal with this time is to use it as an opportunity, making sure we are executing better than ever before.

Can you share any techniques or new ideas you have come across?

I work closely with other departments, particularly marketing but also operations, culinary and purchasing. We try to work in concert by running promotions and training people and incentivizing them to sell more and to be better at the table.

Are you having more contests these days and increasing the incentives for employees?

Yes. You have to focus more than ever on keeping staff motivated to get them to do their best and to sell as much as possible.

What specific efforts are you making?

For example, we doubled the “bounty” of our 837 Club, our customer-loyalty program, for December enrollments. For servers to get the double bounty, their restaurant has to reach its monthly goal, let's say 80 members in a month. If they reach it, the server who sells 20 memberships will get double what he is getting to date on every membership sold.

Has The Palm boosted service levels by other means?

We've been asking managers to enhance our service, using black napkins for dark-suited guests, decanting wine and serving side dishes French-style [in which food is served from the right side of the guest and finished and plated tableside]. Basically we're saying if you have more time over the holiday season, then decant more wine, French-serve more food, refold napkins when someone gets up to go to the bathroom, write thank-you notes to your call parties, and do more lobster parades to prompt people to buy a large lobster.

When you hire experienced servers, as you did recently in your new Tribeca outpost, how long does it take to train them in this style of service?

We do a week of classroom training where I go through shopper reports, points of service and do food shows where servers sample all of the lunch and dinner items. After a week of classroom training, we do a week of “soft” openings, where the staff is waiting on each other, their partners, best friends and family. We also do a week of “50-50s,” offering 50 percent off everything but alcoholic beverages. We ask guests to bear with us while we practice service. So there's almost a month to get staff up to speed in the training program.