Look for Traffic Patterns & Personality

“We hired them for their personality,” says Reed. “The secret to [any small servery's] success is to staff it with hard-working, free-spirited, driven-for-success people who have a passion for making others smile. Once you find them, your job is to give them the freedom to work their magic by having the education, supplies, support and direction they need. They bring a sense of fun to the place. They celebrate holidays — and non-holidays — wear goofy hats, fire up the grill for a surprise in February. Even if employees have only five minutes away from their desks, they are as refreshed after a visit to the Corner Café as if they had a full meal break. For this to happen, the kiosk employees must ‘own’ their jobs.”

A great example: Pauly Dogs owner Paul Konstanzer on the Duke campus, who has become a campus celebrity. Wulforst recruited the young entrepreneur from his previous post selling hot dogs from a New York-styled stainless steel cart in front of Duke University Hospital. He installed Konstanzer in one of the four 8 ft. × 2 ft. foot kiosks on the walkway as the first of four local vendors with kiosks there. In Pauly's first four-hour shift on campus, he ran out of hot dogs three times and the Alpine Bagel manager working in the shop behind him came out to help him serve the backed-up line of customers.

“At 6 in the morning, I get up and check the computer for sales at all 33 of our outlets. I saw Pauly had done $636 in business in his first four hours,” recalls Wulforst. “When I stopped to see him, I asked how his first day had gone and he looked side to side, as if not wanting anyone to hear, and whispered, ‘I did $636 in business yesterday.’”

“It can be freezing and raining in the middle of January and he's still selling hot dogs,” says Wulfhorst. “The students love him and he is constantly expanding and reinventing his menu,” noting that one popular dog is called “The Thing” and crushed potato chips are the secret dog-topping ingredient.

The smaller the servery, the more important it is to staff it with a friendly, familiar face, advise operators. “Selecting the right people to work the kiosk makes all the difference in the world,” says Valerie Langbein, R.D., director of nutrition services, Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor. “You want someone who is very customer oriented, someone who takes initiative and who feels ownership for the success of the operation.” She says Janice Dionne, who staffs Eastern's Riverview Café, is just such a person.

Via Christi's Reinking says that when you introduce national brands in your servery, staff experienced with that brand can be a real plus. “It's even more important when you introduce a concept like Starbuck's with its extensive menu and wide variety of ingredients.” In opening her Starbuck's operation, Reinking got off to a very positive start by hiring staff trained by Starbuck's and experienced in their outlets.

Kiosk Basics: The Menu

Limit the menu, build in quality and price carefully.

At Salisbury (MD) University, three kiosks located in different academic buildings offer a combination of low-end and high-end sandwiches — from peanut butter and jelly for $1.59 to Silicon Valley wraps for $4.25. Michelle Fitz, marketing coordinator, says two homemade soups prepared for her board operation are sold in the kiosk with no increase in labor. “The soups change daily, are priced competitively and are customer favorites.”

In more support for quality, Fitz says coffee sales increased by 26 percent when Seattle's Brand Coffee was introduced. High-end beverage options also sell well, including Vitamin Water, Red Bull and Arizona Tea.