Day 155 - 14 Jul 95 - Page 27
1 A. No, I am afraid I cannot.
2
3 Q. Do you regard a high turnover as desirable or beneficial
4 from the point of view of the restaurant's profitability?
5 A. No.
6
7 Q. Why not?
8 A. High turnover is going to cause problems in the
9 restaurant where you do not have a stable team, you never
10 have a situation where there is a lot of productive people
11 to ensure that the customer gets what they are expecting.
12 In actual fact, I think that high turnover costs more.
13
14 Q. Do you remember, roughly speaking, what your labour costs
15 were during the time that you were Manager at Seven
16 Sisters?
17 A. Generally, throughout the year we run between 14 and 15
18 per cent. Normally, sort of halfway.
19
20 Q. Did you regard that as a satisfactory level?
21 A. I was more concerned with the levels in the restaurant
22 more than the labour percentage.
23
24 Q. The?
25 A. The levels.
26
27 Q. Levels of what?
28 A. The staff levels in the restaurant.
29
30 Q. Did you have any training, instruction, pressure from the
31 Company about keeping labour costs to a particular level?
32 A. No.
33
34 Q. Did you ever instruct your assistants to ensure that labour
35 costs were kept to a particular percentage of sales?
36 A. No, I did not.
37
38 Q. Do you remember whether during the time that you were at
39 Seven Sisters the level of sales increased, decreased or
40 stayed the same as it was when you first arrived?
41 A. After about six to 12 months of being there and I had
42 had everything set up, we then started to increase sales in
43 the region of, sort of, six to 10 per cent.
44
45 Q. Annually, do you mean?
46 A. Yes.
47
48 Q. Can I ask you to bear with me -- I am going to read it out
49 so that you need not get it out yourself -- I am going to
50 read you a passage, Mr. Giardina, from Mr. Magee's
51 statement. My Lord, it is at the bottom of page 8.
52 I know you do not remember Mr. Magee, Mr. Giardina. It is
53 the last paragraph on page 8 and he has signed this in
54 April 1988. He says this: "I was being given all the
55 worst jobs. I think that the management really hated me".
56
57 MR. MORRIS: Is this the bottom of page 8?
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, Mr. Magee's first statement. I will read it
60 again, Mr. Giardina: "I was being given all the worst
