One Week Complete
With one week of the internship down, time sure is flying by. Luckily with feeling that I have been in Florence for months, it has really only been 10 days, meaning I still have plenty of time in this amazing city. Along with Lois and Stephanie, I was given the opportunity to work at Reale_Firenze. Before visiting the site, I was under the impression that the new restaurant was only a Tapas Bar connected to the train station. Upon going to the initial meeting and working the first two days, Reale_Firenze is much more than that. Not only does the restaurant serve as a Tapas Bar, which is a concept of small dishes, but it has an outdoor component that consists of a bar and several stands that offer Italian street food. I feel that the idea of street food in a restaurant in Italy is an innovative concept for the country, since it is using classic, authentic food vendors and items, but twisting it in a way to make the idea more upscale.
Since Reale_Firenze is a new restaurant, you can tell how important marketing and reviews are to the workers and managers. From day one, one of the most valuable topic they touched on was what client satisfaction meant to them. To my surprise many of the consumers that come to Reale_Firenze are Italian natives, not tourists, therefore the language barrier can be quite complicated. Because of this, our managers stressed the importance of smiling and knowing how to properly tend to a customer who does not speak English. I know little Italian, but with the knowledge I have had from the past, I feel that I have been able to give quality service or help to give good service through trying to adapt and getting advice by the fellow workers. All in all, with two days of work done, I am excited to see our tasks develop and to see how the company itself becomes more and more popular with locals as well as tourists.
