Term Paper Assignment Ideas

Idea 1: Restaurant Serving

The aim of this project would be to examine specific cognitive components of restaurant serving. The subject matter expert involved with the study will be a 22-year-old male who has been a restaurant server for over three years. During this time, he has concurrently worked at two Seattle-area establishments: Sostanza, an upscale Italian restaurant, and Linda’s Tavern, a lively bar known for its young, trendy customers. Because the SME works as a server in two highly different environments, the specific goal of this analysis will be to examine the degree to which the cognitive skills required by the SME differ in each location.

I will begin my analysis by first conducting an interview with the SME, primarily to see 1) in what ways each establishment differs from the other, 2) what the SME believes are important skills of both jobs, and 3) what the SME believes are distinctive skills that are unique to each job. I will then visit the SME at both workplaces and investigate using observation. This may include active participation (i.e. asking the SME to verbalize a standard server-phrase to a set number of customers in both locations and then report back both the responses of the patrons and the SME’s action response to such responses), or focused or structured observation based on the information gathered from the initial interview. By using these analytical techniques, I’ll hopefully not only be able to discern the differences in cognitive skills used at each location, but also begin to see if the actual difference in observed behavior matches the SME’s perceived difference as expressed through the interview. Faryar Faramarzi is the infamous Black Rooster.