OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY

College of Hospitality and Institutional Management

Valenzuela City Campus

A RESTAURANT DINING EXPERIENCE

Maxs Restaurant
SM North Edsa, Quezon City
October 24, 2015
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the subject
HRM 111: Intorduction to Hospitality Management
For a degree in
Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management
Submitted by :
Soriano, Mhon Spencer
Sucob, Anne Cyril
Lapid, Karl Michael
Dela Cruz, Erickson
BSTM 1y 1-9
Submitted to:
Ms. Rowena Magcale
HRM 111 Professor
Submitted on:
October 26, 2015

I.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It gives us immense pleasure to be associated with this project. The project

was a joyous learning process. The presentation of the report in the way
required has been made possible by the way of contribution of various
people.

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to Ms. Magcale for her kind
help and encouragement . We are very thankful to her for her advice,
assistance, and constant support throughout the preparation of this report.

We would like to thank all our beloved professors and classmates for their
support and confidence on us.

We would also like to express our deep gratitude to all the responders whose
response was of utmost importance for the project.

We would also like to thank our parents who have helped us with their
valuable suggestions and guidance that has been helpful in various phases
of the completion of project.

II. TABLE OF CONTENTS

I . Acknowledgement

Page 1

II. Table of Contents

Page 2

III. Introduction

Page 3

a. Background
b. Geographic

Page 3
Page 4

IV. Reaction Paper

Page

III. INTRODUCTION
Background

Max's Restaurant's beginnings started in 1945, after World War II. Maximo
Gimenez, a Stanford - educated teacher, befriended the American
occupation troops stationed at Quezon City. Because of this friendship, the
soldiers regularly visited Maximo's nearby home for a drink or two. Later
on, the troops insisted that they pay for their drinks. This prompted
Maximo to open a caf where the troops could enjoy food and drinks.

The caf initially served chicken, steak and drinks. Maximo's niece Ruby, who managed the kitchen, created a special recipe for chicken that
became an instant favorite for the GIs. Soon, the Filipino public heard
about the delicious chicken - tender, juicy and crispy - and they came too!
Max's

Restaurant

was

born.

Over the years, Max's Restaurant's popularity grew and became known
as "the house that fried chicken built". It has expanded in Metro Manila,
Southern and Northern Luzon, Cebu and California, USA.

We choose Maxs restaurant because we feel at home by their deliciously

Filipino inspired meal at very affordable price compared to other fine
dining restaurants.

Geographic

The restaurant that weve decided to dine in was located on Quezon City
specifically at SM North Edsa. From Our Lady of Fatima University the travel
time range to 20-30 minutes with the fare 20-30 pesos.

While traveling on our way to SM North our company ( Spencer , Karl ,

Anne and Erickson ) have plan to dine on Maxs restaurant. We truly missed
the taste of their original dishes and menu so we decided to eat there.

Max's Restaurant currently has over 127 branches in the Philippines. The
chain also has branches in the U.S. states of California, Hawaii,New
Jersey and a Nevada branch soon to open. It has 2 locations in Canada
in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia with a new location in
Edmonton, Alberta opening soon. In a September 2014 press event, it was
announced

that

more

branches

will

be

opened

by

2015

in: Sydney, Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Queens, New York.

IV. SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

In earlier television and cinema advertisements, the restaurant usually

marketed itself as a place for Filipino families to get together. It also
established its slogan "Sarap to the bones!" ("Delicious to the bones!").

From April to June 2004, a popular series of television advertisements,

entitled "Forever Yours" told the story of a Max's employee who was the
childhood love of a popular TV celebrity, played by Piolo Pascual. The series
showed the two characters as children, then as adults accidentally meeting
at Max's. The denouement of the story is when the celebrity recognizes the
employee from their childhood. This commercial became so popular that it
launched the showbiz career of Isabel Oli, the model who played the
employee.

Aside from its advertising, the story of how Max's Restaurant started has
entered into popular culture. It was portrayed in the episode "Sino si Max?"
("Who is Max?") of the long-running Filipino drama anthology Maalaala Mo
Kaya. Max's has 4 celebrity endorsers: Gary Valenciano (1995-1998), Piolo
Pascual (2002-2009), Isabel Oli-Prats (2004-2009) and in recent years, Coco
Martin. All these endorsers are signed to ABS-CBN.

Maxs was recognized because of their advertisers and ofcourse Maxs

itself. Dining in this kind of establishment shows Filipino tradition. Their crews
were equipped to be very approachable, they give more smile than others,
they also have an overwhelming welcome to the customers that will make
them/ us feel at home.

The original classic fried chicken that made Max's popular. It is cooked to
golden perfection, processed in a very unique way which gives it the
unforgettable "Sarap to the Bones" quality, spiced just right and totally MSGfree. More sales because of their professional employees.
Maxs is a full service family style restaurant chain that has been around
for 80 years. They currently have 80 restaurants across three states. The
restaurant serves basic cook to order American style comfort food. Most of
the restaurants are open 24 hours and all restaurants are open for breakfast,
lunch and dinner.

The chain has a strong company culture based on treating, not only, their
guests but also, their employees with respect and appreciation. Historically,
they have offered full benefit packages to their employees such as meal
discounts, paid vacations, profit sharing, 401K plans, health, life, dental, and
vision insurance. In order to stay competitive with the industry they have
continually benchmarked the competitions benefits and have added benefits
over the years such as flexible spending accounts and paid time off banks.
Maxs has done a great job revaluating their benefit package every few
years.

Maxs, also, has a strong employee development program. This program

allows Maxs to hire employees with little or no skills at a minimum starting
cost which implements a market lag pay philosophy. In addition they focus
on building personal relationships with employees and supporting them in
times of crisis, thus building employee engagement and retention.

In addition, Maxs values the communities in which they serve. They give
back to each of the communities in which they conduct business. Not only do
they donate money, but they also donate their time by running a very
successful employee volunteer program.

Maxs is financially strong but recently sales have been declining. They
realize that the nationwide family style restaurant segment has been losing
market share to fast casual restaurants. The marketing reports indicate that
this will not change in the near future. Another national concern is that labor
unions are growing in the restaurant industry. Labor unions decrease profits
and make doing business more complex. In addition because of the size of a
full service restaurant the initial capital investment needed is large. A larger
investment needs a higher sales volume to achieve an acceptable rate of
return on the investment. With their decreasing sales Maxs can not project
the return on investment which is financially acceptable.

Weaknesses

Maxs Restaurant has been in the operations since 1945. Presently, it

already has built more than 114 branches all around the Philippines including
company owned and franchise stores. It also has franchises in USA as well.
One of its branches is in SM North Edsa where the system study was
conducted.

Data gathering was done on the different parts of the system namely
placements, persons, raw materials, information, method, equipment,
utilities, environment and performance. After documenting and discussing
the present system, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
(SWOT) were identified. Through WOT-SURG analysis the main problem was

determined. It was found out that the restaurant is facing a problem with
regards to the speed of service delivery. According to the Quality Assurance
audit, the restaurant received a grade of 90.35% which deviates from the
standard grade of 92%. Customer satisfaction was also taken into
consideration through conducting surveys which also turned out to be low or
far from the expected value.

In the Problem Analysis part, the initial why-why diagram was constructed
for the speed of service delivery problem. We identified the causes and
validated through observations of the restaurant operations. For us their
system must be more speedy to get the customer satisfaction.

Opportunities

Maxs Group was able to complete the acquisition of the Pancake House
Group earlier this year, merging the two groups via a share-swap deal that
resulted in the creation of a giant in the countrys casual dining segment.

New brands, whether these are local brands that are available for
acquisition by the company, foreign brands that are being offered for
franchising, or brands that may be created by the company, will allow the
company to reach out to new or underserved markets, reinvigorate and
reinforce interest and loyalty to the company, the merged entity of Pancake
House Inc. and the Maxs Group of Companies said.

Maxs Group said both foreign and local brands are eyed to be added to its
current portfolio depending on market trends, readiness and acceptability of
the target market, market potential and forecasted growth, as well as fit of
the target brand into the companys current offerings and corporate culture.

The firm said it shall likewise evaluate and consider brands targeting the
middle to upper market segments to address the demand for premium
products and in line with the rising income of the middle class.

There are :
No assigned personnel/equipment to signal the waiters
Low stove capacity
Lack of training of workers
No motivation program implemented in the restaurant for the workers
Layout design

Different solutions were made to further improve the speed of service,

customer perspective and employee performance. Here listed are the
proposed solutions for the root causes identified. The following solutions
were selected through Kepner-Tregoe Decision Analysis:

Assign workers to bring cooked foods closer to the kitchen, transfer bar to
the Ruby Room, and install a buzz system
Andon System
Have one (1) additional stove installed in the kitchen

Proposed solutions for customer perception were also made namely:

Putting up fish tanks/aquariums

Put televisions in the other two dining areas that would feature movies
Provide interesting things to do (i.e. through the use of paper placemats)
Provide free light appetizers
Put up memorabilia that could be viewed by the customers

Threats

The restaurant lacks ambiance. Maxs will catch more eyes if they will
make the establishment more classy and more beautiful. People will enjoy
dining in an awesome place. The place is good but for us we search for a
place were we can enjoy the view. Place must be appetizing to the our
eyes.

High Competition with other establishments. Nowadays there are lot of

food establishments wherein the people bite in. Many restaurants are now
reighning because of their quality service but in a low price. Maxs is not that
cheap, the price of their food compared to other restaurants is more
expensive.

Our suggestions or our opinion for them to be more catchy they should put
up student meals, value meals or they should also have more promos. Maxs
should be also a budget friendly for them to be more famous all over the
world.

When a new Maxs restaurant is establish it is a threat because the location

might affect their sales. They should choose a perfect place for them to
reach their goal. Maxs might have limited owners capital funds. Maxs may
be threatened if the have loan burden or space for low profit margin.

V. CASE PRESENTATION, DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Case no.1 : Dining In

a.) Food
The problem we discovered on the food is that the food is not truly
pleasing to the eyes compared to the pictures on the menu. Customers
expect a lot on what they see so that they should focus on the looks of the
food and also its taste.
The condiments on the table ( banana catsup , soy sauce and the hot
sauce ) were nearly to be empty.
b.) Work flow process
Because its a fine dining restaurant for us the server should not go away
from us .

One crew attempt to provide what we need because the assigned server to
us had something to do.
c.) Ambiance
When we arrive and seated on the table for some instances the plate and
its utensils are not yet ready. The set of eating utensils does not fit to the
number of us who are going to eat.
Optically perfect arranged but we want to experience more relaxing seat.

d.) Price
The price is not that cheap. The lowest cost of menu order ranged
Php184. We hesitate to eat expensive menu because we might not finish
eating it.

If you are a student you cant afford eating there in a manner.

e.) Sanitation
There are no table napkins.

The comfort room is a little bit slippery.

Recommendation no.1 :

We recommend that they should not only focus on the taste of their menu
but also they should be more critic when it comes to the food looks. It should
more be appetiting ang pleasing to the eye. The price of the meal should not
contrast to the quality of its look.
They should also come to meet the table and see what is there or not
there. In our case the condiments is nearly to be empty and its not good to
see. Maxs is a classic restaurant we expect a lot from it compared to other
restaurants.
The crew or the server of the food should be more alert. He should not go
nowhere because he is in service. He should stick with us because he is
assigned on our table .

We recommend that Maxs should be more considerate on the customers

convenient. The utensils must be prepared as we have expected .

As a student our opinion is for them to have more lower price menu. They
should have the student meal, value meal and must have promos. They need
to make lower price for them to be able to be bite by the people. They should
be able to propose a good deal with people who would like to experience to
dine in that kind of restaurant.

In sanitation we just recommend that they should put table napkin because
we all know that it is important. In addition, they should focus on the impact
of the person who is going to there establishment.

VI. REACTION PAPER

Max's of Manila, popularly known as Max's Restaurant is a Philippine-based

restaurant chain. Its specialty is the Max Fried Chicken, cooked in a distinct
way and differentiates itself from the starch laden fast food alternative. Aside
from the fried chicken, the restaurant also offers standard Filipino dishes
such as Kare-Kare, Sinigang, Crispy Pata, Dinuguan, and Lechon Kawali.
In earlier television and cinema advertisements, the restaurant's "Sarap to
the bones" (which translates as "Delicious, to the bones") usually showed
scenes of Filipino family get-togethers, with Max's serving as the venue.
We enjoyed the service of Maxs Restaurant. We the Filipino people love
chicken! Everytime we have our meal we make sure that chicken dish will be
served. Maxs is one of the few restaurants that offer one of the best tasting
chicken .

This restaurant is a true blooded Filipino. It catches our taste so that we

come to eat even the price is not that affordable for some. The employees
were pleasant and over all we can say nothing. Maxs restaurant in its finest.
Every penny is worth paid for. The food is a nightmare. Eating their was
truly fun and relaxing. As we reminisce, the assigned server to us ( Kuya
Ace ) was good , approachable, friendly and sociable. He gives us a big smile.
His smile give us warmth and welcome as we dine in there.
We will eat there as we can. We expect a lot of promos from them. When
they had the promo unlimited chicken we dont come to meet the promo.
All of the sudden its once in a bluemoon. We can eat chicken as many as we
can. Pinoy would loved to. Maxs is great!

VII. APPENDICES