The spirit of “Japanese tea ceremony”

 『The bible of the restaurant』

Chapter 4 

The spirit of “Japanese tea ceremony” 

一期一会の精神 

“ICHIGO-ICHIE” is a Japanese four-character idiom that describes a cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of moment. It is translated as   

“Treasure every encounter” or “once-in-a-lifetime meeting”. It is most commonly associated with Japanese tea ceremony. 

Preaching of SADO (Japanese tea ceremony) dictating that each occasion on which hospitality is offered and received is to be cherished as a unique experience in one’s life. Even when the same group of people get together in the same place again, a particular gathering will never be replicated, and thus each moment is always once-in-a-lifetime experience.  

 

This mind-set can be related in everyday life, and daily operation in the restaurant. The moment that you meet a customer walks into to the restaurant that day, the moment when the customers and customers meet each other, and the precious moment that customers spend in the restaurant will never come back again. If you think this way, I am sure that you would be more serious about your service. You probably cannot stop your love and respect feelings exploding deeply in your heart and start analysing your customers more to the details to provide the ultimate service to every single customers you meet.  

In reality, you may be doing the same job at your work place today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Doing the same job every day is also a very important task for you and it is one of the skills you need as a stable professional. As a true professional must be able to do the job quickly and accurately no matter how tough and boring the job is.  

But if you keep this Japanese magic word “ICHIGO-ICHIE” in your mind, it might help you to think your daily task in a different way and even find a joyful moment in it. “ICHIGO-ICHIE” preaches the spirit of Japanese tea ceremony, providing a memorable precious moment through a cup of tea. I believe this can be preached in restaurant business as well, providing a memorable precious moment through food and drinks.  

『The bible of the restaurant』

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『Author』

Mr. Masayuki Sato

Japanese restaurant consultant. Spent his childhood in Texas, USA. Over 25 years of his hospitality industry career started during his high school age in Japan. He gained his experience in many of 5 star hotels, resort hotels, fine dinings, casual family type restaurants, bars, night clubs, wedding halls, banquet facilities, etc. He has become a successful restaurant producer by gaining professional skills through his career managing many of places, creating operation manuals, implementing efficient operation system and establishing new restaurants. Believing that the biggest asset in hospitality industry is “human resource” his consulting style is very unique and concentrating on creating a strong professional team by training members. Mr. Sato says “The success of the restaurant is based on how much professionals with a warm heart you can create. And I believe this is possible by implementing Japanese hospitality mind set to every single members in the team.”