We were lucky to catch up with Deena Versanszki recently and have shared our conversation below.

Deena, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

I used to get anxiety when I was in stressful situations, reading negative reviews, having contentious interactions with staff or guests. It got to the point where I would lay awake all night thinking of what I should have said or done, or imagining different reactions, planning out responses.

Then one day I thought to myself, several weeks after one said incident, “now I can laugh about it”. I began to try to train my brain into calculating the appropriate level of stress based on how long it would take me to be able to laugh at a past situation. If it would have no effect on my life in 5 minutes, 5 days, or 5 years, then I would stress accordingly, obviously it is not a fail safe, but it has come in handy in keeping myself from overreacting to things.

Deena, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been in food and beverage for more than 25 years. I’ve done it all, front of house, back, management. Through all of that, I’ve learned my passion is leading a successful team. I have had the opportunity to do so in many remarkable places and have learned many important lessons along the way. Hospitality is similar but not the same in Europe and the UK as it is here in the states. There are different ways to motivate a non-tipped F&B team than those who leave cash in hand at the end of the day. There are different guest cultures, staff cultures, different expectations in other countries, I have had the opportunity to witness quite a few of them.
I’ve always loved travel, meeting new people, having new experiences. I find that although hospitality may be different in different places the bottom line is always customer service, it’s always going that one extra step that wasn’t expected, it ends up being a genuine care that defines the business.
I have always tried to surround myself with those people, the above and beyonders, the extra milers, it makes all the difference. In doing so, we have created a fun and successful business with loyal clientele and a team I am very proud of. When you are able to surround yourself with like-minded people who work hard and are proud in what they do, success follows.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

There are always waves and ebbs in team morale, the trick is catching them before they become an issue. I believe that listening to the team, each and every one of them, learning what makes them tick is a huge benefit to keeping everyone happy. In our business, waiters rely on tips. Their excellent service and our kitchen’s delicious meals keep the guests coming back which in turn ensures the money they are making is reliable. That doesn’t always mean the morale is high, there is an undercurrent of excesses within this business, too busy, too slow, too tired. It’s sometimes a case of detective, to get down to the underlying issues in order to find solutions. I believe just treating the team as respected human beings and trying to understand them goes a long way in keeping up morale.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Traveling a great deal is a double edged sword. Although I wouldn’t trade it for the world, starting over in each place was difficult. Food and Beverage is a very large, small community of interconnected people. Being the new one on the bottom of the totem poll without any experience or connections in the new city was always a challenge. Although I was leading top restaurants in Miami, I was an unknown factor in London and started from the bottom. I climbed my way back up and relocated to Charleston. Although the climb never took that long, it was always a question of where I would have been if I hadn’t decided to travel. I am however, secure in my ability to get right back up there, (after all that practice) and would not trade my experiences for anything. My life is more full and more colorful for having had the ability to see all that I have seen.

Contact Info:

• Website: nicoshemcreek.com

Image Credits
Andrew Cebulka