SWCAMBORNE

Consider a waiter or waitress, now called a server to avoid any sexist connotations, who you really like at a quality restaurant. Part of the reason you dine there is because of this particular server. Of course you tip well and the server therefore has a good income but his or her ability to change places of employment and maintain his earnings is risky.
Hairstylists, on the other hand, are more independent than servers and they often wisely keep a book with names phone numbers and addresses of their clientele. This book assures that the hairdresser can at least solicit their old clients when they move to a new salon and have a chance to maintain their income. Salon owners are forced to compete with each other. They have to offer generous signing bonuses and attractive employment terms to hairstylist with large and loyal clienteles.
Servers, under the current informal rules of restaurants, would risk being fired if they started to collect the names and addresses of their customers. Enter the Internet. By registering or searching at serverlocator.com a server and his clients could find easily each other.
As an advertising based site all of the services would be free to the servers and to the clients. The site would be searchable by first name last name and by former restaurant. So if you went to eat at Houston’s in Pasadena and your favorite server Steve was gone you could go to the serverlocator.com website and search for Steve and Houston’s. If Steve had registered his move you would know that he had gone to work at Bistro 45. He may even have entered a message encouraging his patrons from Houston’s to try Bistro 45.
It is obvious how this new service benefits the hiring restaurant, the server and the clients but what about and the old restaurant? If it is well managed and is willing to learn from market signals it will adjust its behaviors to retain its clients. This might include a better package for servers. Under the present system where servers are tied by tradition and the market to a particular restaurant the managers may not see the signs that there offering is no longer competitive because one of the important components of their offering is not free to move.
When serverlocator.com is fully functional the power of servers relative to restaurants owners will increase and therefore their pay and working conditions will improve. Additionally over time the quality of service at the best restaurants will increase and the amount that clients are willing to pay will go up with it. So that at the best places in each category of restaurant the profits will increase.