The 3-min rule

The 3 min. rule

I love watching infotainment shows on KBS, the Korean channel.

This 3 min. rule is just one of the interesting things I learnt from from one of their programmes; the title which I only recall as, "Secrets..."

Every week, they come up with a theme/topic and they have reporters highlighting secrets of various people/places out there that display interesting abilities which goes along the line of that highlighted topic.

This week the topic was, "Being quick."

They went to a business consultant's office and asked, "What's the secret to a restaurant's success?"

She gave a simple answer. "3 minutes."

They checked various successful restaurants (read: always crowded, high turnover, popular). All of thed had the food served to the customers in the range of 3 minutes. WITHOUT FAIL.

The secret behind this phenomenon? It's just human nature.

Human are at their hungriest 3-4 minutes after making their orders (when they start looking forward to their food).

They test it by putting a food out infront of 3 adults and collect their saliva at various times. Naturally, human drool when they're hungry, right? The more saliva released, the hungrier you are. Most saliva collected is of course, within 3-4minutes after they've been exposed to the plate of food infront of them.

The results are similar when they did a brain scan.

That's why, when you serve food within that time range, customers appreciate it very much. And they show it by the response they give to the food you serve. When you're hungry, everything taste nice, right? And your food taste VERY delicious to them. Keep up that service and your food will ALWAYS taste delicious to them.

They checked on less succesful restaurants and timed the service. Foods are served at a rate of 2.5x later that that of regular restaurants- in the range of 5-6 minutes. hmmmm...

And that's why, at fast food restaurants, despite the crappy foods they serve, are highly popular. The speed at which they serve their food gives their customers ample time to look for seats after collecting thier food and eat after 3 mins have passed.

And does the food taste good?

YOU BET.