SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Will Thomson will be the first one to tell you the service and food at Yellowknife's Boston Pizza has not always been the best - certainly not "consistent," as Thomson puts it.

Will Thomson, the new general manager of Boston Pizza, said the restaurant has committed to improving service since he took over in February, reducing wait times, increasing the number of servers, replacing decor and making sure discontinued menu items are still available to customers. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

But as the new general manager of the popular downtown eatery, Thomson is on a mission to change that, and judging by the results so far, the self-described army-brat and perfectionist is off to a good start.

"It's going to be at least three years to get it to where I want to be. I mean, we're already very, very close. But once we get to that standard, it's (a matter of) building on that," said Thomson, who was born on an army base in Germany but spent most of his young life learning the art of cooking and service in Prince Edward Island, which Thomson described as a "tourist mecca" - and thus a good place to learn how to serve people quickly, but well.

"Our population of P.E.I. is, overall, 150,000. In the run of summertime, over three months, we do a million tourists. So you have to know what you're doing in order to have a job," said Thomson.

Though he began at Boston Pizza in February as the kitchen manager, a vacancy left the position of general manager open, and though initially reluctant - he doesn't like to stay put in one place for too long - Thomson seized the opportunity to get the restaurant up to his standards.

The first goal, he said, was to improve the k-time - "k" meaning "kitchen" - the time it takes for an order to get wrung up and delivered to the kitchen window, ready for serving.

"When I first got here, we may have seen k-times, even at lunch time, as high as 45 minutes. It's just not acceptable," said Thomson.

With new training delivered to the staff, "Our lunches can hit 10 to 13 minutes now," he said.

Also key was upping the number of servers per shift.

"Before I got here, you might see a server working 12 tables. A server might say, 'I can handle 12 tables,' but there's a level of service we want.

"Our motto is 'among friends.' Well, how special do you feel if you're one of 12 tables? You don't. My goal was to get people to four to six tables max."

Since the dining room portion of the restaurant was redecorated a year and a half ago, Thomson turned his attention to the lounge.

He shut it down for five days in the spring and repainted, replacing the tube televisions with flat-screen ones.

Lastly, Thomson is establishing a system in place whereby dishes that are no longer on the menu but still desired by customers can still be prepared by the kitchen.

All Boston Pizza chains must have their menus reworked once a year, resulting in dishes like Thai pizza falling by the wayside.

But Thomson said people often come to his restaurant because they want the same thing every time; familiarity breeds comfort.

"Not everyone can come in every week. Not everyone can come in every month," said Thomson. "So if they come in three times a year, I want them to be able to have an item that they had on the last menu.

Over the next three months, Thomson will be creating spec books with recipes for discontinued items going as far back as three years.

"Right now it's inconsistent, but I want to get it to the point, really by the end of September, (where we) have everything," he said.

With Thomson in place as manager, a vacancy has emerged for kitchen manager, but he's in the process of training cook and kitchen supervisor Richard Luddington, who has worked on and off at the restaurant since 2001 but has remained there steadily for the last year and a half, in the position.

"One of the biggest values that's used for the k-times is your communication in the kitchen," said Luddington. "You don't just have one or two people working in there; you can have anywhere from two to 12 people depending on how busy it is.

"It's almost like running a gigantic household."

But the hard work is paying off, according to Luddington.

"Every now and then, (people who) know I work here but don't really know what I do, they'll say it's really improved and it's actually quite enjoyable to show up and have a bite to eat here."