Restaurant Management

It’s ironic that restaurant management is one of the most demanding sectors of management, and yet not one of the higher paid! Outside of the catering industry, there is very little recognition of the skills needed to be a successful restaurant manager.

Here are some of the reasons why restaurant management is such a demanding career:

• the product is produced to customer order in real time
• the restaurant’s reputation can be lost instantly is customer expectations are not met
• for many, working in a restaurant is a first step in their working life, and the job is only a stepping stone to their preferred career, resulting in higher than average employee turnover
• capacity planning is difficult with instant orders from walk in customers having to be achieved
• food hygiene and health and safety standards have to be excellent at all times
• restaurant marketing and advertising often have to be done on a shoestring budget
• managing costs against very tight profit margins
• stock management has to be accurate to avoid short shelf life wastage
• the working hours are long and unsociable and the hourly rate is low

So to be successful in restaurant management, you must have the skills to manage each of the areas above, be prepared to work long hours, and most importantly, be able to work well under constant pressure.

A restaurant manager’s customer service skills have to be excellent. He or she must be a “people person”, able to small talk with the customers and make them feel immediately welcome and important. It is critical that they show empathy to customer requests and complaints to avoid conflict in front of other guests, and to be able to negotiate satisfactory solutions. As the saying goes, “the customer is always right”, and this is never more true than in restaurant management.

The restaurant manager must at all times keep a close eye on the quality of the food being served and on the level of service the customers are receiving. It is important that waiting staff are well prepared and well organised. Click on the following link for our more detailed report on how to service excellence in restaurant management.

If service excellence is to be achieved, employing conscientious and enthusiastic staff, who are well trained from day one is a must. Employee leadership, organisation and training are crucial elements of restaurant management.

The best and most successful restaurants treat their staff well. Every member of the restaurants staff should be treated as a member of the team and be respected, including the washing up staff, cleaners and waiting staff. Everyone has a part to play in providing a dining experience of the highest standard. It’s the restaurant management’s responsibility to extract the highest standards from every team member.

• Treat every member of the team with respect
• Include everyone when sharing out the gratuities
• Offer other benefits where possible
• Always acknowledge a job well done

If you’re employees feel valued and a part of your team you’ll reap the rewards. You’ll get better service from them, and very importantly you’ll reduce your staff turnover and retain employees for longer.

Staff turnover is costly. Recruitment and re-training are cost time and money, both of which can be better spent. Losing staff destabilises your team also and can have a negative effect on the levels of service you provide. By reducing staff turnover you keep the valuable knowledge your employees have gained about your food and restaurant in your team. By increasing staff retention you maintain consistency in all areas of your restaurant, and consistency is a vital ingredient to success in restaurant management in particular.

As a restaurant manager you need to lead your team. Employees follow managers because they have too, they follow leaders because they want to. Give each of your employees your time, give them direction and continually update their skills so that they can give you more.

For effective restaurant management, you need to assign clear goals and responsibilities to each of your team members. Each individual needs to know your clear expectations at all times. Clarity of tasks and expected results are crucial in achieving restaurant management success.

When a restaurant gets busy, control can soon turn into chaos. One late service to just one table, or one returned dish can throw service into disarray. The restaurant manager’s task is to maintain a “managed chaos” at all times during the heat of service. The best way to achieve this is to have a strong, well trained and organised team around you. Your staff should know that they must inform you of any problem, however minor at the earliest opportunity so that you are given every opportunity to manage the situation before events become critical.

You should start every service with a short staff briefing where you allocate serving staff to tables or areas of the restaurant, run through the menu and explain what the specials are, inform every one of the numbers booked so they know what to expect and so on. Your briefing should be an ideal opportunity to identify any problems you had with previous sessions to avoid them being repeated.

Restaurant management also requires you to understand restaurant marketing, advertising and cost control. All of these areas are important to the success of your restaurant. Restaurants operate on tight profit margins so your understanding your cost structure is important. Your overhead structure needs to understood and minimised, the costs of each menu item and waste need to be controlled very closely. As well as a good understanding of your costs, you need a good restaurant accounting software package to control and report your costs.

Restaurant management is a tough career. To succeed you need experience, you need training in all the disciplines, a calm temperament and most importantly a strong team around you that you can depend on.