Restaurant Management Tip: How to Work the Room
Demonstrating management presence to your guests is a critical “Customer Contact Point.” You can’t manage a restaurant from a perch on a barstool or from an office in the back. Don’t “manage the floor,” work the room. Try to greet every guest in your dining room or bar. Watch your guests’ faces as they receive their food. Make eye contact. Smile. Introduce yourself and learn your guests’ names. (You may want to start a journal of guests’ names to help you remember them the next time they come in.)
When you work the room, it sets an example for the rest of the staff. Find out where your customers work, how business is, where they’re from and what their hobbies are. Make suggestions to the guests yourself: “Our pie tonight is the homemade blueberry. Make sure you save some room for it!” Exchange business cards when appropriate.
Change Management in Your Restaurant
It’s that time again… time to make some New Year’s resolutions for your business. Start by taking a hard look at what’s working… and what’s not. When a problem occurred, what could have prevented it? Pull your team in to analyze a particularly sticky situation and ask them to brainstorm solutions. Include those who aren’t involved directly… they often provide the most objective view. Then, globalize it and determine what needs to be done. For example, instead of saying that Jim needs training on kitchen equipment, label it “implement a back-of-the-house equipment training and evaluation program.” Then, get ready to make a proposed change a reality.
Change is a painful process that leaves some of the most motivated employees limping. How can you initiate change while keeping morale high?
- Change with a purpose. Initiate change only when it will make you more productive or profitable.
- Chart a course, but don’t fly solo. It’s easier to sit by yourself and create organizational charts and systems designs, but it will only be successful if you get people involved in the solution.
- Reward innovation. Let all employees know that ideas are welcome and encouraged. Respond to suggestions promptly and award suggestions that pay off.
- Ask for volunteers. You’ll be surprised who shows up… and what they can do.
- Treat the solution as a temporary measure. Don’t commit to it until you’ve tried it… and you’re sure it’s the best fit.
- Go slow. Choose one significant change at a time. After your team’s completely implemented the change, move on to others. Their confidence will make the next change go more smoothly.
But perhaps the best way to initiate change and motivate your team members to do the same is to change yourself first. As Thoreau put it, “Things do not change… we change.”
Staying Sane During the Holidays
No matter what Charles Dickens may have led us to believe, Scrooge was not a banker. No, he worked in the hospitality industry and Tiny Tim was at Table Four and he kept spilling his Sprite while his mother drank too much wine and started a fight with the table next to them.
Well, maybe not, but that would definitely explain why Scrooge was such a, well, Scrooge. The holiday season has its share of challenges. Here are a few tips on how to make it go a little smoother:
- Hire a floater. You don’t need an experienced server… just a temporary worker who would like to earn a little extra money. The person doesn’t need to be fully trained or even work directly with your customers. Hire the person to go where he or she is needed, carry trays, bus the tables, fill up waters or help in the kitchen. There are all sorts of small jobs that cause big problems because no one has time to do them.
- Schedule well. Ask if any team members would like to volunteer to be “on-call.” Then, if you get busy, the team member will come at the ring of a cell phone. Pay on-call volunteers a small amount of cash and pay them if they’re not called into work.
- Show your gratitude. Your team is working harder than ever and many of them aren’t being compensated by tips. Make sure that each person who leaves your operation – including your team members – knows how much you value them.
Keeping Tabs on Your Laundry Bill
From aprons and towels in the kitchen to tablecloths and napkins in the dining room, linen needs in a restaurant can be a huge expense— especially with the high costs of laundry services. If you have the room for a washer and dryer, consider doing your own laundry. Even with the expense of the washer and dryer and their maintenance, the extra labor costs and the water bill, you may still come out ahead.
For most operators, however, on-site laundering isn’t an option. That’s why you need to keep close tabs on what gets thrown into the laundry basket. One manager looked at the cost of laundering towels, aprons, etc., and found it was about 2 cents per item. She didn’t think it was much of a problem until she discovered cooks were tossing aprons into the laundry basket after one minor spill and that busers were tossing dishcloths into the hamper after just one run out into the dining room.
She promptly set up linen pars and handed out exactly what was reasonable to use each shift and within each area of the restaurant. If there were six cooks on duty, each was given an apron to use. Set numbers were also established for bar towels, dish towels for bus staff, and aprons for servers. With linen pars in place, she had a better handle on what she could expect to spend each month in the linen and laundry department.
Look at floor mat maintenance as well. Whether entry mats or rubber non-skid mats in areas of the restaurant tending to get wet, examine the cost of renting vs. buying. In some cases, it may make sense to buy the mats and clean them internally while in other cases it makes more sense to let the linen company switch the mats out. Either way it is an expense, but far less costly than a slip and fall accident by a guest or employee. Safety first!
The Bottom Line
One manager noted that although it cost just 2 cents to clean a towel, after just one month of setting linen pars and locking up the towels that she was saving an average of $32 a week on her laundry bill: $32 x 52 weeks = $1,664.00 saved in laundry service fees for the year.
Excerpted from Pump Up Your Profits: 52 Cost-Saving Ways to Build Your Bottom Line. This innovative book is part of the 52 Ways series of restaurant management books that offer one idea a week to increase profits, improve staff morale, reduce turnover, and make more money! Buy four 52 Ways books, get one free!
Close to Open Management
It’s easy for one manager or several employees to overlook key tasks required for a successful close – and a successful close means a successful opening the following day.
Start by listing each job position by category and add one for management. Then look at tasks that would make the following shift’s opening easier. Ask yourself: “If an employee fails to report, which tasks in his or her position could already be done for a smooth open.”
A key to the “close to open” philosophy’s success is the consistency with which it’s executed. You and your employees must follow through on individual responsibilities every shift. Constant and consistent follow-up will lead to permanent, positive behavior changes from your managers and your hourly employees. You’ve installed a series of checks and balances. As employees pick up and complete tasks they are responsible for, you’ll never enter the restaurant facing surprises due to the previous shift’s shortcomings.
Restaurant Leadership Tip: Get SMART
At any time during the day, you can encounter “pop-ups” – unexpected events that steer you away form your current course of action. Stacked side by side, they disrupt your daily, weekly and monthly plans. Before you know it, you’re caught on a treadmill, running as fast as you can but getting nowhere.
To get your operation moving forward again, it’s paramount to set goals supported by well-defined, written objectives. They specify what needs to be done, how it will be measured, who will be responsible, when goals will be reached, and what the overall impact will be. They get your operation off the treadmill and back on track.
In the hectic, high-turnover environment of a restaurant, however, goals and objectives can seem impossible to manage on a consistent basis. It’s easy to slip into a reactive mode, responding to things that have already occurred. It doesn’t take long to realize the need for long-term planning. When it comes to establishing goals and objectives, one proven acronym can help you remember the process: SMART – Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, Timely.
Want more real-world solutions to becoming a better restaurant manager? Check out Get A Life: Running Your Restaurant without Running Out of Time
If You Think You’re In the Restaurant Business, You’re Wrong
If we asked you to define what business you work in, you’d probably say the “restaurant” or “hotel” or “bar” business. And do you know what? You’d be wrong! That’s not the business you’re in. We’re in the business of retail sales, not the “quick-service,” “restaurant,” “bar,” or “hotel” business.
A restaurant or bar is not merely a “place to eat or drink,” but rather a building designed to accommodate, facilitate and promote the retail sales of food and beverage to customers through service. We provide service as a way of making sales to those customers. The restaurant or bar is a physical space. Our business is designing and using that space to make sales. Why do you think we call our restaurants “stores”?
Once the analogy between foodservice and retail sales is understood we can then differentiate between what we do and what we should be doing. First, we begin by making a distinction between our business’s function and our goal.
- Our function as a business is to acquire and maintain customers.
- Our goal is to be profitable.
If you agree with this, you must ask yourself: “How do I successfully manage my business’s function every day so that we will make money? The answer is quite simply: TRAINING.
Restaurant Management Tip – Take a Lap
Few actions can place you in a positive light better than leaving on a positive note at the end of each working day. As you depart for the day, take a lap around your entire restaurant, shaking hands and thanking employees, by name, for the good efforts and support.
Keep it light and sincere, mentioning noteworthy performances. It’s crucial to leave your followers with the knowledge that you appreciate what they do. Citing specific examples demonstrates your awareness and ability to recognize desirable shift behaviors. Thanking employees communicates that you’re approachable.
Need more ideas to improve management in your restaurant? Check out Leadership Now: Achieving Restaurant Management Excellence In 30 Days.
Restaurant Management Training: Turn Managers into Leaders
You may be new to the ranks of management. Or taking the helm after relocating to a different store. Or just looking for a fresh start in your current position. Whatever the case, you can achieve restaurant management excellence in just 30 days.
During this period, the things you say and do, the tests of will you encounter, the decisions you make and the bonds you develop all will contribute to how quickly your employees follow your lead. Remember, your followers make you a leader, not the other way around. Although your title as manager carries a certain level of distinction and authority, it no longer supersedes the need to earn respect and establish credibility with your employees.
It’s critical to make every day count, which is why your plan to leadership success should be broken down into daily leadership activities and a weekly action plan like this one:
Week One
- Be Approachable
- Get Organized
Week Two
- Implement Change
- Make Sound Decisions
Week Three
- Surround Yourself With Great People
- Be a Great Counselor
Week Four
- Build Your Team
- Make Things Happen
Are you ready to take action? C’mon, Big Kahuna, it’s time to stop bossing and start leading.
For a detailed action plan to restaurant management success, click here to check out Leadership Now: Achieving Restaurant Management Excellence in 30 Days.
Your Restaurant’s Internal Customers Key to Economic Survival
Competition for the customer has sky-rocketed. Operators are introducing value pricing and loyalty programs… anything to keep their focus on getting people through the door. While these efforts are indeed necessary, micro-focusing on the needs of external customers often takes energy away from an equally important group of people – internal customers.
The concept of internal customers is nothing new. Most people understand and agree with the general theory. Happy and satisfied employees lead to happy and satisfied guests. When it comes to achieving a successful relationship between managers and staff, one fundamental concept stands above the rest: appreciation.
When employees feel that their hard work isn’t taken for granted by their managers or their co-workers, they are much more likely to go above and beyond the call of duty, both for guests and for each other. As the economic climate continues to test operators’ abilities to adapt to the changing needs of customers, don’t forget to spend time focusing on internal customers. How they’re treated is a direct reflection on guest satisfaction – and guest loyalty.
