#howtomanagearestaurant

[antonpepushaj]

Be right on schedule

I think that one of the top things that managers must focus on is scheduling, you have to make sure that the restaurant is always properly staffed, because otherwise the shift will be dreadful. Flexibility should always be considered whenever possible, because helping them will come back to help you, maybe another day, you will need someone to come in and they’ll do that for you, so it helps build a good relationship with your staff (Mega, 2019). Some of the things that managers have to look out for when they are doing their schedules for the week/month is events happening around the area, like if there is a baseball game in the park next to your restaurant, best believe that you will be way busier than a regular Tuesday night for example. Holidays are also very important to look out for, a lot of restaurants have a blackout period during certain holidays because that’s when everyone decides to travel and take days off, but they also can’t deny time off from everyone and sometimes its your key people that want it off, so they have to have a back-up plan for situations like that otherwise, you’ll have mediocre crew working and the restaurant won’t run as smoothly as it usually does, which results in sales going down, unsatisfied customers, you might also lose customers in the process, sometimes people quit going to a certain restaurant just because of one bad experience. I think that keeping the relationship with the customers is very important, but this all just goes back to making sure that you keep an eye on what’s happening in the area, and what’s happening in the near future. The thing with using scheduling programs that people sometimes forget is if you put for example, Jimmy 4:00pm – 12:00am every Monday, then it will stay like that until it is changed, and it’s technically a time saver because you won’t have to do that every week, but when someone books a day off, they won’t change it, so if Jimmy decides to take next Monday off, the program will still schedule him and then you will be left with a shift that’s not properly staffed and in turn, the customers will be the ones who pay the price, so I think that keeping an eye on scheduling is very crucial.

Image source

[antonpepushaj]

Watch your stock level

Without it, you literally cannot run your restaurant, if you can’t supply the product then you won’t have a business, so making sure that your restaurant is fully stocked and ready for the day’s trading is very important. Demands in stock change with holidays and special events as well, sometimes restaurants will go through 2-3x the regular amount of stock on special occasions, especially if there are coupons being sent out or special promotions, like McDonalds’ $0.67 hamburger, we went through around 5-6 boxes of meat on that day, when on a regular day we will go through a max of 2, so the volume of the customers was unpredictable but because we ordered way more than usual, we had enough stock for the whole day without having to go to another store for stock. Some restaurants however did run low on meat so it was very tough to leave the restaurant at such a busy time to get stock, which in the end hurt everyone, the general manager had to go get stock so she couldn’t help manage the floor, which in the end slowed down the times of when a customer orders, and when they get their food. So I think that stock is the most important thing, without it, you don’t have anything to sell, your demand will be high but your supply will be none, which brings no money in for the establishment, and to pay the salaries of the crew people. So all of these things go hand-in-hand, they all have to work simultaneously in order to have a functional restaurant, doesn’t necessarily have to be a franchise, there are plenty of McDonald’s that are not franchises, that are run the same exact way, it’s just their reporting bosses who are different.