Restaurants often project a polished veneer, hiding a large network of operations that keeps the business running smoothly and customers happy. Building and streamlining your own restaurant operations doesn’t happen without forethought.
To improve your restaurant operations, enhance the dining experience, and increase revenue, take advantage of these top tips. Learn about the importance of restaurant operations management and take control of yours.
Restaurant Operations Management Explained
Restaurant operations management refers to the set of processes for overseeing the daily tasks involved in running a restaurant. It includes the management of everything from stocktaking to employee scheduling.
Restaurants have two prominent sectors, the back-of-house (BOH) and the front-of-house (FOH). They overlap in certain areas but still run almost independently of one another without operations management.
Effective restaurant operations management bridges the BOH and FOH operations, and third parties like vendors. As such, it ensures everything runs like a well-oiled machine, improving the overall function of a restaurant, staff service, and customer satisfaction.
Restaurant managers usually manage restaurant operations. It’s a full-time role, one that restaurant owners rarely have the time for. The position is critical. An effective operations manager knows how to improve restaurant operations, streamline internal processes, and coax the full earning potential out of a restaurant.
What Is the Goal of Operations Management?
Restaurant operations management has one goal: improve restaurant operations to increase restaurant revenue.
A restaurant with effective operations management runs better. The kitchen always has what it needs. Wait staff are well trained and quick. The customer service is top tier. Vendors provide quality products and fast delivery.
When a restaurant can tick all these boxes, operations run more smoothly and the restaurant makes more money.
Restaurant operations management is also there to ensure employee and guest safety. Operations management includes consistently implementing food safety regulations, efficient emergency procedures, and strict cleaning guidelines.
Combine all the ways operations management improves a restaurant’s function, service, and reputation. Picture it in your head. A restaurant that streamlines its restaurant operations has staggering earning and brand growth potential.
How to Improve Restaurant Operations
Improving your restaurant operations doesn’t have to be difficult. Implement these top tips to improve restaurant operations management and cement your restaurant business as one of the best in the industry.
Conduct SWOT Analysis
Before you overhaul your restaurant operations management, you need to determine what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and how you’d like to improve your restaurant.
That’s where a SWOT analysis comes in. A SWOT analysis examines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your restaurant operations.
To conduct a SWOT analysis, you first need to determine your operations goal. Consider a particular area in your restaurant you’d like to improve, like faster food delivery. Next, put forward a few ideas and gather opinions and data to determine the relevance and earning potential of your new operations idea.
When you’ve collected all you need, refine your idea and create a strategy for achieving your objective. Remember to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the idea, as well as possible opportunities and threats.
Don’t hesitate to get others involved. Get your general managers’ input. Ask your employees for their niche insights and collect the ones you feel are relevant.
From there, use your SWOT analysis to strategically incorporate new operations management processes into your restaurant. Repeat the process as many times as you need and continue to make strategic adjustments to your restaurant operations.
Invest in Your Employees
The next critical step to improving restaurant operations is investing in your employees. A restaurant, even one with great food, is only as good as the employees are. When employees feel valued and have the tools and resources they need, they provide better service.
Here are a few effective ways to invest in your employees:
- Provide the Right Tools: Restaurant employees are always in need of tools, from software to uniforms, to working pay points. As a restaurant owner or manager, you need to provide all the tools your employees need. That’s the only way to ensure employees do their work effectively and efficiently.
- Provide Good Onboarding: Restaurant training is often left to other employees. But all this does is provide a disjointed mix of mentoring that is inconsistent and subjective. Ensure your employees are all on the same page and keep your operations smooth with good and consistent employee training. Utilize online training courses or a handful of mentors who stick to the training curriculum.
- Create a Good Work Culture: Employee happiness is often overlooked, even though it’s especially important in the restaurant industry. An employee who hates their job and work environment won’t provide good customer service. So, develop a good work culture, one of appreciation and positivity. Hold regular team meetings, actively listen to employee opinions, and reward good work—these are just a few ways you can build a better work culture.
Invest in Restaurant Technology to Automate Tasks
Technology in restaurants is becoming the norm, and for good reason. Restaurant tech is powerful. It allows employees and managers to automate many of the most time-consuming restaurant operations.
For example, there’s restaurant stock-taking software and employee scheduling software to consider. Restaurant stock-taking software, also known as inventory management software, simplifies inventory tracking and food costs. Employee scheduling software centralizes staff schedules for easier management and better forecasting.
By implementing restaurant technology, you can optimize and automate your restaurant operations for smoother and faster management.
Have a Clean and Organized Kitchen
Food safety is critical for a restaurant. 85% of polled consumers said they would never visit a restaurant with negative reviews about cleanliness. That’s a lot of potential customers to gamble with.
Besides the potential revenue loss, a clean and organized kitchen will improve kitchen operations. Staff work faster and more efficiently in an organized kitchen, allowing you to serve customers and bring in new ones faster.
So, optimize kitchen operations with clear food preparation guidelines and a good inventory management system. Consistently enforce food safety guidelines. Prevent cross-contamination. Keep all stations clean, organized, and ready to fulfill orders.
Keeping the kitchen clean and organized should become a habit with your employees.
Reduce Food Waste
Food waste is a major issue in the restaurant industry and it’s bad for both businesses and the environment. It’s expensive, with half a pound of food lost for every meal made in the restaurant. It’s especially bad when you consider how much of that food could have been donated and how it affects restaurant operations.
Whether you’re feeling altruistic or you’re in it for practical business applications, reducing food waste benefits everyone.
As for how to reduce food waste, start with the work culture. Make it a priority for kitchen staff to waste as little food as possible. And, where there is food waste, donate whatever can be donated. Use the rest to feed compost heaps or other farming initiatives.
Improve Restaurant Security
As restaurant management becomes more digital, the threat of theft has turned away from cash robbers to hackers. One break in your network gives a hacker access to all your restaurant operations and accounts. It puts your clients and reputation at risk.
To protect your restaurant, invest in a security audit. A professional will identify weaknesses in your restaurant systems and provide solutions for guarding yourself. This is especially important for your POS systems.
Create a Restaurant Operations Manual
Memory is fickle. No matter how good your restaurant onboarding is, your employees will need a refresher. Or, in this case, a manual to turn to when they’re unsure about something.
Create a restaurant operations manual. It doesn’t need to be long or excessively thick. Just provide quick summaries of restaurant policies and procedures in the manual, enough to jog an employee's memory. Make the process easier with a clear index and categories.
Pass the manual on to your employees during their onboarding. Leave another in clear view, so that employees can turn to it whenever they need to.
Streamline Your Bookkeeping
Restaurant bookkeeping is notoriously time-consuming. It also has a knock-on effect. If one number is out of order, it risks affecting the entire restaurant’s operations.
Fortunately, there are ways to optimize and streamline restaurant bookkeeping.
Utilize restaurant accounting software to automate the most time-consuming tasks and ensure accurate numbers. Also, make everyday record-keeping a priority. The more consistent you input all expenses and income, the less likely you are to miss a receipt.
If the restaurant has the budget, enlist the help of a full-time bookkeeper. It’ll free up your restaurant operations manager – time they can then use to improve restaurant operations in other parts of the restaurant.
Conclusion
Improving restaurant operations is a highly effective way to streamline internal operations. And there are more than a few ways for you to take charge and optimize your restaurant.
Utilize the above tips and slowly work them into your general restaurant operations. Not only will it make your restaurant run smoother, but it’ll also have a domino effect in other areas, improving revenue and brand reputation.
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