Learn How to Run a Restaurant Successfully
Maybe the best way to explain running a restaurant is to use an analogy of a zoo with an attached amusement park. The zoo is your staff and operations; the amusement park is the entertainment and food you provide your guests while in your restaurant.
The Zoo
If you have ever been in the back of the house at any restaurant during service, or a zoo during feeding time, then you have an idea of what running a restaurant kitchen and areas the customer doesn’t see. There is a lot of shouting, noise, heat, smoke, clamor, rushing and people jockeying for position. All, of course, choreographed for expediency and making the guest’s experience eventful. To a stranger, it would appear to be chaos.
Running this part of a restaurant takes planning and constant reevaluation to make things easier, faster and less costly. Planning starts when you open your doors for the first time and perpetuates for the life of the restaurant.
To summarize your job as owner/manager you must:
- Be a cheer leader, disciplinarian, priest and accountant all at the same time.
- Train before the employee ever performs their function and re-train as your restaurant grows and menu changes.
- Account for everything that comes into the back door as an accountant would audit your books.
- Be a mathematician to make certain the costs coming in the back door relate to the price on a menu and provides enough margin to pay the bills.
- Be a plumber, electrician, food safety expert, janitor, chef and dishwasher all in just a few hours every evening.
That is how you run a restaurant in the part the customer doesn’t see.
The Amusement Park
In an amusement park you should see a lot of smiles and happy faces. The same applies to running a restaurant. If you don’t, something is wrong.
Regardless of what happens in the back of the house, staff should be smiling in the front of the house. The appearance of chaos in the back is replaced with precision efficiency in the front. There is a steady orchestrated flow of people from staff to guests. The laughter, conversations and din of voices makes an almost musical atmosphere that is replicated night after night.
In an amusement park, customers are treated much like a party guest in your home. The goal is to make sure they have a good time to insure a return visit. Every detail is tailored to the guest’s comfort, pleasure and satisfaction.
When you walk out of the kitchen, your job immediately changes as owner/manager. You become:
- A customer advocate by visiting tables.
- A smiling psychologist that hides every emotion and action including server direction, customer problems and the occasional emergency.
- The calming factor for a mass of people trying to enjoy food, fun and their experience.
- A greeter, busboy, director, server helper, bar back, floor cleaner, bathroom inspector, safety inspector and mental note taker for the next day’s events.
That’s how you run a restaurant in the part of the house the customer sees.
The Reality of Running a Restaurant
While this short over simplified version of how to run a restaurant gives the reader a thumbnail sketch of what happens from front to back, all the details and thousands of steps to run a profitable operation can be found in The Restaurant Ebook. This 150 page guide of everything from staff training to marketing gives you the skills, ideas and motivation to improve or open your restaurant. Operating a restaurant café or any kind of food service operation takes patience, determination and constant learning.
Stagnation in the restaurant business doesn’t exist. It is a vibrant ever changing business that becomes addicting like a ride on faster, higher and more thrilling roller coaster!
