Succeeding in Restaurant Management.....

[Ryan Heatherson]

Hi Every One,
Managing a restaurant comes with quite a lot more responsibility than many really understand, and it is a very competitive business that keeping yourself well informed is definitely key. Keeping yourself abreast of not only the latest trends in marketing and sales, but also technology used in your restaurant as well as what's going on with your employees are only a few of the things that a manager often finds themselves having to do. Being able to maintain a really well balanced budget in your restaurant both with staff and with your inventory will have you running your business in a manner that is not only working out for you, but for your restaurant as well.

Know Your Employees

Keeping the restaurant running smoothly really involves many aspects- but none nearly as important as knowing the people that are working under you has many benefits. Making sure that you have the best staff for the job, but also that you have the appropriate number of staff on hand at all times for the flow of customers is vital. Another area which sadly is an issue is employee theft, and, in knowing your employees, you can prevent this loss before it happens. Keeping in staff conflicts at a minimum and maintaining a professional working relationship with your employees is definitely one smart management tool you just can't be without. Being able to add that human touch to your management, as well helps you to keep on solid and dependable employees through earning a loyalty that a heavy hand may not.

Know Your Stock

A big area of loss for some managers is not knowing their inventory. It may seem like a retail only area, but it isn't. Knowing how much food you have on hand and using that before it goes bad is important, but also being able to plan ahead for busier times by having enough stock to meet the demand enables you to provide greater customer service. No one likes hearing that what they've ordered is unavailable. Keeping tabs on the stock you have on hand, and what is selling and what isn't can certainly be another way to make sure that your costs verses profits are balancing out to a better budget.

Know The Trends

If you know that you do heavy traffic on a Friday, but not on a Monday- you wouldn't want to have the same number of staff on those two days. It seems like common sense, but some managers make the mistake of either overstaffing or understaffing and this causes a great deal of loss- in either not having enough staff to provide the best customer service, or having to pay labor on employees and staff you don't need. Also, being able to make an intelligent choice on keeping on staff or cutting them during slow times can help to save on labor costs- but not every manager makes this choice. Finding a good balance in how many employees to have on at all times is vital to a well balanced restaurant budget.

Every restaurant manager should be looking for ways to cut costs and reduce overhead. Reducing expense of purchasing cooking oils, while reducing burn liability is an excellent way to accomplish this.

Best Regards..........

[psamuels]

Hi there, everyone will tell you that owning and running a restaurant is hectic, my main advice to restaurant entrepreneurs is to use 21st C productivity tools that give you more of that most valuable commodity...time.

Key areas include:
- Finding new customers and keeping existing business / Marketing
- Food Logistics
- Staff Management
- Table/booking management & billing
- Financial reporting, Accounts payable and Accounting.

If you are like me, being gen Y or X, then you'll be sweet with leveraging internet tools as a way to promote and run your business - i've found working with older restaurant owners that they are less likely to be adopters of technology, but this doesn't help in a competitive and financially challenging environment.

For me the most time consuming area has been food logistics and staff management, you really need a hands on approach for this. For marketing, tables/booking management and the financial area I use web and iphone applications.

The most useful tool for me which has been a godsend is yumtable.com - a last minute restaurant booking service, essentially allows you to post tables and deals online where you have quiet time periods, eg Mon/Tuesday evenings or for last minute cancellations. But because you can tailor your own offers at any time period for any number of tables, i've also used it for specials as well, eg I got a good deal on snapper and offered 5 tables a night for a special sitting at 5pm with a movie ticket with a snapper main. It's great fun and new and old customers have used it - Offers are also automatically posted to your facebook and twitter accounts 2 hours before they expire - which leverages the social network of my cafe. I also get bookings from text messages so it's very efficient and with no equipment costs and it's free to use for the first 20 bookings to see if it works.

opentable.com has also been handy but I find that most of my customers have bookmarked my phone number to call for a booking rather than bothering online.

For accounting I'm using xero.com, it's an amazing tool that literally takes your purchases from your bank feeds and after you teach it, will remember what transaction should go to what account - this is truly a huuuuge time saver. Being online, at any point i can log in and see the status of my business and it's health - without minimal need for a bookkeeper. Costs around $50 a month but worth it for you not having to think about your accounts, whenever i log in it's all there without the need to spend early hours of the morning entering in receipts, etc.

The last tool i've found useful is billstrust.com - this nifty online business is awesome for businesses that get lots of bills from lots of sources - you can simply grab any bill including hand written ones and fax/email or take a pic with your camera phone and email it - and this service will handle data entry and queue up the bill for payment by the due date - you can view at any one time your liabilities due over coming months. I get stacks of supplier bills as well as your standard electricity/gas bills so all my bills are in one place - and i can sync it with my xero account to have a real time picture of where my business is at - again this saves on the need for a bookkeeper.

The only thing i'd like to be easier is payroll management, but i'm looking into solutions at the moment for that.

Hope this has helped. cheers