This is the kind of stuff that puts most people to sleep but can save a restaurant from certain doom. Go get some coffee cuz this is important (if you own a restaurant or are thinking about owning one). Restaurant back offices are often like giant junk drawers, with the bare minimum functionality needed to generate enough records to comply with the IRS. Someone, somewhere, stated out loud: “managers should not be in the office!”… and it stuck as restaurant lore... as if face-time with customers and employees is the only important part of controlling operations. The problem with this …

As far as a restaurant’s profitability goes, the lowest of the low hanging fruit is often found in a poorly planned tip tracking program.  Owners and operators leave money on the table when they don’t accurately plan the incomes of their support staff and schedule employees to deliver results.  They also get into lots of trouble as the government cracks down on under-reporting tips. The support staff I’m talking about consists of positions like busser, food runner, server assistant, bar back, front desk team, etc.  These are folks that are often new to the service industry and are paying their …

Folks often ask us to help them with "training"..but  what does that mean?. Teaching someone how to do something they didn’t know how to before? Correcting a bad behavior?  Conditioning the mind to do something instinctively, without hesitating or thinking? Helping someone improve an existing skill?  Instinctively, most restaurateurs know “training” is important but they don't fully understand what it takes to get someone sufficiently "trained" to do their job. They DO know that, when someone is "trained", they can leave that employee alone and they will get the job done competently and confidently without much prompting or hand holding.  …

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a planning meeting at a major corporation.  They were rolling out a new training program and were already encountering big problems with the system.  The team leader outlined the issues, asked for suggestions, received very few and the meeting ended with no resolutions.  Later  in the day I heard almost everyone who attended that meeting talking about the problems with the system and many had great ideas.  I wondered why no one had voiced their ideas in the meeting so I just kept listening.  I kept hearing more great ideas, but …