Restaurant Management: 8 Tips on How to Manage a Restaurant

Managing a restaurant comes with a fair bit of responsibility. In this article, we’re going to explore 8 best restaurant management tips managers should be aware of to succeed in the restaurant industry.

What Makes a Great Restaurant Manager?

Managing a restaurant is one of the most important roles within the restaurant industry. A great restaurant manager needs top-level communication, leadership, and organizational skills to keep their staff and customers happy.

Happy employees are good employees. Apart from the day-to-day business practices like managing budgets, marketing, monitoring cash flow, and ensuring everything runs smoothly, a great restaurant manager has a deep understanding of customer and employee needs.

Restaurant owners rely on restaurant managers to uphold high standards and promote growth. Overall, your ability to balance the needs of staff, customers, and the business creates a successful and efficient environment. But let’s dive a bit deeper.

1. Consistency in Management

Consistency is a cornerstone of your success in restaurant management. It involves maintaining uniform standards and expectations across all areas of operation.

You should seek to establish clear lines of restaurant communication so that all staff members have a complete understanding of their roles and responsibilities and are readily informed about any changes in policies or procedures. Regular meetings and feedback sessions can help address concerns and keep everyone on the same page.

Maintaining Rules and Expectations

Enforcing rules and expectations consistently is vital. This includes standard operating procedures (SOPs) for food preparation, service protocols, and employee conduct. Maintaining consistent standards ensures a reliable customer experience, reduces errors, and enhances operational efficiency.

2. Investing in Technology

Today’s food service industry is ridden with technology. In fact, it’s virtually impossible to perform your day-to-day operations without it. And so, in order to carry out efficient restaurant staff management while also keeping track of food quality, restaurant complaints, labor costs, food costs, and restaurant marketing, you’re going to need some serious support.

The good thing about managing a restaurant in this day and age is that you can focus on the more rewarding aspects of the job, like ensure excellent customer service, coming up with fun promotions or giving your staff more one-on-one attention so that everyone’s taken care of.

Online Ordering Systems for Improved Order Management

Roughly seventy percent of customers prefer ordering food online and want it delivered. Restaurants are somewhat forced to use multiple online ordering apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub just to remain competitive. This presents a new challenge in regard to managing cash flow and keeping track of all orders.

A good solution to this challenge is incorporating a food ordering system that will allow you to:

Sell food directly to your customers and save a lot of money on commissions.

Manage all third-party orders in one place.

Connect to your current POS system.

Tools for Scheduling and Management

Scheduling software can help you create and manage staff schedules more efficiently, reducing conflicts and ensuring adequate coverage during peak times. Management tools also assist in tracking employee performance, managing inventory, and handling payroll. You can use a restaurant schedule template to create one that fits your restaurant best.

3. Food Safety and Hygiene in the Restaurant Industry

Food safety and hygiene violations can lead to fines, closures, lawsuits, or damage to your reputation. Ensure your staff is trained in proper food handling and familiar with standards set by the FDA’s Food Code and local health boards. This is a must for everyone within the hospitality industry, hospitality management in particular.

These guidelines cover hand washing, food storage and labeling, cooking temperatures, and injury handling. Although speed is essential in a kitchen, it should never compromise sanitation. Implement written policies, pre- and post-shift checklists, and comprehensive training protocols to maintain high food safety and hygiene standards.

4. Proactive Management

Restaurant management is not just about keeping track of revenue and meeting customer expectations. As a manager, you’re expected to keep up with the Joneses by coming up with new menu ideas, marketing strategies that will attract customers, and ways to minimize employee turnover, which can get really costly. In other words, you have to be proactive.

Anticipating Staffing Needs, Menu Updates, Marketing

In essence, you have to be capable of anticipating staffing needs based on business trends and peak periods. This includes planning for menu updates to keep your offer fresh and appealing to customers.

5. Hands-on Experience & Staff Retention

Another thing a good restaurant manager has to have is hands-on experience. After all, core responsibilities of restaurant management is keeping good relationships with folks on both sides of the table; the customer and the staff.

Learning by Doing

Unlike computing tasks like revenue management, managing staff really does require a fair bit of experience. When you actively participate in daily operations, you gain insights into the challenges faced by your staff. This practical experience helps in making informed decisions and developing effective strategies to improve efficiency and service quality.

Building Respect and Understanding Among Staff

When you work alongside your team, it builds mutual respect and understanding. Employees are more likely to follow a leader who understands their work and demonstrates a willingness to share in their responsibilities.

Staff Retention

Training new staff can be costly and slow down some of your operations. At the same time, some of the entry-level positions, like waiting, will almost inevitably have to be replaced each season.

This is simply because of the job’s seasonal nature. Half of your job is keeping a positive attitude and maximizing employee retention while also making sure you keep social media ads running in search of new employees.

Since many of the jobs in the restaurant industry are seasonal, as a restaurant manager, you’ll have to stay on top of the hiring cycles.

Strategies for Hiring and Retaining Staff

To build a reliable team, you need to implement effective hiring strategies. Look for candidates who not only have the required skills but also fit well with your restaurant’s culture. Once hired, focus on comprehensive training and development programs to ensure they are well-equipped for their roles.

6. Customer Satisfaction

One of the things that can either make or break your restaurant management career is customer satisfaction. As you probably know, when the customer is unsatisfied with the service, they’ll call for the restaurant manager, not the chef or the owner.

It’s on you to stay positive and always make sure to do everything you can to leave the customer as happy as possible without jeopardizing relationships with the staff.

Managing and Improving Customer Experience

Ensuring customers are always satisfied is no easy task; there are some things that are in your control and some that aren’t. No matter the situation, however, you’re pretty much not allowed to show any negative attitude toward the customer. A restaurant feedback system is essential to gather customer data and analyze it correctly.

Always aim to improve things within your control, like streamlining order efficiency by letting customers pay at the table and ensuring service and food quality are absolutely top-notch. Make sure to engrave a solid work ethic that produces steady results. This goes for everyone on the team.

Balancing Customer Satisfaction with Staff Care

While it’s important to prioritize customer satisfaction, you also need to consider your staff’s welfare. For example, overworked employees can experience burnout, which is not exactly great either for them or the customer.

7. Management Techniques

There are a few restaurant management techniques that you can use to improve your restaurant. Make sure not to abuse them, and try not to blindly follow instructions. Nobody knows your staff and the situation as well as you do.

Manage your time well: Use scheduling tools to plan your day and prioritize tasks. Set specific times for meetings, inventory checks, and other recurring tasks. Try using apps like Google Calendar or restaurant management software to keep things organized and set reminders for important tasks.
Resolve conflicts quickly: Address conflicts as soon as they pop up to keep things from getting worse. Use mediation techniques to help everyone communicate openly. Create a conflict resolution policy and train your staff on how to handle disputes. Practice real-life scenarios during training.
Keep your team motivated: Recognize and reward hard work. Set up an employee of the month program or offer performance-based bonuses. Regularly acknowledge individual and team achievements, both publicly and privately, to keep morale high.
Offer ongoing training: Regular training sessions and workshops keep your staff knowledgeable and skilled. Bring in experts for sessions on customer service, new cooking techniques, or health standards. Create a training schedule for new hires and ongoing education. Use e-learning platforms like Udemy for flexible training options.
Streamline your workflow: Look at your current processes to spot bottlenecks and areas for improvement. Rearrange the kitchen layout to minimize movement and improve communication. Conduct a workflow audit with your team and implement changes based on their feedback. Monitor results to see how well the changes work.
Track performance: Keep an eye on key performance indicators (KPIs) like table turnover rate, average check size, and labor cost percentage. Use POS system reports to track sales data and identify trends. Create a real-time dashboard for restaurant KPIs and review them weekly to make informed decisions about staffing, menu changes, and marketing.
Organize team-building activities: Plan regular events to strengthen relationships among your staff. Schedule monthly outings like group dinners, escape rooms, cooking classes, or sports events to boost collaboration and overall performance.
Maintain open communication: Keep communication lines open with your staff. Use regular meetings, bulletin boards, or digital platforms to share important information. Set up weekly staff meetings to discuss updates, address concerns, and plan for the upcoming week. Tools like Slack or Trello can help keep communication organized and accessible.
Interested in more? Follow the link to learn more about restaurant manager duties.

8. Effective Restaurant Marketing Advertising

The restaurant business has always been extremely competitive when it comes to marketing and advertising. Most restaurant management jobs will inevitably require you to understand marketing and advertising at a good level. In essence, you’re responsible for the success of your location. You basically have to be able to use all the tools at your disposal to drive more revenue and meet your restaurant goals.

Restaurant Marketing Tools

The first thing you should look into is restaurant marketing software that would allow you to carry out all, or at least the majority of, your marketing objectives in one place. In essence, you’d want something that would allow you to target your customers on multiple channels and gather customer data necessary for remarketing.

Restaurant Marketing Plan

As a restaurant manager, you’ll likely be responsible for coming up with restaurant marketing ideas. Since most restaurant managers do not have any background in marketing, you might want to consider getting to know the ins and outs of restaurant marketing before spending too much money on your marketing ideas.