How do you manage a restaurant?
Running a restaurant entails the everyday management of:
- Finances and margins
- Menus
- Staff
- Stocks, deliveries and supplier relations
- Staff shift rotas
- Bookings
- Customers.
Control your restaurant finances and margins
Managing cash flow with a deft hand is key to the sustainability of a restaurant business.
To ensure good financial management, start by rigorously maintaining a cash flow statement showing both receipts (specifying sales channel and payment means) and disbursements (payroll, rent, raw materials, taxes, etc.).
Being aware of cash in and cash out means you can keep an eye on your cash flow, anticipate any potential financial pitfalls and put in place solutions to improve your breakeven point.Pour assurer la pérennité de son restaurant, la trésorerie doit être gérée d’une main de maître.
Managing restaurant finances and margins also involves:
- Proper budgeting of the expenses and resources needed to maintain operations
- Appropriate selling prices
- Good inventory management
- Calculating ratios (food cost percentage, payroll percentage, etc.)
- Daily monitoring of the number of covers, cost price per dish, gross margin, etc.
As you can see, mastering some basic accounting skills is critical for optimising the financial management of your business.
To make this complex task – essential to the proper management of a restaurant – that little bit easier, accounting software can be an invaluable ally. These solutions provide a rapid overview of cash flow, gross margin, ratios and other key indicators. Do not hesitate to also hire an accountant, who can take charge of managing your restaurant’s finances.
Design an attractive menu for your restaurant
As the calling card of your restaurant, your menu must be attractive – both in form (elegant design, modern typography, simple layout, etc. ) and in content (high quality dishes, transparency of product origin, etc.).
When designing a menu, simplicity is key. Make sure your menu is short – a menu that offers too much choice is more costly, harder to manage and more taxing for customers to read.
Your menu prices should be fair and based on factors such as the cost of raw materials, the type of cuisine, competitors’ prices, and so on.
Do not be afraid to modify or update your menu or remove dishes that are not selling.
Manage staff and organise shift rotas
Managing teams and organising shift rotas is also part of running a restaurant.
Personnel management entails the following, in particular :
- Hiring staff (the restaurant sector suffers from high turnover – it is important to have en effective recruitment method in place)
- Delegating duties and organising regular reviews
- Organising training and developing the skills of your teams
- Fostering a positive working atmosphere in a safe and caring environment
- Favouring team wellbeing, motivation and commitment (valuing and thanking staff, fostering team spirit, minimising sources of stress, etc.)
- Appraising employees and giving constructive feedback.
To ensure the smooth running of a restaurant, a restaurant manager should lead and motivate staff in a professional, caring and energetic way.
It is also down to the restaurant manager to meticulously organise staff rotas. You should start by listing all the tasks that need doing on a daily basis (cleaning, maintenance, dish prep, decorating, managing bookings, taking orders, serving, cashing up, etc.). Depending on how long each task takes, determine your staffing requirements and draw up a workable, realistic rota (weekly, fortnightly or monthly).
