Category

Restaurant operations

This is the category that has nothing to do with marketing. It covers the numbers and habits that decide whether a busy restaurant makes money: prime cost, where labor variance actually hides, food cost that does not match the invoices, and why procedures get ignored by the second week. It is written for an owner-operator who did not train in finance and does not have a controller. After reading it you should be able to read your own P&L, find the points you are losing, and put in a control that survives contact with a Friday night.

Start here

• Labor variance: how to find the four points you are losing Read this first. It is the most common four points of margin sitting unclaimed in an independent restaurant.
• Reading a restaurant P&L when you did not train in finance The statement you already receive, explained in the order that makes it useful.
• Prime cost and why it is the only number that matters some months The one number to watch weekly when you do not have time to watch anything else.

All twenty articles on restaurant operations

In reading order rather than by date. 20 published so far, and the rest are written and scheduled. Titles without a link are not live yet.

1. Labor variance: how to find the four points you are losing

   Labor variance is the gap between the labor you planned and the labor you actually paid.

2. Reading a restaurant P&L when you did not train in finance

   A restaurant P&L answers one question: of every dollar that came in, where did it go and what stayed.

3. Prime cost and why it is the only number that matters some months

   Prime cost is cost of goods sold plus total labor, including payroll taxes and benefits.

4. Scheduling mistakes that quietly cost a shift's margin

   The schedule decides most of a shift's margin before anyone arrives. The costly mistakes are not overstaffing a busy night, they are copying last week forward, starting everyone at the.

5. Food cost variance: where it actually hides

   Food cost variance is the gap between what your recipes say the food should have cost and what it actually cost.

6. What to do when two locations perform differently

   Start by separating the three causes: market, management, and measurement.

7. Vendor negotiation for independent operators

   Independent operators do not win on volume, so stop negotiating like volume is the lever.

8. Building a closing procedure people actually follow

   A closing procedure gets followed when it is short, ordered by the room rather than by category, assigned to a named position, and verified by something other than a signature.

9. Why your SOPs get ignored by week two

   SOPs get ignored because following one is harder than not following it, and nothing in the shift notices the difference.

10. The operating controls that hold under a Friday night rush

    A control holds under pressure when it does not require a decision. Anything that asks someone to stop, judge, and choose during a rush gets skipped, and they are right to skip it.

11. Manager development for owner-operators who cannot be everywhere

    You develop managers by handing over decisions, not tasks. A manager who executes your instructions is a supervisor.

12. Inventory systems for small restaurants that are worth the effort

    An inventory system is worth the effort only when the count changes an order.

13. Waste tracking without a full inventory program

    You can track waste with a clipboard. Put a sheet where the trash is, write down what got thrown out, why, and how much, and total it once a week.

14. How to onboard a new kitchen hire in the first two weeks

    Onboarding a kitchen hire is a two week process with three checkpoints: day three, day seven, day fourteen.

15. Reading your POS data for something other than sales

    Your POS records every transaction, not just the total. Five reports are worth pulling every week: item mix, sales by hour, ticket time, discounts by employee, and average party size.

16. Comps, voids, and what they tell you about the floor

    A void removes an item before it was made. A comp removes the charge after the guest already has the food.

17. When to raise menu prices and how to do it without losing covers

    Raise prices when your costs have moved and the value you deliver has not changed.

18. Staffing to a forecast instead of to a feeling

    A forecast is a written number for expected sales and covers on a specific shift, produced before the schedule is built.

19. The daily numbers an operator should see before opening

    Six numbers, every morning, before the doors open. Yesterday's sales against forecast, yesterday's labor hours against schedule, today's forecast with reservations on the book, cash.

20. What changes when you go from one location to two

    Everything you were doing by being present stops working. At one location you are the system, catching problems by walking past them.

Be honest with yourself

When this category is not your problem

If your prime cost is where it should be and your controls hold when you are not in the building, your constraint is demand, not operations. Go to restaurant marketing instead.

And if you are in a genuine cash crisis this week, do not start a measurement programme. Deal with the immediate problem, then come back and build the habit when there is room to think.

Where to go next

• Restaurant marketing The other half of the problem, for when the covers are not there in the first place.
• Analytics and dashboards The same discipline applied to the marketing side of the business.
• Catering and event business The highest-margin volume most kitchens can add without another location.

If you want a second pair of eyes on a P&L, send it to eric@seod.com with the name removed and I will tell you where the points are going. I ran a portfolio of restaurants for years and this is the part I enjoy most. No charge and no pitch.

Marketing brings people to the door; operations decides what happens to the money once they are inside. SEOD Operations works that side, scoped after a Business Growth Review.