Managing a restaurant is not an easy thing, it is like watching over the gears of a machine that is complicated which needs to be watched closely. In this position, you do not only have the usual managerial employees and customer’s concerns. You are also dealing with food service and the unique baggage that accompanies the service.
To become a good manager you must have the ability to motivate the entire group to strive toward the restaurant’s specific goals. And to demonstrate leadership, you must enhance a team’s strength and improve upon their weaknesses. It is also advisable to use fun, engaging activities to keep every member of the team motivated and to boost the team’s morale. Apart from the basics things, there are various other things that you should be aware of as a restaurant manager such as inventory management.
What are the key restaurants inventory management tips? Restaurant inventory management describes the approach of monitoring inventory of food, ingredients, along with other supplies that come in and out of the restaurant to maximize the profit and minimize losses. The approach deals with controlling the amount of inventory you have in the stock to ensure that the restaurant has enough to meet the business demands and with little surplus going to waste. As a new restaurant manager, in this case, you should know tips such as;
- Being Consistent
As illustrated earlier, running a restaurant requires a closer watch. A restaurant can change within a day to another. Unlike other businesses, new crises pop up in a restaurant at the drop of a hat. Here things move faster and the worst thing a manager can do in this situation is taking an inconsistent approach to the way they respond to issues and resolve them. A restaurant manager should be consistent in things like how they communicate, maintain rules, and what their expectations are. Your consistency as a manager helps the employees to handle stressing situations.
- Manage Proactively
As a manager in a restaurant business, you should know that things come at you fast. In this case, I should always be proactive and stay ahead of the curve and avoid being reactive. In simple words, it means looking and working in the future and not in the present moment while managing decisions like; staffing needs, inventory, updating technology, menu changes and updates, marketing campaigns, as well as spotting client trends. If you are not proactive, managing a restaurant becomes challenging as it might lead to business failure.
- Prioritize retention of staff
Rendering to a recent survey, about 46% of restaurant owners and managers claim that hiring staff, training, and then retaining them is their topmost challenge. As a restaurant manager, you should make staff retention a priority. Replacing staff constantly is a huge expense in a business that already has a tight profit margin. You should note that, most customers visit a restaurant for experience and a part of that experience is the ambience and staff hospitality.
- Stay on top of things and keep your eyes on the satisfaction of customers
Restaurant inventory management requires consistency and you should keep all the things on the watch to ensure efficiency. Managing customer’s expectations should be your top priority. Remember you are dealing with everything from food preference, issues related to traffic flow, dietary concerns, irate clients, last-minute reservations, and people who show up for a meal five minutes before closing time.
The satisfaction of customers in a restaurant is the key objective behind every decision a manager makes when it comes to managing and dealing with issues. One word of caution, in this case, is that you should achieve customers’ satisfaction without sacrificing your staff. You should protect both the customer and the staff if you don’t want to lose either of them.
