I don't like having off-duty staff hanging around simply because it's space that should be used for guests. I made a rule a while ago that there can't be any off-duty staff hanging around in the restaurants between certain hours. But, if it's my closers hanging around for a drink after hours, or my day chefs hanging around for a drink or two after their shifts (but before the dinner service) then I have no problems with that, and the drinks are usually on me.
Like flames_fan_down_under mentioned above, profit margins are pretty small. You might think a restaurant is laughing all the way to the bank because they charge $35 for a steak you can get for $12 at the grocery store, but in reality the profit for one steak dish is generally around the $1-$0.50 mark. And that's in a very well run restaurant. Couple small margins with high cost of business and you're in for one stressful time.
Whoever is in charge of ordering product has to have a mind for detail. Another huge cost and one wrong move can be the difference between making a profit and not. For example this week one of my Sous Chefs accidentally ordered an extra case of steaks which we probably won't go through, so I have to either buy it myself for personal use, sell it to another restaurant, or open it and sell it to staff at cost. Otherwise I risk them going bad and having to throw them out, which is about half a days profits down the drain. One accidental extra key stroke on the computer during ordering has created all these avoidable problems.
To turn a profit everything has to work like perfect clockwork.
I had a huge couple of paragraphs here detailing a few other aspects of it but I'll leave it alone for now.
The main thing to remember is if and when you get all these little things running perfectly and you're actually turning a profit, the #1 rule of restaurant management is that it'll all go down the crapper and you'll have to start again. Your best Sous Chef will leave and the person you had waiting in the wings to replace him isn't quite trained and ready yet, so everything that that person was in control of is no longer perfect. Or half your staff will decide to go back to school all at the same time, or some equipment will break, or a million other things. You have to know what's going on at all times, and pretty much have to see into the future.
Running a restaurant is a constant thing, very very very rarely do you get a chance to step back and just go through the motions since everything is going so smoothly. Every time you build it up, you'll have to break it down and start over. That's probably the thing I love about it is it's never boring. But for some people it's a bit different. The owner of my first restaurant job got type 2 diabetes from the lack of sleep and the stress, but if you ask him still to this day he's loved (and still loves) every minute of it.
Last edited by btimbit; 03-06-2014 at 12:53 PM.
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