Traditionally, achieving that perfectly crisp crust and melted topping required high temperatures only achievable in outdoor brick ovens. However, the evolution of indoor pizza ovens has brought the pizzeria experience to our kitchen countertops.

Types of Indoor Pizza Ovens

Each oven serves a unique purpose, and knowing the differences can make all the difference:

Electric countertop pizza ovens: Perfect for beginners and those short on space. They offer convenience but might lack the authentic smoky flavor.

Built-in indoor wood-fired pizza ovens: For the purist at heart. It’s all about recreating the authentic Neapolitan experience right at home.

Gas-powered indoor pizza ovens: A fusion of tradition and modernity. They promise quick heating without the hassle of wood.

Portable indoor pizza ovens: Ideal for those who enjoy mobile feasts, like a pizza night in the backyard or a picnic.

Benefits of Indoor Pizza Ovens

Indoor pizza ovens, which have gained popularity in both commercial and residential settings, offer numerous benefits:

Consistent Cooking Temperature: Traditional indoor pizza ovens, especially wood-fired and gas ovens, maintain a consistently high temperature, ensuring pizzas cook evenly and quickly.

Authentic Taste: A wood-fired indoor pizza oven imparts a distinct smokey flavor to the pizza, which is hard to replicate in conventional ovens.

Quick Cooking Time: With temperatures reaching up to 800°F (425°C) or higher, pizzas can cook in a matter of minutes, which is much faster than conventional ovens.

Versatility: While they’re known for baking pizzas, these ovens can also be used for roasting meats, baking bread, and other cooking endeavors, making them a versatile kitchen appliance.

Energy Efficiency: High temperatures mean quicker cooking times and, therefore, less overall energy consumption if you’re using the oven for short periods.

Ambiance: There’s something undeniably special about the ambiance a visible flame creates in a kitchen or dining space. It adds a cozy, warm atmosphere that enhances the dining experience.

Increased Home Value: For homeowners, installing a built-in indoor pizza oven can increase the value of the home. It’s seen as a luxury appliance, and potential buyers often view it as a unique selling point.

Durability: Many indoor pizza ovens are constructed with high-quality materials like brick or stone, which can endure high temperatures and have a long lifespan.

Healthier Cooking: High cooking temperatures allow for quick cooking, which can preserve the nutrients in the food better than prolonged cooking at lower temperatures.

Aesthetic Appeal: Indoor pizza ovens can be a centerpiece of a kitchen’s design, adding aesthetic value to their traditional or contemporary looks.

Saves Space: Countertop or built-in indoor pizza ovens can save space as compared to a full outdoor setup, making them ideal for spaces with limited outdoor areas.

Year-round Use: Unlike outdoor ovens, which can be affected by weather conditions, indoor ovens can be used throughout the year.

Safety: Indoor ovens are designed with safety in mind. Properly installed and maintained, they contain high heat efficiently, minimizing the risk of burns or fire hazards.

Professional Results: Many indoor pizza ovens are designed to replicate the results of professional pizza kitchens, allowing homeowners and chefs to produce restaurant-quality pizzas.

While there are undeniable benefits to owning an indoor pizza oven, it’s essential to consider installation requirements, ventilation, and maintenance. If those challenges can be addressed, an indoor pizza oven can be a delightful addition to any culinary space. Explore this Best indoor pizza oven buying guide and safety tips. 

Setting Up and Using Your Indoor Pizza Oven

Choosing the Right Spot:

• Ensure adequate ventilation, especially if it’s wood-fired. This may mean installing a vent or chimney.
• Select a location that’s heat-resistant. Stone, tile, or metal surfaces are ideal.
• Make sure there’s enough space around the oven to work comfortably.

1. Proper Installation:

• It’s highly recommended to hire a professional, especially for built-in models, to ensure safety and efficiency.
• For electric pizza ovens, ensure you have the right voltage and plug type.

1. Ventilation:

• It is crucial for wood-fired ranges to ensure the smoke is efficiently channeled out and fresh air can enter.
• Install a hood or chimney above the stove. Ensure it meets local building codes.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Indoor Pizza Ovens appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

Know Your Target Customers

Like at the start of any successful business, you must define your prospects. How do you do that? Well, if you are planning to open a restaurant, defining your prospects may include the following:

• Inspecting your food menu. For example, if your establishment serves fast food, your audience will probably be busy people in a hurry. While something like Italian cuisine is more disposed for customers who enjoy taking their time drinking wine and enjoying flavors;
• Examining planned Interior and exterior. Specific designs attract particular groups of people. Thus, something presented in the modern style will catch the eyes of the youth, while baroque mosaic is for mature clients;
• Considering planned working hours. You need to know when your establishment will be working, so you know when it will get the most customers.

Knowing all these elements, the picture of your restaurant location will get much less vogue. Let’s say you want to open a fast-food restaurant with a modern interior and 7 – 22 working hours. Knowing that it serves food quickly, a good idea will be to locate it near the bus/train/metro station, so busy people will have access to fast and cheap food. Also, it perfectly matches a modern interior/exterior, as young people who enjoy those styles often travel via public transport. And don’t forget about time which captures the busiest hours of a day, being a great addition to the whole picture.

Acknowledge Your Competitors

An essential rule of a successful business is knowing everything about your potential competitors. And so you should do this before opening your restaurant. As we live in the internet era, researching competitors is made much easier.

Just go into the global net, and find every single restaurant with prospects similar to yours. Further, you can make a map where you will mark each of your competitors, so you can see where you will face the least rivals and which fits your target. But don’t think opening your restaurant near competitors is always bad. If your establishment’s quality is better (prices, food, services, etc.), you can easily pull customers to yourself, leaving your opponents in a tough spot.

Acknowledge Your Allies

Real business sharks who run successful projects know that not every other business is your competitor: they can also be your allies. By allies, we mean an establishment that is complementary to yours.

If we proceed taking fast food as an example, a good complementary establishment to it will be coworking. The quickly served and cheap food will become their favorite way to get lunch around. Or let’s say you have a place that serves food right in the cars. So make sure those cars have a place to stay, facilitating parking nearby.

Make Sure Your Restaurant is Easy-to-Access

People are lazy creatures; they never want to bother looking for something for more than 5 minutes (unless it is something very special). And so you should always keep that in mind when choosing a location for your restaurant.

A perfect place to put your restaurant’s doorway is where your prospects pass. Extending an example of a fast food restaurant, the best option to place it would be next to the metro entrance, etc.

Consider Shopping Malls

Even though shopping malls must be inspected using previous tips, they can be a very convenient option for your business. It is because malls always have crazy traffic of hungry people. Predominantly, these people want a quick lunch, but there can be some exceptions. For example, if there is a view of the beautiful lake opening through the panoramic windows, it is a good place for an exquisite-food establishment.

But on the other hand, you must be ready to face strong competition when planning to settle your restaurant in malls. Still, if you do your planning and research correctly, the business will work.

The post 5 Tips to Find a Perfect Location For Your Restaurant appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

Get ready to discover four of the best options for keeping your clients in the mood, so they will have no choice but to return to your establishment once again. 

Set a Wi-Fi Network

We live in a modern world where being online is more necessary than an option. And why wouldn’t you help your visitors with that? All you need is to purchase a Wi-Fi router and hire an internet provider so they can connect all the wires. Further network maintenance is extremely cheap, as all you need to do is pay for the provider’s services. But make sure that your router can cover the entire space of your restaurant; generally, the further it can spread the signal, the better. 

And since you got Wi-Fi, now your customers can easily find themselves an occupation online. For example, they can spin some profitable slots in the play for fun casino, having the chance to win funds, so they can add an extra dessert to their check. Or they can do something more casual, like reading the news or watching/listening to podcasts. In other words, they will never get bored since they have a gadget on hand.

Invite Live Musicians 

Still, not everyone who visits a restaurant wants to sit on their phone scrolling through the feed. On the contrary, many people are frustrated with how digitalized our lives have become. And so, you can offer them a more conservative way of entertaining – live musicians. 

Even though musicians are more expensive to hire, they create a much bigger impact on the establishment than a simple Wi-Fi router. They will become a passageway that leads your customers into the magical atmosphere. Speaking about the atmosphere, it is up to you to decide which music genre will be played. But if you struggle to select, just think about your target audience. Thus, if your restaurant offers traditional Italian food, consider hiring corresponding musicians: violin as a leading instrument will serve great for such purposes, but a band singing classic Italian songs will also be great.

Install Screens to Steam Anything

One of the most diverse solutions to fight boredom in your restaurant is to set the screens: they can be TV monitors or connected to the PC. Most importantly, they will allow you to stream anything to your customers, starting with sports events and finishing with music videos. You can even show your customers the gameplay of the innovative playfortunefor.fun/free-slots/king-kong-cash-slot with it, of course, if the establishment format allows (it will perfectly suit pubs).

You will have to decide the screen model drawing on your budget. And then, analyze the seats’ placement, so you can locate screens so everybody can see them.

Hire a Stand Up Comedy Show

Everybody likes a good sense of humor: it allows us to escape the routine and embrace the world of fun. And that definitely sounds like a thing you would want to have in your restaurant. But to set up the first comedy show, you must make some preparations:

• Find a comic. There are comics of different types. Some of them have vast experience performing and charging a solid check. While the other ones are just starting and can be invited even for free. You can find such performers through a simple internet search, but if you want to dig for some hidden gems, look through the trending media influencers that specialize in comedy;
• Get a stage. Even though building a stage is not essential (a performer can just stay in a certain area), it creates a feeling that you are watching a professional performance. But don’t think that it is expensive, it only takes a couple of carcass pieces you need to connect, and you will create a high ground, serving as a stage;
• Obtain equipment. And finally, you must make sure that the comic will be heard and seen. To do that, you need to get a mic and place some speakers around the stage. And to create that atmosphere of a show, set a couple of light sources above the comic, and make lights all around the restaurant a little more tarnished.

If you like the idea of the comedy performance and it fits your restaurant format, make it a routine. This will help to create new ads for your business, and you can even charge additional fees for performances of famous comics.

The post 4 Effective Ways How to Keep Your Restaurant’s Customers Entertained appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

However, despite the thrills that come with the business, it’s very expensive and frankly difficult to run. According to data from Sage, the average startup cost for a restaurant in 2021 is $275,000. This figure is for a restaurant that plans to run on a leased building. The costs rise to $425,000 if you plan to own the building and might also incur monthly costs ranging from $48,000 to $75,000.

Unfortunately, this figure might be too high to handle, and if you plan to fulfill your dream, you’ll have to look at the different restaurant financing options available. It’s also no secret that selecting the right financing can be hard and confusing. That’s why many entrepreneurs like you visit comparison sites like laina-finance.fi to analyze and compare several options before making a choice.

As a prospective restaurant owner looking for the right options to fund your dream, here are some of the best financing options to consider.

Traditional Bank Loan

There is an opportunity of borrowing a fixed amount of money from a national or regional bank. These loans usually come with specific time frames and interest rates.

While traditional bank loans are the surest route to receiving large amounts of money, the chances of your loan application being approved are very low. In fact, large banks have an approval rate of 14% for small businesses like restaurants, and medium & small banks are just under 20%.

In addition, traditional bank facilities usually come with a lengthy application process. According to research data from OnDeck, the average processing time for brick-and-mortar bank loans spans 14-60 days. Plus, they usually require collateral before approving your application.

Alternative Loans

Non-traditional bank loans are one of the fastest ways restaurateurs can secure funding for their business. These types of lenders include online consumer lenders like Sorter, more information about it can be found here — https://laina-finance.fi/sortter-laina. These firms have a faster application process, higher approval ratings, and decent interest rates.

Another major advantage of alternative loans is that they’re more lenient with startups. For example, most banks might not give you a loan if your restaurant has not been active for at least two years. But alternative financial institutions such as https://laina-finance.fi/bondora-laina usually don’t have such stringent requirements.

Merchant Cash Advance

This is a special type of loan where the lender pays a huge amount of money into the restaurant and gets repaid through the firm’s future sales.

MCAs are unlike traditional loans that require monthly payments. Payments are collected from the purchases in the restaurants. These deductions could be daily or weekly, depending on the provider. 

This kind of financing is perfect for restaurants needing immediate funds to tackle short-term or unexpected expenses. It can also be useful in restaurants suffering from cash-flow shortfalls.

Crowdfunding

Instead of receiving funds from a single lender, crowdfunding allows you to be funded by multiple individuals. Most crowdfunds are filled with everyday people and can be one of the best ways to market and fund your restaurant simultaneously.

The more you advertise the crowdfund, the more exposure your business gets. It’s also a perfect opportunity to get the community along and build a solid following. However, successfully marketing your crowdfund might require you to spend, and if you ever fall short of your target, you have to return everything you’ve raised to the investors and start from scratch.

Family and Friends

This option is last on our list because it’s not necessarily viable. Everybody feels some way about borrowing from family and friends, but it all depends on their wealth status and the relationship you share with them.

If you choose to borrow from family or friends, always be clear about every detail. This is business, and you should treat it as one. Be clear on the amount you need, how long it will take you to pay back, and if they require interest. It’s also advisable to get things in writing; agreements should be bounded by law.

Despite not being the most viable option, borrowing from family and friends has benefits. For starters, they mostly don’t come with interests and are usually flexible. However, these types of advances can ruin relationships and lead to several issues if things go south.

The Bottom Line

It’s no secret that 60% of restaurants fail within their first year, while 80% fail within the first five. However, one of the major causes of these unpleasant statistics is the lack of adequate funding.

That’s why restaurants must have access to adequate financing options. This will ensure they launch and grow successfully. Some of the best options include traditional bank loans, alternative loans, Merchant Cash Advances, crowdfunding, and loans from friends and family.

The post Financing Options to Consider for Your Restaurant Business appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

According to recent studies, restaurants generate as much as 33 billion pounds of food waste per year, leading to a loss of a whopping $12 million per year. This can be a big issue considering that over 50 million Americans experienced food insecurity during the pandemic.

Thankfully, all hope isn’t lost. With a better understanding of how to prevent food waste in restaurants, these establishments can play a part in food insecurity.

This article will cover tips that could help food service establishments in reducing food waste.

Conduct a Waste Audit

Without a waste audit, there’s no way to discover or know the amount of food waste you produce per time. Try to reduce the waste produced by sorting the leftovers and separating them from each other.

Additionally, you can create a database to record and journal all the waste you’ve produced per day. Include several cases such as expired or rotten food, broken substances, etc. Doing so gives you an idea of how much waste you produce and how to curb it.

Store Food Properly

Ensure that all food items are stored at the proper temperature. Monitor all refrigerators as deep freezers to ensure they work at optimal temperatures. Your refrigerator temperature should never be above 40°F. You should also never allow meals that require constant refrigeration to be at room temperature to prevent spoilage.

Store ready-to-eat and raw proteins on different shelves to prevent cross-contamination. For perishable foods, label them with the date purchased and expiry date. Be diligent about all these laid down rules and create a contingency plan for what to do if things don’t go as planned.

Identify Multi-Menu Items

Another important way to reduce waste is to find certain ingredients that can be used in several other dishes. This will help you take advantage of buying some items in bulk while ensuring that they don’t go to waste due to infrequent usage.

You can also turn leftover meals into new specials. For example, use bones of chicken or meat and vegetable leftovers to make stocks and broths. Leftover bread is ideal for bread crumbs or croutons. Turn meat remains into a stew or chili and roasted chicken remnants into a pot pie or soup.

Spur your chefs to be creative in transforming yesterday’s leftovers or excess ingredients into the next day’s specials. The more you use, the less you’ll waste.

This can also go beyond meals and ingredients. Managers can try to reuse any product that they can. For example, a laminated menu can be used instead of a paper one, or the paper one can be laminated to be reused.

Inspect All Food Deliveries

Sometimes food vendors can try to be crafty and attempt to put out rotting or expired ingredients beneath deliveries. Carefully scrutinize every delivery product before receiving it, or you might have no choice but to throw some away.

And if there’s a consistent record of receiving subpar products from certain vendors, it might be time to change them and find more qualified dealers. Use appropriate tech tools to appraise suppliers and to ensure that they consistently churn out quality food supplies and produce.

On the other hand, vendors can utilize software solutions to facilitate the smooth movement of the food products to the restaurant as quickly as possible. This is a good way to combat spoilage and decrease food waste.

Turn Organic Waste into Manure

While food waste can sometimes be inevitable, it can be transmitted to something else. You make food waste beneficial to the environment by turning them into compost.

Also, some products that you think are waste are perfectly edible. You can donate good but unused food to orphanage homes and food banks, reducing waste and helping with the food insecurity in your community.

Many of the scraps at your food establishment can be composted, turned into fertilizers, or burnt to generate methane, giving off fuel.

Train Your Staff

Regardless of how knowledgeable you are at waste management, you will never be fully successful until you bring your staff on board. Educate your staff on the reason for waste management. Make sure they are as passionate about the cause as you are.

Show them ingenious ways and techniques to make food fresher or stay for a long time. Encourage them to be able to whip up entirely new specials from leftovers.

Also, endeavor to integrate it into the culture of the company. That way, every new hire is intimated about the laid down rules and standards regarding waste management.

Conclusion

Reducing food waste may sound like a task, but it’s easier than you think. You only have to adopt the above mentioned strategies to reduce food waste, save costs, and sustain the planet. Making these small changes will add up over time, protect our environment and boost our planet’s longevity.

The post 6 Smart Ways to Reduce Food Waste in Your Restaurant appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

This is known as food yield, or yield percentage, and tells you how much of any ingredient is left after preparation and processing. This may include the parts of the vegetables left after peeling and coring or the usable meat after butchering. 

Understanding food yield is essential to understanding the overall food cost for your restaurant. It can also predict and reduce food waste, as you understand the expected and acceptable amount of waste from each ingredient, and can calculate inventory needs and par levels accordingly. 

Get Costs and Ordering Under Control by Calculating Food Yield

Knowing your percentage yield serves three important purposes for any restaurant owner or manager. With your percentage yield you can

• Determine how much of each usable food ingredient you have after processing and production.
• Calculate how much of a raw ingredient you need to purchase for each recipe.
• Determine the actual cost-per-portion of ingredients for every dish on your menu.

Yield calculations can help you manage inventory by understanding and considering the losses and waste involved in preparation and cooking. Your food yield calculations give you an insight into how much raw material you need to order and have on hand to prepare a particular dish. 

Keep that information in mind when you order ingredients and set par levels. 

Keeping consistent numbers on your food yield percentage also helps you 

• Plan and revise menus
• Establish proper storage and rotation guidelines 
• Manage vendors

Understanding your food cost percentage with yield management helps you to control food costs by reducing unnecessary waste, as well. Conducting a regular yield test for each item on the menu lets you compare your theoretical yield to your actual yield.

Using Yield to Calculate Food Costs

Calculating food cost percentage is essential for any restaurant manager or owner. It is the first step to understanding other important metrics such as COGS and profit. You can use your yield percentage to calculate food costs, as well.

How to Calculate Food Yield and Food Costs

First, let’s review exactly how to calculate food yield percentage for each ingredient in your storeroom.

Take the total weight of the raw ingredient. This is your as-purchased weight (AP weight). Then do any food production or preparation required, and weigh the discarded parts. This is your waste or trim weight. Finally, subtract the waste from the AP weight to get your yield or edible product (EP) weight:

AP weight – waste = EP weight

For example, you purchase 10 lbs of potatoes to make your fries (AP weight). After peeling and chopping, you discard 2 lbs (waste), leaving you with 8 lbs of fries ready to cook (EP weight). 

Your yield percentage converts this EP weight into a percentage: 

EP weight / AP weight x 100 = yield %

In this example, the yield percent is 8 / 10 x 100 = 80%

If a portion of fries is half a pound, this means that you actually get 16 portions of fries from your 10lb bag of potatoes, and not 20 portions. That difference is called the yield gap.

Once you know and understand your food yield percentage, you can also calculate your edible portion cost, or EP cost: The cost of each portion of food. In the example above, to calculate the cost of a portion of fries, you would take the cost of 10lbs of potatoes (let’s say $8.42), and divide it by the number of portions you can make from the prepared potatoes (16, so the potatoes cost 53 cents per portion). Using the portion cost of each ingredient in a dish, you can then calculate the total cost of the dish or recipe.

Yield Percentage vs. Waste Percentage

While your yield percentage can tell you the percent of a raw ingredient used in a dish, your waste percentage tells you the percent of raw ingredients and food that went to waste. That may include the portion disposed of during preparation, but could also include spoilage and mistakes. Both are important for understanding — and reducing –- your total restaurant food cost and COGS.

Costing Individual Items on a Plate

If you’re planning a new menu or revising your current one, costing individual items on a plate will help you understand what to charge, what to keep, and what to get rid of. Understanding the ideal food cost percentage for each menu item helps you to keep a close eye on inventory and waste, as well. 

When you understand the cost of each ingredient in a dish, you can calculate the food cost or plate cost, and from there you can use your ideal food cost percentage to manage recipe costing and set menu prices.

Food costing can help you manage your menu by comparing your ideal or theoretical food cost to your actual food cost to pinpoint and correct any potential issues, such as over-portioning, unnecessary wastage due to spoilage or theft, or higher-than-expected supplier costs.

Using Inventory Management Software to Track Food Yield and Yield Percentage

Restaurant inventory management software can help you track food waste and yield percentage accurately by controlling inventory. Track the cost and amount for every ingredient that comes in, quickly take accurate inventory counts, and connect with POS software to understand exactly how much of that inventory you are selling — and how much is going to waste.

Once you have conducted yield testing for all your recipes, you can factor that into your waste calculations. For example, if you know that yield for potatoes is 20%, the first 20% of waste is to be expected. You can even use yield testing to calculate your average yield across the restaurant.

Increase Yield and Decrease Waste With Inventory Management Software 

Your inventory management system helps you with inventory control. It can help you to increase yield by pinpointing which menu items have the highest yield percentage and the most usable product which can tell you the true cost of an item of inventory. By considering the waste and byproducts of food preparation, you might be able to reduce this wastage, either by exploring different production techniques (skin-on fries, for example) or by considering how you can use the byproducts of food (such as by using meat and vegetable scraps to make your own stock or to decrease waste by considering your portion sizes.

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Restaurant owners and chefs may get the glory, but they’re not necessarily the ones running the show. In many cases, they hire a restaurant manager for the day-to-day operations.

For owners who don’t have deep restaurant or management experience, hiring a manager who does can ensure that the business is run the way it should be run. It also frees the owner or chef from daily administrative tasks such as inventory, so they can focus on growing and marketing the business. Trusting the restaurant manager to do their job can lead to a restaurant running like a well-oiled machine.

Restaurant Manager Duties and Responsibilities

So what does a restaurant manager do? According to EHL Insights, they oversee all the operations of the restaurant, from the kitchen to the dining room. That requires juggling multiple tasks each day and requires strong organizational skills and interpersonal communication.

“In effect, a restaurant manager embodies general management, administration, customer services, human resources, supply chain & procurement, health and safety, compliance, accounting & marketing — all rolled into one,” EHL writes.

It’s a combination of hard skills, ranging from understanding restaurant software to knowing how to do accounting, and soft skills, the intangible qualities that lead to great management and customer service.

Hard skills for restaurant managers include the following, according to Small Business Chron:

• Controlling the supply chain. “Running out of ingredients is frustrating for cooks and diners alike and can damage a restaurant’s reputation. On the other hand, stocking too much inventory ties up needed capital and can lead to waste. Orchestrating deliveries from multiple suppliers to maintain a suitable level of inventory is fundamental to a restaurant’s success.”
• Managing the business. “These include the nuts and bolts of business management, such as accounting, budgeting, ensuring compliance with municipal regulations, and many similar functions. Profit margins are thin throughout the restaurant industry, and paying close attention to the bottom line can make the difference between success and failure.”

Many employers prefer that restaurant managers have a bachelor’s degree in hospitality or training from a community college, notes Glassdoor. They must at least have a high school diploma or equivalent, as well as experience working in the food and beverage service industry. “Additionally, many restaurant managers are required to have their food handler certification card, which is obtained by taking a short course or program that covers food safety,” says Glassdoor.

Soft skills for restaurant managers include communication, problem-solving and conflict management, a positive attitude, attention to detail, multitasking, team spirit, language skills, cultural awareness, and taking criticism well, according to EHL Insights.

Tip 1: Learn the fact-based information you need to do your job, such as accounting and food safety, but remember to cultivate your listening and communication skills, as well.

What Are the Qualities That a Restaurant Manager Needs to Be Successful?

A good restaurant manager should be on top of everything, throughout the restaurant. That includes recipe costing, employee training, negotiating with suppliers, and much more. You should be aware of and up-to-date with everything that goes on. That doesn’t mean you need to micromanage your staff, but do strive to understand everyone’s role. That way, it’s much easier when you need to replace staff or deal with shortages.

For example, in the restaurant business, turnover rates can be more than 80%. That means you’ll be spending a lot of time posting job ads, interviewing, and hiring. This kind of work is unavoidable to an extent because some people tend to view restaurant work as temporary, but turnover can add to a restaurant’s costs.

Still, there are things you can do to reduce turnover — and that’s where the soft skills come in. Focus on making your staff feel valued and respected. Get to know them on an individual level, listen to their complaints and struggles, and help solve their problems.

EHL Insights lists the top five qualities restaurant managers need:

• You should be a host through and through and enjoy dealing with people
• You should show the ability to balance quality on the plate with financial constraints
• You need an eye for detail, the beauty and modernity
• You should be a communication talent
• Bring a professional, human and warm leadership personality to the table

Note that these are nearly all soft skills.

Tip 2: Your employees will determine your success. Hire good ones and treat them well — not just pay, but that too — to reduce turnover costs.

Challenges Restaurant Managers Face

Along the way, the restaurant manager can run into problems. These can include the following, according to RestaurantEngine.com:

• Employee turnover: “A continual movement of staff in and out of your restaurant, whether it’s front or back of house, can cause your managers a lot of issues.”
• Employee training: “Training staff can be quite challenging due to a constant influx of new team members and a busy restaurant. It can be hard to set aside time just for training.”
• Unpredictability: “If you have too many staff working a shift, your operating costs go up unnecessarily. If you have too few staff members working, you can’t possibly meet the needs of your diners.”
• Customer experience: “Bad online reviews are often the result of really bad customer service.”
• Inventory management: This includes not only ingredients for the restaurant itself but employee theft

Tip 3: All restaurants run into problems. What matters is how you deal with them.

How Can Software Help Restaurant Managers Do Their Jobs?

It’s easy to rely on spreadsheets and paper when it comes to inventory and scheduling. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Actually, tech can make things a whole lot easier here. Inventory management software means you can automate much of your inventory. 

For example, you can arrange for numbers to be subtracted automatically when orders are placed and set automatic reordering for when stock levels dip. Similarly, scheduling software can also be a big help when managing shifts and time off, sending employees their shift times via email or text.

Tip 4: Keep up with trends in restaurant operations software to look for ways to automate whatever aspects of the job you can, to save time and money.

All in all, being a restaurant manager isn’t easy. According to Small Business Chron, “Restaurant managers work extremely long hours, sometimes as many as 12 to 15 hours per day, up to seven days per week. During the course of a given day, managers may deal with upset customers, fill in for staff, train staff members and place orders for food and other supplies. The long hours combined with the multiple responsibilities often lead to stress and exhaustion among restaurant managers.” But following these tips can make this critical job easier.

The post Want to Be a Restaurant Manager? appeared first on Branch ES Catering.

Restaurant inventory management software and proper inventory control can help you monitor and track inventory levels and notify you when you’re running low on an ingredient, so you can re-stock. An inventory management system can help you to better budget and control restaurant inventory, as well, to avoid over-ordering and food waste. 

This article will show you why inventory management is so important to a restaurant’s bottom line, and introduce you to some restaurant inventory best practices.

The Importance of Restaurant Inventory Management

Of course, income is probably the most important metric you’re tracking right now. But hand-in-hand with income is the need to control restaurant costs with restaurant inventory management.

The importance of restaurant inventory management becomes evident when you understand how much food waste is costing your restaurant. A good inventory management system can help you

• Manage stock through par levels and automated ordering to maintain food inventory
• Maintain food cost by tracking the cost of supplies coming in and comparing that against goods sold
• Monitor waste with inventory tracking to reduce the amount spent on food that is disposed of before it ever reaches the customer

Inventory Management Basics

The amount of inventory you need on hand depends on how busy you typically are, your storage space, and the number of deliveries you receive each week. As a rule, though, you should carry at least enough inventory to cover your sales plus a little extra to cover emergencies and waste. Typically, that means carrying around five to seven days of inventory.

Then, there’s your inventory turnover. How do you keep your stocktake moving to prevent food from spoiling or expiring before it’s used?

That is where inventory management PAR (Periodic Automatic Replenishment) levels come in handy. That is a minimum and maximum limit on the quantity of any item of inventory so that you don’t under or overstock.

Your inventory management software should allow you to set PAR levels for your stocktake. When an ingredient hits PAR level, you get an immediate notification to reorder. 

Managing Inventory for Efficiency and Cost Savings

There are a number of ways that effective inventory management practices can result in improved efficiency and cost savings. Properly tracking, recording, and managing inventory can have an impact on your COGS (cost of goods sold) and your net profit, for example. Here are some tips for better inventory management.

Lean Inventory Management

Lean inventory management is the practice of focused waste reduction by carefully balancing inventory levels to keep only enough stock on hand to meet demand — reducing waste. Lean inventory management can reduce waste by cutting the risk of carrying excess inventory, thereby cutting the risk of spoilage due to expired goods. Reducing the amount of inventory on hand at any time also cuts your carrying cost, as you will be carrying less inventory.

FIFO vs. LIFO

FIFO stands for first in, first out. It is the stock-rotation practice in which the oldest stock is used first, to reduce the risk of spoiled or expired stocktake. LIFO stands for last in, first out. In LIFO, the stock is rarely rotated, as the most recent stock to be added is also the first to be used. This can be helpful for tax purposes, because when LIFO is used when prices are rising, it can result in lower net income – and therefore lower taxes owed. LIFO can help reduce costs by minimizing the need to buy from a fluctuating market where food prices may rise.

FIFO is typically the best stock rotation method for restaurants and hospitality businesses managing inventory, especially when you are dealing with fresh food and produce that is likely to spoil. Organize your storage areas, fridges, and freezers so that new stock is placed at the back and older stock is moved to the front.

LIFO can be the better choice though for businesses selling ambient or long-dated goods, for example in a wine bar, particularly for aged wines.

Regular Inventory Checks

Taking regular inventory checks and counts lets you keep a close eye on stock levels. This is particularly important for items that spoil quickly, such as meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Checking over your inventory daily can let you pinpoint potential issues, such as items reaching their use-by date, or goods about to go out of stock. Taking inventory on a set schedule also makes it easy to track and compare levels over time.

Take inventory when new deliveries arrive, as well. That allows you to count and rotate stock at the same time, and to check that everything ordered and paid for has arrived undamaged and unspoiled. Good supply chain management practices can reduce costs due to ordering and delivery mistakes.

POS Software

Your POS system gives you sales data that lets you automate inventory tracking based on customer orders. This is a good place to start your stock-take. Your average sales will give you an idea of what your inventory levels should be. Use current sales to anticipate orders and historic sales to forecast future stock.

Week-over-week, month-over-month, or year-over-year; no matter which metrics you look at, you can use past sales data to budget the amount of inventory you will need to keep up with demand, 

Finally, compare sales data to inventory cost to make sure you’re charging enough for your dishes and you’re getting the best price from your vendors.

Be wary of relying too heavily on your POS system for inventory figures, however. Sales aren’t the only way to deplete stock. Spoilage, shrinkage, human error and even theft can all cause discrepancies between your sales data and your actual stock on hand.

Recipe Software

Use recipe software to calculate how much inventory you need on hand to make each dish on your menu. This, combined with POS software, can help you to forecast how much inventory you will need to meet demand, so you don’t under-stock (and have to take items off the menu) or over-stock (and have to waste ingredients, or sell them for less with a temporary offer).

Food Waste Calculations

Properly tracking food waste helps you understand the actual costs of your food. Track the time, date, and amount of goods wasted, along with the reason (did it spoil or expire, was it dropped or spilled, or is this due to normal day-to-day shrinkage?). That way, you can pinpoint the main reasons for unnecessary waste easily, and even see if any staff are especially prone to causing waste. From there, you can manage inventory issues to save money spent on wasted goods and ingredients.

How to Choose the Right Inventory Management System for Your Restaurant

The best restaurant inventory management software for your restaurant is the one that best fits the needs of your restaurant operation. Your restaurant inventory management system should facilitate automated online ordering via PAR levels and integrate with your POS system to compare inventory levels with sales data. Ultimately, restaurant inventory software should help restaurant management to reduce food costs and streamline inventory management operations.

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