Restaurant management: A guide to what works best now

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Let’s not mince words here: No one in their right mind has ever described restaurant management as an easy job. A restaurant manager understands that the restaurant industry is complex and the way each restaurant runs is unique.

A high-quality restaurant manager is worth their weight in gold. They handle everything from day-to-day restaurant operations to the more nitty-gritty bits like inventory management, marketing strategies, and optimizing customer experiences.

That said, many restaurant owners double as managers since, as small business owners, they wear many hats. Either way, being a restaurant manager is one of the toughest jobs in the restaurant business.

There are many ways that a good manager can drive success at your restaurant. This article will explain the essential restaurant management tasks you should have in place and cover how to equip your management team with the support and tools they need.

Restaurant management 101

The key to good restaurant management is knowing the restaurant’s business plan backward and forward, as well as the restaurant menu. Managers should be able to optimize the customer experience in every way possible while maintaining the restaurant’s overall feel.

Of course, a big part of any type of management is managing people. At restaurants, managers delegate tasks to team members and keep employees happy via solid employee management skills. They don’t just manage staff, but customers too: Managers often need to make real-time decisions like knowing just when to eighty-six an item, when to comp a meal, and how to handle customer complaints and compliments alike.

Keeping track of restaurant metrics like inventory, labor costs, and profit margins is another essential facet of restaurant management. Managers are responsible for handling the restaurant’s cash flow and understanding that the bottom line is down to them. It’s their job to keep profits as high as possible by streamlining operations wherever they can.

For example, a restaurant manager’s most crucial task is deciding on a staffing schedule. That means knowing just what days you’re likely to be busy to determine what staff you’ll need and when. Overstaffing costs money; understaffing causes ripple effects throughout the restaurant that can lead to poor customer interactions.

Really, though, it’s easier to determine what tasks a restaurant manager doesn’t have than those they do. For example, restaurant management does not typically include:

• Serving tables
• Cleaning or bussing tables
• Preparing food
• Handling deliveries or take-out orders from online ordering or phone-ins

Types of restaurant manager

To better understand what really goes into managing a restaurant, it’s a good idea to look at what the different types of restaurant managers do. There are five restaurant management roles:

• A general manager
• A front-of-house (FOH) manager
• A back-of-house (BOH) manager
• An assistant manager
• A restaurant owner/restaurateur who handles it all

Which type of manager a restaurant needs depends on its seating capacity since larger restaurants need more managers. A small restaurant will often be operated by an owner/operator, hence the name. Medium-sized restaurants will need a general manager and potentially an assistant manager, while large restaurants will need all of the above.

As the name suggests, general managers manage all aspects of the restaurant. FOH managers handle all customer-facing aspects of the restaurant, from point of sale (POS) operations, food service, and overseeing the dining experience to restaurant marketing, including social media.

BOH managers will handle all aspects of menu items and inventory management, including managing the kitchen, ensuring food costs are correct, and forecasting future inventory needs.

3 tips for effective restaurant management

Restaurateurs have to prepare and adapt to manage operations in today’s shifting landscape. And with so many tasks and so much to cover, being a manager of a modern restaurant is a lot.

These three tips for effective restaurant management can help run things right. As you build your team and shape your management tasks into SOPs, keep these strategies in mind.

1. Lead from experience

Nothing beats previous experience in the industry. If you’re brand new to the industry and, perhaps, fresh from hospitality management school, that’s great. But a few years under your belt will give you hands-on exposure to the ins and outs of restaurant operations and how people in the industry work, as well as what works best for your particular cuisine, audience and area.

So if you’re new, find a mentor, and then hire a manager with years of know-how built in by witnessing operations in real time. Both mentors and seasoned managers will have picked up on the successes and failures of their own previous managers and will help you optimize your restaurant management tasks and processes.

2. Polish your people skills

The above header says it all. No restaurant manager is effective without solid people skills since they’ll be managing, well, people. That includes both their personnel and customers. Busy restaurants can be hectic, heated places (literally and figuratively), so being able to keep a cool head and keep staff motivated are irreplaceable skills.

Often, team members need emotional support and understanding. Knowing when to offer a kind word on a difficult day can motivate team morale. After all, the restaurant industry is a team sport, and nothing gets accomplished alone. Taking into account individual and team needs, and leading them toward the restaurant’s success is the ultimate goal.

3. Share the load with technology

Running a restaurant while keeping up with all industry trends is more than just a full-time job and is too much to ask of any individual manager. There’s no way to navigate the modern world of restaurants without knowing your way around modern restaurant technology.

The best software solutions, like Yelp Guest Manager, can help streamline and maximize restaurant management tasks. This FOH platform integrates with inventory management applications, POS systems, and newer innovations like Yelp Kiosk. Plus, with options like credit card holds, online reservations and waitlists, guest data, and more, technology is essentially like a virtual assistant manager—an ace up the sleeve for your management team.

Manage things right

Whether you’re managing things yourself or hiring a manager, you’ll need a generalist capable of handling the people side of things and the number side of things. That’s a lot to take on, but done well, it makes a manager invaluable to an organization. If you’re an independent entrepreneur, that might just be you alone—so be prepared to put in the hours.

One way to cut down on hours spent analyzing operations is to have the best available software, like Yelp Guest Manager, on hand. This solution integrates with several different POS systems and third-party apps. Whether you’re looking to optimize your restaurant seating or streamline BOH operations, Guest Manager is the tool for you.

Want to see how it works? Reach out to us for a free demo, and we’ll be thrilled to show you around. We know how hard managing a restaurant can be, and we want to be there to support our clients as much as we can.