Guide to Starting a Restaurant or Café

Food Service Business: Café/Restaurant Establishment

Quality of Meals

Quality of meals is one of the most important characteristics of a good restaurant or café. This point is of great significance for all catering establishments. If you want to render good service, you should not forget about this moment. The image of your restaurant depends on the mood of the client after visiting you. Therefore, some actions should be taken urgently to improve the quality of food. Customers will notice improvements and visit your restaurant again without any complaints in the future. It is important to organize and coordinate all activities of your staff. Furthermore, people need to have all the necessary conditions for their work. In this case, they can work with pleasure and take their job responsibly.

Qualified Stuff

To begin with, one has to make sure that the staff in the kitchen is highly qualified. If there are no problems with the quality of the raw food products, the problem is in the chef and his assistants. The administration can invite an appropriate specialist to assess the taste quality of the served food. This specialist must pay attention to the technology of preparation of the dishes that causes the greatest number of questions. This kind of check will help to sort out the problem and solve it quickly. In addition, all personnel must wear clothing and special headgear designed to work in the kitchen. This measure will help to prevent the ingress of dust and hair from clothes in the food.

The Equipment of the Kitchen

The next point that is worth paying attention is the equipment of the kitchen. The staff has to clean all stoves at least twice a day. It will help avoid getting various dirt and dust in your meals. The hoods placed in the kitchen must be perfectly clean. All the pots and cooking facilities should be regularly disinfected and be subject to a special cleaning. The fridge is also an important appliance. The purity of the refrigerator strongly affects the smell of the product. All containers with ready-made meals should have special stickers on which the time and date of preparation have to be specified. In this way, one can determine what dishes are allowed to be served and what ones are to be thrown away. It will permit to serve tasty and fresh food that the visitor will appreciate.

Furthermore, everyone knows that the staff of any institution is its face. Cafes and restaurants are not the exceptions. The administrator and the waiter accompany and serve customers throughout the evening. A waiter has an exceptional role. He has to issue the order correctly as well as provide all the information about the selected dishes. He should be informed of all ingredients used in preparing the dish and the form in which it is served. His responsibilities include quickly serving the food. It is necessary because the dish should correspond to the idea of the chef. The food served at the restaurant should delight its visitors. Thus, it is important for the staff to have appropriate qualifications. If the guest admires your layout, he or she will surely visit your restaurant or cafe again. It is the reason to pay attention to the training of the workers. The administration can invite specialists to conduct a variety of training courses and master classes. Moreover, different video tutorials will help to explain all the details of work with clients. This approach to training is a significant step on the way to success.

Moreover, the chef needs to be creative in the process of preparation. He must strive to improve the worker’s level of performance. The quality of food highly depends on the recipes used in its preparation process. Chef’s ideas must meet all requirements for quality food. It is necessary for him to consider every detail of the recipe for the exquisite taste of his dish. The chef should be very careful with the products that can give food a particularly bad taste if they are misused. In any case, he should not use the products of dubious quality or origin.

In conclusion, taking into account the fact that the quality of the raw food and purchasing prices is very good, one has to look for the causes of complaints. It will help in all aspects of the work of the restaurant or café. The administration should try to analyze all the claims of its guests and understand the cons that they noticed. The customer is always right, and his authoritative opinion should not be left without attention. The correction of errors will help attract new visitors and become famous and successful.

Catering Establishments

Labor and food costs are of great significance in all plans related to catering establishments. In the following case, labor and food costs are far above industry average. This fact may lead to the situation when business is unprofitable and there is no need to continue it. In this case, F&B department must take the necessary measures to avoid such a situation. Particular attention should be given to the expenditures for the food preparation and the customer service in the restaurant. Long-term solutions will help to increase revenues and update some of the concepts for the organization of work in this institution.

Labor Cost

The cost of labor is a significant factor for any business, including restaurants. Additional savings arise when the administration improves the management structure of the enterprise as a whole. Therefore, this item requires attention and needs immediate execution.

There are some ideas and instructions that can be offered:

• Firstly, it is a good idea to automate the process of ordering food. This practice is very popular in Japan. The visitors can make their order themselves without the help of a waiter. The hall must be equipped with special computers that will help customers to view the menu and order food, and then the waiter brings them order. The restaurant can also be equipped with a special machine for beverages. The machine for cutting various vegetables and fruit will be an indispensable tool in the restaurant’s kitchen. It will help save on the number of workers involved in the preparation of meals.
• Secondly, the recipes can be simplified to attract cheaper labor. Such innovation will automatically entail a reduction in the price of food as the price of cooking reduces. The restaurant can also organize special courses for young chefs. This event will help to choose the future young and creative employees and look at them in the process. Such workers can cope with simple recipes without any problems.
• In addition, the management should fix the working hours of the restaurant. Usually, a few people come to the restaurant before 10 am. The work until the last customer is also not cost-effective because it entails additional costs. A clear timetable of the restaurant will help to reduce the number of working hours for staff. Therefore, it can reduce the workforce and thus save on salaries. There is also a practice of binding wage to the amount of the sold meals and the number of the clients served. In addition, the restaurant can use the option of dividing all earned tips for all the waiters who work in one shift.

If the restaurant reduces the number of working hours for cooks or facilitates their work, it has the right to reduce their wages. One of the cooks can work in night shifts and make blanks for various dishes that are the most popular among visitors. It will help to serve a large number of customers quickly and efficiently.

A clear timetable for the staff and increase of the effectiveness of their work will lead to a reduction in costs. The measures described above will help to reduce the labor cost of the restaurant or café.

Food Сost

The reduction in the cost of food is an important step on the way to making bigger profits. There are a few tips to help the restaurant succeed in this endeavor.

• Firstly, the restaurant has to improve the system of procurement of products. It is much better and cheaper to buy products in bulk and not in retail. The restaurant can buy such wholesale products as alcohol, beverages, canned fruit, and vegetables. Concerning fresh products, it is necessary to establish contacts with farmers. Farmers always offer fresh and quality products and surprise at pleasant prices. To simplify the procedure, the restaurant can hold an open tender as well as supply online applications by farmers. Such auction system will recommend the most suitable provider of products.
• Secondly, it is possible to focus on the preparation of national dishes. The national dishes usually consist of those products grown or produced in your area. Their preparation does not require the use of imported and expensive ingredients. It will improve the image of the restaurant and expand the circle of visitors.

The restaurant administration needs to enter a flexible system of working with different clients. For example, on weekdays the restaurant can offer various business lunches for the office workers. At this time of the day, there are usually few visitors in restaurants, so this proposal is very relevant. This type of service will attract customers who may visit the restaurant every day. In addition, it would be good to have “happy hours”. For example, every day from 3 to 6 pm when one orders one dish one gets a soft drink for free.

In the modern world, people are constantly on the move. The restaurant workers can use this feature and begin to cook some takeaway. For example, the price of coffee to go is usually lower so it can be very popular among visitors. Thereby, the turnover increases and the restaurant can earn extra income. The visitors can also evaluate takeaway snacks. Many cafes have their websites where users are able to make an order for their home or office. It is very convenient for people who work that the restaurant can deliver food to them. Such services improve the image and attract more customers. If the restaurant provides quality services, it will be able to extend its network and generate more revenue in the end.

Various macroeconomic theories state that large orders allow getting economies of scale. Therefore, big orders are very relevant for catering establishments. Different events, including festivals and corporate events allow to cook large amounts of food at lower cost for additional resources (electricity, gas, etc.).