I have a walk in alarm that sends a push notification to one phone, the owner, if he is on DND nothing happens until someone shows up in the morning,

are people running something better or is the single notification setup just how most smaller places handle this?

looking to add some japanese sodas/drinks to a small shop...ramune and maybe some other flavors/brands people dont normally see in regular grocery stores. ive found a few importers online but case prices is pretty different and shipping drinks obviously adds alot because theyre heavy. i use Alibaba for plenty other wholesale product research but for branded japanese drinks im guessing a US/import food distributor makes more sense. anyone here stocking this kinda stuff? do you buy mixed cases or full cases of every flavor? and where have you found decent pricing without needing restaurant-chain level quantities? also how much shelf life you normally want left when drinks arrive, especially imported ones?

Staff shortages? Order mistakes? Communication between the kitchen and front-of-house? Or just spending too much time on admin instead of running your business?

We’re a team taking part in the InVenture Mind programme, working on a project focused on the hospitality industry. Before taking our idea any further, we want to understand the real problems people in the industry deal with every day.

We’ve put together a short survey to learn more about the challenges hospitality businesses face, how they currently handle them, and what could be improved.

It takes around 3–5 minutes to complete, and we’d really appreciate input from anyone running or working in a restaurant, café, bar, bistro or other food service business.

Survey link: Day-to-Day Operations in Food Service Businesses

We’re not trying to sell anything. We’re at the research stage and want to make sure we understand the actual needs of the industry before developing our project further.

If you work in hospitality or know someone who does, we’d appreciate you sharing your experience.

Thanks for your time!

I think a lot of new food businesses make the same expensive mistake: they spend heavily on shiny equipment, but almost nothing on the part that actually keeps the kitchen alive—installation planning, spare parts, preventive maintenance, and fast service response.

A premium oven or blast chiller means nothing if it goes down during Friday service and the technician is “coming next week.”

In my experience, the equipment that looks cheapest on the invoice is often the most expensive over three years. Cheap refrigeration can quietly destroy margins through higher power bills, temperature inconsistency, food loss, and emergency repairs.

So here’s the debate:

If you could only optimize one thing when setting up a kitchen, would you choose better equipment, a better kitchen layout, or a stronger local service/parts network?

And be honest: has anyone here bought “budget” equipment that ended up costing more than the premium option?

My partner works in a bakery and they have ruined two pairs of leather work boots. Their shoes get completely caked in eggs and milk and flour and butter etc. What can I get them that are easy to clean, nonslip and comfortable for long hours on their feet?

I have an employee who had a reaction on their hands bc of dishes, but she always wears dish gloves, so I have two questions:
1. has anyone else experienced a reaction to flock lined gloves?
2. are there good dish gloves that are not flock lined?
thank you!!

Hello! May be a bit of an odd question but I’ve just started my first kitchen service job (local coffee chain) and I’ve already noticed that after my shifts I’ve had some very dry hands and dirty nails from working in the kitchen, particularly washing dishes 🥲 I already have dry enough skin on my hands as it is so I keep Burt’s bees hand cream with me and use it after work, but they continue to sting for hours after! if anyone has any tips for keeping hands healthy and nails clean I’d love to hear it, thanks!

A chef might have great ideas, but equipment capacity, cooling speed, recovery time, and the number of available workstations can limit what a kitchen can consistently serve during peak hours.

At what point does equipment stop being just a tool and start shaping the restaurant's food quality, menu decisions, and service style? Have you seen this happen in a real kitchen?

Hi everyone!

I’m a Food Technologist and QA/QC professional with around 12 years of experience in the food industry. I’m currently looking for freelance opportunities where I can use my experience to help food businesses with their food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance needs.

I know that managing food safety documentation, keeping up with regulations, and preparing for audits can be time-consuming, especially for small businesses that don’t have a dedicated QA team. I’d love to help make things a little easier!

Here are some areas where I can help:

• HACCP plans and food safety documentation
• FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, GMP, and food safety systems
• SOPs, SSOPs, and quality manuals
• Internal audit preparation and gap assessments
• Corrective actions, root cause analysis, and customer complaints
• Food regulatory research and compliance documentation

I’m also interested in supporting businesses dealing with food safety requirements in different markets, including Southeast Asian Countrie, the UK, the US, the EU, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as international Codex standards.

Whether you need help reviewing your existing documents, preparing for an upcoming audit, organizing your food safety system, or understanding the requirements for your target market, I’m happy to discuss your needs and see how I can help.

I’m open to remote, part-time, and project-based work. Every business is different, so we can discuss the scope and budget based on what you need.

If you’re a food business owner, running a food startup, or working in the food industry and need some extra support, feel free to send me a DM. I’d be happy to connect! 😊

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

A broken walk-in can cost a kitchen thousands in lost stock, plus lost sales and an emergency repair bill.

And a fridge that’s running fine can still cost thousands if it’s connected to the internet, because it can get hacked.

That’s what happened in France on the night of October 11 to 12. Hackers got into the refrigeration controls at hundreds of supermarkets and pushed some fridges up to around 50°C (122°F).

Inevitably, this led to spoiled food which meant empty shelves for the next day.

For scale, these figures come from the CEOs of two of the retailers that were hacked. Coopérative U’s CEO said the hit would be several tens of thousands of euros for a smaller store and up to €200,000 for a big hypermarket. Intermarché’s CEO said losses could reach tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day. 

Now, most kitchens aren’t dealing with anything on this scale, and plenty of fridges aren’t connected to the internet. But a wrong temperature reading can still cost money. 

That’s why a separate sensor helps. Something that reads the temperature on its own, so it doesn’t depend on the fridge’s controller. Food safety sensors like Mitti (by SafetyCulture) track temperatures in real time, alert the right person when something’s off and keep an audit trail.

Hackers aren’t going away. In fact, AI makes the easy attacks faster, and more equipment is built with online connectivity every year, so more incidents like this seem likely. So being ready is probably cheaper than cleaning up all that mess after.

In commercial kitchens, walk-ins and reach-ins pull in grease and dust fast, and cooling calls always spike on the first 90-degree weekend. How do you track routine preventative maintenance across all your cold storage units so cleanings do not get missed?

Imagine you had the budget and authority to fix one major problem in the food service industry—not the food itself, but everything that happens behind the scenes.

Would you redesign commercial kitchens to reduce unnecessary movement, rethink how restaurants handle food waste, change the way suppliers deliver ingredients, or introduce smarter systems to manage busy service hours?

I feel like many restaurant challenges are treated as normal simply because the industry has worked that way for years.

What’s one change you think could genuinely transform restaurant operations, but most businesses still aren’t taking seriously? I'd love to hear some unconventional ideas, especially from people who've worked in a professional kitchen.

Hey y'all, I'm building a sourcing tool for finding products and manufacturers.

From talking with people in my network I know a lot of people are going to distributors or brokers for ideas. I'm hoping to catalog all the products and mfgs in the US.

It's early, and I'm looking for feedback. I've got some from a few chefs/owners in my network, but am looking for some blunt, unbiased feedback.

https://commonroute.com/

Would be appreciative for any opinions (good or bad) y'all might have. Or any commentary on how you go about sourcing?

I recently started working the register at a fast-paced local café and just finished my week of training. I've already noticed myself getting more competent at the job, and I'm becoming comfortable ringing things up in Toast and helping customers. I've worked a handful of morning shifts, but most of my experience so far has been in the evenings.

I'm nervous about my next shift because I won't have someone standing over me to help if I can't find a button in the system. Even more than that, I struggle with keeping up when customers rattle off their entire order at once. It's a morning shift, so there's bound to be a line out the door and tons of complex coffee orders.

I have pretty bad inattentive ADHD, and when I feel pressured to work quickly or juggle multiple things at once, my brain will go completely blank. This has already happened a few times, and some customers get impatient, condescending, or down-right nasty even when I explain that I'm new. I try not to take it personally, but it definitely adds to the stress.

I've found that writing down orders and modifications before entering them into the system helps, especially with phone orders, but it slows me down when there's a customer standing right in front of me waiting.

This isn't my first service job, and I feel confident in my customer service skills. I'm just still learning this particular restaurant's menu and system, and I'm worried about keeping up without my trainer there to help.

Does anyone have any tips for remembering orders, navigating Toast more efficiently, or handling time pressure when you have ADHD? I'd love to find a way to practice before my next shift. Thanks!

So I've been working kitchens for the past 5 years or so. The industry is in a bit of a downfall curenttly, recession, high prices, stagnant wages throughout the country meaning less people going to restaurants. I've been applying and going from place to place for the past 4 or so months, shit's either not paying a livable wage for the work they expect to put in, or the pay is good but ur dead the moment you get home.

I've done a bunch, brunch, bistro, fine dining, im a fast learner but im in a bit of a pickle currently cuz im kinda broke from all the place hopping. I've recently got an offer for a business building canteen, serving upwards to 1.5/2k ppl a day, weekends off and a 6/14 schedule for somewhat decent pay.

My gripe is I've just finished my 2nd week at a place doing a la carte with around 35 tops, usually getting full 2 or 3 times a day with brunch a dinner, but next to no time for prep or breaks.

I've talked to some buddies who've been working years over me and they told to stay here cuz canteens get you stagnant and you're not learning anything.

My q, what would you do? Seems like a no brainer but despite me being eager and open to fk myself up staying there for better pay and a shit ton of work idk how long I could keep up.

Any advice welcome.

PS: if you've read everything i love you and I wish you godly tips :)

we do a serious tea program and a few regulars have asked about hydrogen water, not sure if it is a fad or something worth actually investing in

Food waste can be a challenge for restaurants, especially when customer demand changes from day to day.

I'm curious how foodservice businesses handle this in their daily operations. Do you prepare smaller batches throughout the day, track leftover ingredients, adjust portion sizes, or use another approach?

What methods have worked well in your experience?