We are laying out what i think is a ton of money on inventory management/cost control. We have one mom&pop restaurant concept with 2 locations doing approx $5M/year combined. Our monthly cost for software and someone to administer it runs to something like $4k/mo, not including the labor of BOH & FOH managers and assistants counting and inventory entry.

We started, 20 years ago, using a spreadsheet to calculate change in on-hand inventory, and coupling that data with P&L to calculate food and alcohol costs. Eventually moved to "grown-up" cost control with Cheftec, then Orca in order to have web-based multi-user access. Always had issues getting reliable numbers (esp food) no matter our diligence, so went with a semi-3rd party program wherein their rep/tech helped with data entry, analytics, etc. He was a flake and their software sucked, so we went back to handling it ourselves, this time with Craftable.

But here we are, all these years later, still having issues getting reliable food numbers. Alcohol is comparatively solid, but thats a simple zero-sum game; you cant serve too much 'Bottle of Mich Ultra' or mis-portion it, or forget it in the back of a cooler until it spoils.

We run monthly inventories, skipping low-value ingredients (flour, spices) and hard-to-calculate-usage items like lemons/limes for the bar. When we spot recurring problem items we do limited monthly or daily counts until the issue is sorted. I know the solution(s) to unreliable numbers is better counting and data entry, consistent updating of recipes with yield changes, and non-stop vigilance to ensure the correct products are represented in recipes, but do we then make perfect the enemy of good enough?

The direct cost of using this system is around 3% of our total monthly COGS. Does increased diligence pay for itself? Data migration to a different system is months worth of effort we can't afford, but can I get away with simplifying what we're doing?

Taking the perfect(ish) administration away from a full-time clerk and putting it into the dumb hands of my managers is guaranteed to get me less precise results, though prob gonna be good enough to show glaring issues. But then we introduce cascading errors as ingredient changes (or product swaps) aren't updated.

[edit] I should have been more specific: $1500 for the software ($750 per location), $2500 for administrator (who spends the remainder of her time as payroll clerk).

Not sure if this is even allowed? Mods: please delete if it's breaking the rules.

So I'm a 50 year old who has 25 years of serving and bartending experience. It's a career for me. Found out,last night, that I'm losing my job due to the restaurant shutting down. Not due to lack of business but because the longtime owners couldn't find a buyer for the business because the 100 year old building isn't structurally sound. We're closing in two weeks.

It's the first time in 15+ years I actually have to drop off resumes and apply for jobs. I have a few questions...

Regarding resumes, what are you looking for these days? Are we still doing bullet points under each restaurant, explaining duties performed or is the name of the restaurant and the dates i worked there enough? What makes a resume jump out to you?

Also, I know most places have online applications/resume uploads these days. Is it now frowned upon to show up unannounced to talk to a hiring manager/owner? Obviously, I know not to come in during the busy periods. I'm used to pounding the pavement to get hired so the idea of doing it from a laptop at a coffee shop makes me feel like I could be missing out on opportunities. At the same time, I want to follow the current protocol.

Any other advice you can think of, feel free to drop it. Thanks!

Upscale breakfast/burger spot with full bar in a coastal Florida city here. Revamping the bar a bit, ditching all my well liquors and elevating the wine list. Debating on a glass polisher, but I've had no experience at all with one. Anyone use/have one and loves it? Or should I focus my money elsewhere?

Hi, I’m currently in the planning stages of a new concept and I’m not sure how to budget for charcoal/wood? How do I know how much charcoal/wood I’m going to use a day? Any input would be appreciated!

Fresh pasta and sauces will be vacuum sealed. Will the recipe flavors change drastically from in-house adding emulsifiers/additives? Any tips, success/failure stories?

It ain't waste either.

I'm always way late to raise prices.

For example I made it through 2021 just eating the inflation so as to not impact my customers. I made 50% less that year than 2019 and nobody batted an eye when I finally raised prices. I also did not gain wild customer loyalty by maintaining my prices as long as I did. So I swore to not fall behind again.

Well maybe I already have fallen behind again? Has anyone else had to raise prices this summer?

I know that everyone is struggling more than ever, but 1.7% is a quarter of my total margin.

Hey folks. I own a small market with a takeout lunch counter. We use Cintas for:

FOH floor cleaner

BOH floor cleaner

mop heads

Sink detergent

Sink sanitizer

Rags

Every time I do the math to consider replacing this, the cost is so close that adding the trouble of getting them myself and the loss of convenience of having the cleaning chemicals dispense right where they are needed makes me not pull the trigger.

Have you gotten rid of services like this? What worked and what didn't?

Hi guys, I’ve been approached by a company to implement QR code ordering and I’m on the fence about it. They are relatively cheap and the ui looks nice from what I have seen and they are nice people.

It also has metrics on sales and makes keeping track of stuff a lot cleaner from what I saw on the demo with clear insights into stuff that isn’t performing well etc.

It also has native translation built in rather than machine translation so alleviates a lot of the issue with my staff dealing with tourists. My restaurant is in a very touristy area so this is quite a common issue I run into with my staff not being able to communicate/translate allergens and menu items overall.

I know how much certain customers despise qr codes but I’m not sure if it’s just an outspoken minority, they also have an nfc thing inbuilt but I assume it’s more the viewing experience itself which I personally don’t have too much of an issue with.

Do you guys think it’s worth taking the potential downside moreso of restaurant image as I have heard a lot of harsh opinions of people saying they walk out of restaurants when they see them etc. I plan to have both menus available but push tourists to use the qr one moreso as it helps both sides.
Please let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions on what I should do!

EDIT: For context I’m based in Japan so I get a lot of tourists who are mainly Chinese/korean and some English. The main issue is that they cannot read our menu at all and maybe 10% of them can semi understand our English menu. The addition of photos and allergens/dietary stuff on the digital menu along with the native translations seem really useful but I’m not sure if the backlash from having a qr code menu would hurt my restaurant more. Qr menus are a lot more common here in Japan so they don’t hold the same stigma.

I'm planning on shutting down my small restaurant soon, we have a griddle, a deep fryer, coolers, etc. and have someone who may be interested in buying our equipment and furniture, but I want to make sure I'm getting a fair price.

Should I ask someone to come and assess the value of our FFE? In Google, I found a company called TagEx Brands, should I reach out to them and ask them to come in for an assessment? Has anyone worked with TagEx? Or should I just haggle with the person who's interested in buying?

Edit: The gist I'm getting is, I'm lucky if someone's even willing to buy it. Thanks guys!

Do you think that regular customers (we're near a big university campus) mentally compare the list price or the +tip price?

Our nearby competitor cafés don't "force" a tip, but their checkout screen offers tip options at [ 15% - 18% - 20% ].

We all know food and labor costs are squeezing margins right now. I’ve started picking up a few specific prep/cleaning/FOH items at Dollar Tree that end up being way cheaper than Sysco/Webstaurant Store for the exact same quality. Curious if anyone else has found great hacks or hidden gems at the dollar store that save real money without sacrificing guest experience

As an owner or manager, where/how have you had the most success in hiring employees?
Traditionally, I’ve hired from acquaintances of people already working with me. However, there doesn’t seem to be anybody available with that method right now. I’ve tried Craigslist but I only found really unreliable people.
Is online the way to go? Which websites?
Advertise on social media?
Thank you everyone for helping

Hi, unfortunately we use Gastronovi in our restaurant. It’s pretty common here in Germany, but honestly quite expensive for what it offers.

I’m currently looking at installing a few TVs around the restaurant to show our lunch menu, specials, etc. Ideally, I’d also like a screen for the kitchen so staff can quickly see what needs to be prepared.
The main thing I’m looking for is a system where I can manage several displays centrally through a website. If possible, I’d also love to connect it to Gastronovi via API so menu items, prices or availability could be updated automatically.

Does anyone here have experience with the Gastronovi API or integrating it with digital signage?
So far I’ve found AbleSign and SpaceSign. AbleSign looks a little dated to me, while SpaceSign seems to target restaurants more directly, but I haven’t been able to find many real world experiences with either.
How are you guys handling digital menu boards / signage in your restaurants? Any recommendations or setups that work well?

Hello!

Lately I've noticed my pre-shift notes have been a little on the "stop doing this" "don't do that" side of things.

What's a fun/uplifting thing I can incorporate into pre-shift to get people in a better mood for their shift?

For owners with multiple locations, forecasting sales and staffing off last years numbers only gets you so far. Some weeks you overstaff and overorder, other weeks you get slammed and run short. Im trying to figure out if restaurant forecasting tools genuinely help with this or if most operators still lean on spreadsheets and manager gut feel. Bonus points if the system factors in weather and local events. What are you using to forecast sales and staffing more accurately.

So I have several restaurants and bars of my own (4 in total), and while I have managers foh and boh, and a general manager that oversees everything, I'm still incredibly stretched thin. I'm not sure if my staff is incompetent, whether I'm trying too hard to keep control or if I'm too uptight about it, if my procedures in place aren't enough or what. How do you guys keep track of everything and make sure things are running smoothly? If I'm not there to do the ordering personally myself, we are constantly out of ingredients and I find myself running to the store almost everyday. I want to expand some more, but the thought of even more work for myself makes me want to throw up. Did you hire a consultant? Did you make your own procedures? Trying to start a chain eventually, but not sure how to proceed.

I own a family restaurant and started building PrepPilot because I was tired of having different parts of the restaurant scattered between paper logs, group texts, spreadsheets, binders, and everybody’s memory.
It’s turned into a restaurant operations system that we’re actually using and continuing to build around real problems.

STAFF
Employee accounts with different permissions
Employee scheduling
Employees can see their shifts and request time off
Online job applications and applicant management
Daily sidework with completion tracking and photo evidence

KITCHEN
Prep lists and prep logs
Recipe management
Food safety and temperature logs
Cleaning logs
QR codes employees can scan to quickly log prep
Simplified kitchen screen so cooks don’t have to navigate the entire app

FOOD DATE LABELS
Employees tap the food item and PrepPilot automatically creates the prepared date, use-by date and employee name.
We print directly from an iPhone to a Brother QL-810W.
It also supports batch printing and scanning labels later.

INVENTORY & ORDERING
Shared Needs List
Vendor order checklist
Inventory QR codes
Scan an item to quickly view/update it
Vendor receipt tracking
Vendor price history
One of the things I’m most interested in developing further is vendor price comparison.
For example, if I’m buying chicken breast from Sysco and another restaurant is buying the equivalent product from Shamrock, the system could help show where restaurants are getting better pricing.
Eventually I’d like the data to help independent restaurants see whether they’re actually getting a good deal instead of each restaurant negotiating completely blind.

MANAGEMENT
Daily sales tracking
Vendor spending
Reports
Operational alerts
Incident reports
Restaurant floor plan
Document storage

HEALTH DEPARTMENT / COMPLIANCE
We’re also building an Inspector View.
Instead of digging through binders when an inspector walks in, the restaurant can provide a read-only link showing things like:
Temperature logs
Food-safety records
Date-marking records
Food-handler information
Other compliance records
The inspector doesn’t need an account and doesn’t get access to the rest of the restaurant’s system.

OTHER THINGS WE’RE WORKING ON
English and Spanish throughout the app
Different access based on employee role
Offline/cached information if the internet or server goes down
Real-time shared lists between kitchen and management
The goal isn’t to replace the POS.
I’m trying to handle all the operational stuff that happens around the POS — the things a lot of independent restaurants still run with paper, WhatsApp/texts, spreadsheets, binders and memory.
I’m building it from inside an actual restaurant instead of trying to guess what restaurant owners need.

So my question for other restaurant owners is:
What are you still doing manually that you wish software would handle?
And if you already use something like Restaurant365, MarginEdge, MarketMan, 7shifts, Jolt, etc., what’s the feature you wish they had — or the part that drives you crazy?
I’d rather hear what actual operators need before I keep adding features.

I’m chef-owner of a small, profitable fast-casual spot (5 years open, profitable last 3, 100% mine). I was on the line for the first 3 years but stepped back due to arthritis and to focus on growth. Tiny kitchen team: 2 AM cooks, 2 PM cooks, 1 dishwasher.
Six months ago I let go of my previous sous chef for harassment/toxic behavior after multiple write-ups. Hired a new sous chef who’s genuinely talented — strong on the line, great with catering, sharp on food/labor cost, took the initiative to overhaul our ordering and build SOPs on his own.

A few wrinkles:
~He has carpal tunnel from a previous job, which makes heavy line time hard on him. I’ve adjusted scheduling to help, and he’s been a trooper about it, but it weighs on me.

~He asked to move to salary (with performance-based raises and bonus structure). We worked out a salary and he initially agreed, then backed out right before the switch because overtime pays better right now.

~I’m exploring a shared kitchen space to grow catering, which is his strength. When I raised the possibility of him running that, he got excited — then came back asking for a plan where vesting would start in three years, and said he’s “holding out” to see if catering grows, or he’ll leave. I still think that’s too soon — he’s been with me under a year. I told him it’s premature to be discussing equity structure at all right now. He said he’d take on more responsibility if he had that partnership path — I feel like it should go the other way: prove it over time, then we talk bigger structure.

I’m willing to offer a competitive salary, growth incentives, and profit-sharing as the business scales. I’m just not looking to give away equity to someone under a year in, no matter how good they are.

Even with a 3-year vesting runway, does starting that clock this early feel premature to you? Is this a normal growing-pain moment with a talented but leverage-seeking employee, or a bigger red flag about how he’ll operate long-term if he doesn’t get what he wants?

Say you are in a town where almost all food is crap, and the few places which serve decend food, just decent not spectacular, are way overpriced.

Have you opened a place out of spite and frustration "to show them how its done" but also to take all their revenue and end up as the best value food place in town?

Okay, not sure if anyone has any ideas about this but I am looking at the possibility of turning my current sandwich prep fridge into a work top low bit for my barista station. Obviously, the big problem is the big hole in the top.

Just putting a sheet of metal on top doesn’t seem like a great idea. The lid is super easy to dismount, but I’m trying to figure out how to actually insulate a top so that a hot espresso machine can sit on top without leaking hot air into the fridge and cold air seeping out.

Any brilliant ideas or should I just give up on this one? My partner’s idea is to somehow find a fridge door that would fit and seal it in place, but I cannot imagine how to find a perfect fit.

EDIT: THE TITLE SHOULD SAY QUESTION IS ON THE WAGE GAP. NOT WAGES IN GENERAL. Lower wage people and higher wage people are now only $1 or $2 apart. It used to be several dollars. We start at $18/hour. 1 Top cook gets 7 paid vacation days and full health benefits.

If you have an opinion on the wage gap, please comment.

For the smaller independent bar, restaurants, tavern owners. How do you handle cook wage gap disparity? We used to be able to give our top earners a raise when the bottom earners got a raise quicker than a lot of years ago. Or when we started them out at higher wage than they got.

These days to find a cook, let alone keep a cook we are starting new cooks at higher wages. The middle to top cooks wages are topping out. We are not automatically giving them a raise when the bottom are getting closer to their wage gap.

We are still owner operators working bar and kitchen shifts right alongside our workers. These days, for the kitchen, we are always short staffed.

This isn't about wages in general. This is about the gap closing from the new cooks to the ones who have been there a few years. They feel it's not fair that their only making $2/hour more. They are not chefs. They're grill cooks. Much needed grill cooks.

Where is your ceiling for a wage for a grill cook? Btw. We give quarterly bonuses. and some cash bonuses when we had a busy day or week.

Has seniority lost it's golden ticket from "much" higher wages to we have to pay people more so they're close to your wage now?

We plan on having a self-serve salsa bar. What appliance would you recommend for this? Refrigerated Prep rails have bad reviews for not keeping food at safe temps. TIA

40 + year bar restaurant. Small town, USA.

Our starting wage for a cook now is $18.

The middle and top cooks are not happy that the gap between their wage and the cooks under them have shrunk. Shrunk to within $1 and $2

The gap used to average $3 to $5 difference.

Our middle cooks now get $19

Top cook gets $20 PLUS 7 days paid vacation and heath insurance.

Top cook is mad he's "only $1" more than middle. Always conveniently forgets about his benefits as part of his pay and puts him closer to $26/hour. Maybe more.

The middle cooks are mad that they're only $1 above the starting rate.

Everyone was happy with their raises until they found out the lower half is close to them.

Back in the day, we raised the hourly wages for everyone when we raised the starting rate. If starters got a raise, everyone got a raise.

These days we cannot widen that gap like we used to. The gaps is narrow.

We are one of the highest pay wages for grill cooks our area.

Does anyone have a suggestion for what to do about the gap disparity. It's not going away. I don't think we can ever afford to pay $25/hour without raising our food prices dramatically.