Restaurants vary dramatically, from style and approach, level of service, size, and their unique staffing requirements. From Michelin Star restaurants, to pop up kitchens. Each restaurant will be made or broken by the experience of the patrons and clients.
For a restaurant to truly succeed, one needs to have a complete team who are all focused towards success and understand the unique selling point of the brand as well as working towards continual development and improvement.
So which areas of your restaurant staff training could be improved?
Management Team
The management of the restaurant begins with the owner, this can be an individual or a corporation. Some owners are silent partners and will hire active managers, others will take more active roles. Larger scale businesses may have multiple managers to assist with running the restaurant chain or different departments of the company.
In some cases, the executive chef might handle the business and administrative work. If the executive chef becomes the manager, then the sous-chef may take more daily responsibilities for food and service.
A ship can only be led by a successful and confident captain. Click To TweetThe buck stops with the management, and without good team leadership, the restaurant will not succeed. Therefore all the skills any manager requires are key to developing a strong team and providing the best restaurant staff training. After all, a ship can only be led by a successful and confident captain, and the same is true for the restaurant industry.
Accounts Department
In every restaurant, large and small, the accounts department will consist of various team members helping with day-to-day tasks such as bookkeeping, payroll services, tax returns and general admin. With the right restaurant staff training, this team should be organised, digital and working with efficient systems to minimise workflow issues. The management of the accounts team is also vital to ensure that the team work well together, tasks are clear and a structure should be put in place to deal with staff absence.
The accounting department may cross over into the management team, particularly in smaller restaurants.
Kitchen
Daily operations are typically overseen by the sous-chef. They are personally responsible for the team in the kitchen. Sous-chefs may be in charge of ordering/inventory. Line cooks are responsible for the majority of the food production, and then assistant cooks and apprentice cooks will support the senior team. There are prep cooks in larger kitchens and specialist chefs such as pastry chefs. The food and beverages within a hotel can be a signature element of the brand, from the revered cocktail bar through to the Michelin star restaurant.
In London, many high-end restaurants will bring in high profile Chefs in order to attract the highest level of clients – and in turn, the staff supporting the Head Chef should be of the highest quality.
The layout/style of the kitchen, restaurant and drinking area will affect the way staff present themselves. A closed kitchen will have a very different energy to an open plan kitchen – displayed for all the guests to observe! Within the F&B department, teamwork becomes the highest factor in attending the guests and getting the highest results. A breakdown of teamwork will only result in poor communication and in turn impacting the output of the staff. Don’t let this happen to your F&B team by providing poor restaurant staff training.
Dining Room
This will typically be supervised by a dining room manager and in formal settings, the maître d’hotel. A hugely important role, they are in charge of overseeing the service staff, working with inventory and managing the bar staff. Within the dining room, there may be a head waiter to manage servers. The wait staff will take the clients orders and serve the food to the table. Assistants or ‘bus persons’ clear the dishes.
With large wine lists and high-end restaurants, they will typically have a sommelier to help the clients choose wine. There will typically be host and hostesses to meet and greet, welcome the patrons and seat guests.
These roles, as one can imagine are integral to the presentation and finishing touches of the restaurant and client experience. From the correct etiquette and cultural understandings ensuring your whole team are on the same page and focused on the same goals. This can only be acquired by suitable restaurant staff training.
Other Staff
Additional staff can be found in restaurants from reception and booking lines, and these typically fall in the accounting and management departments. There will be an efficient team of cleaners (typically performed at night or during the day if the restaurant opens later) and an efficient dishwashing crew. Cleanliness and maintaining health and safety standards are of the highest importance.
If you have a restaurant and feel that your existing (or new) staff need some additional training we’d love to hear from you! No matter how small or big your operation is, or in which area you need additional restaurant staff training – we would be able to discuss tailor-made packages to suit your brand and staff. Why not drop us a line today.