Anthony Bourdain once said, “If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business,” and I couldn’t agree more. I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone had to work in the restaurant or retail industry for at least a year. It isn’t just about food, service, and attention to detail. My lessons learned from the restaurant industry came in the moments when I really paid attention to the people, expectations of customers, staff, time management, and business.

My Restaurant Industry Story

After 15 years in the restaurant industry, there have been times when looked back and wondered why I didn’t listen to my dad when he asked why I was majoring in hospitality in college. We’re all young once and have made decisions we wish we could change but such is life. Over those years, I spent a lot of time trying to 86 myself from the industry but had confusion about how my skills would apply to positions in the corporate world. Now that I am a few years and a few jobs away from the restaurant industry, I can say that I don’t regret any of my time or lessons learned.

The restaurant business is a lean business machine. 

When I left the food business, I went to the tech industry for a brief time. At that time the tech industry was constantly throwing around the work, “lean,” in regard to building a lean business model. I was confused as to why that was even a buzzword. In the restaurant industry, we always run lean or else we’d be out of business. Apparently, the rest of the business world can learn a lesson from this.

Where did you have dinner the last time you went out? If it was at a restaurant that has been around for any amount of time, you can bet that they run lean.

Typical Lean Running Restaurant Management Protocols

In the restaurant industry profit margins are tight. Restaurateurs are constantly aware of expenses, or at least they should be if they want to stay open any length of time.

  • Watching waste: What are we throwing out?
  • Watching labor: When can we cut employees after the rush? because when we aren’t making money, we’re losing money.
  • Who do we need to hire? You might like to hire someone to be a hostess but how does that impact the bottom line?
  • What are weekly, monthly, quarterly expenses? Are good more expensive certain times of the year? How do we make educated, cost-effective purchasing decisions, even during our busiest times?
  • Where can costs be cut without compromising the quality of the customer experience?
  • What factors impact sales? Is there a holiday coming up? Is a television show featuring a dish we serve? Are we getting media attention and how will that impact sales, good or bad?

The attention given to these items will either make or break you in this industry. In corporate America, many of these things are not taught or managed well, and in small business, owners often ignore efficiencies and cost savings in favor of making more sales. The problem is more sales don’t mean more money on the bottom line, especially if you’re not tracking expenses.

Do you know the numbers for your business? 

During those years in the industry, I spent my Sunday evenings or Monday mornings working on inventory. At each restaurant we did weekly inventory and pulled weekly profit and loss and labor reports. Weekly inventory is a lot of work, and many people would disagree with the necessity of weekly inventory. However, I call this being smart because if you don’t know your numbers, then you don’t know what changes to make.

The restaurant industry moves so rapidly that if you wait a month to get reports and then try to make a lot of changes the next month, compounded over six months, you could have a mess on your hands or possibly go out of business. Instead, by making small changes each week, you will be able to continually steer the business in the right direction. Are you constantly evaluating your business financials? Or are you only evaluating on a quarterly, six-month, or, dare I say, yearly mark? It can make a difference to the long-term success of your business.

How far ahead are you thinking and planning? 

How far ahead are you thinking about your business? While it’s good to focus on this week or month, it’s also important to look at the bigger picture. What you do today impacts the future but it’s not always that simple.

One of the biggest lessons learned from the restaurant industry is that while we were focused in the present for busy services, we had to be fully aware of how what was happening in those moments would impact future business. If we had couples waiting too long for seating or if our servers forgot appetizers, what did it mean for the guests as well as the servers and staff? If customers didn’t come back, it could be disaster for all of us. That made longer-term tasks like wine pairings, plate presentation, reservation policies, menus and overall presentation important to the overall dining experience.

Whether you’re in the restaurant or another industry, think about the experience of guests or clients and find ways to make improvements to retain them long-term, not just today.

How are you communicating?

Communication in business varies by industry but is always important to success. It wasn’t uncommon for me to go from talking to guests to booking a private dining experience, to explaining wine delivery issues with bartenders, to managing teenage busboys, to speaking to the chef about specials, and to the office to talk to the owner, all within 15 minutes. While it was fast paced, it was a lesson in communicating clearly and effectively to make my points while listening to the concerns of others. In some ways, it is what I do now with my KPI Bookkeeping clients.

At the heart of these lessons from the restaurant industry is people. You have to know who you want to work with, what they need from you, and how to deliver what they need in a way that makes sense for them. Those decisions can’t be made if you don’t understand the numbers.

KPI Bookkeeping in Phoenix is here to guide you through best practices for bookkeeping and understanding what the reports mean for the future of your business. Call us today at 949-373-5534 to get started!