Restaurant managers are tasked with an overview and insight into basically every aspect of the restaurant. From the various roles, procedures, and business goals, junior employees and senior managers rely on managers for support.
While the specifics of the role will vary depending on the type of restaurant and management structure, we take a look at some common restaurant manager duties.
Managing resources
As a restaurant manager, your job is to ensure the smooth functioning of the restaurant’s operations, and the achievement of the restaurant goals. Undoubtedly, one of these goals will be to ensure that the restaurant sees a good profit. Restaurants are notorious for having low profit margins. However, that doesn’t mean that earnings have to be poor. As manager, part of your job will be to look for ways to increase profits, most likely by reducing costs and saving the business money.
You’ll have to properly allocate a number of resources in order to cut costs. These resources may be human, financial, or technological.
Supervision and support
Manager responsibilities include supervising and supporting staff working front and back of house. Sometimes, managers will be required to switch between supervising and jumping onto a workstation temporarily to offer some relief at peak times or to cover staff breaks. Therefore, they must have a good knowledge of all roles in the restaurant.
Aside from this, they supervise staff to see who may need help and support. Based on what they see, managers will take this knowledge of staff strengths and working styles and use it when creating staff performance reviews.
Plan menus and pricing
Managers often help create and price food and beverage menus. This might change seasonally to reflect in-season produce or due to a change in the menu pricing strategy. Here, managers will have to find a price that meets customer expectations while earning decent revenue. This can be done by maximising the cost efficiency of the supply chain by working closely with vendors and suppliers.
Monetary duties
Depending on the restaurant policy, managers are often responsible for ensuring the tills are balanced by the end of the shift. While it’s unrealistic to expect managers to constantly supervise the tills to ensure cashiers are putting through every transaction properly, managers can set policies in place for better money management.
This is often achieved by setting a discrepancy limit (often £2-5) and providing in-depth cashier training. Once all money is accounted for, managers are often trusted to arrange cash drops with the bank.
Managers also send invoices, approve timesheets, and handle the payroll process. The manager plays a strategic role in setting sales goals to ensure that there’s enough cash flow to pay employees and vendors.
Staff scheduling
The responsibility of scheduling usually falls on one manager. Or, in larger businesses, one person handles regular employee rotas, while another handles manager rotas. It’s the duty of the scheduling manager to work around employee’s commitments, like school and childcare. Employees usually provide their availability, and managers work around this to make sure the business is properly staffed. An efficient rota will have enough staff to meet customer demand, while maintaining good labour costs.
Meeting targets
Depending on the business structure in place, managers may or may not be involved in the target setting process, but they usually are involved in helping to meet them. These could be day to day goals, such as hourly sales targets and table turnover, or longer-term aims such as increased monthly/quarterly sales, monthly labour targets, and reduced stock costs.
Since it’s not uncommon for restaurant managers to work their way up to their role, they have first hand experience of how policies and operations impact workflow and staff morale. Managers might be asked for feedback and suggestions for improvement when setting business targets or updating the business plan, depending on how many years of experience they have.
Conflict resolution
Part of this management role involves acting as the mediator when a conflict arises. A good manager will be able to take an impartial position in an argument in order to find a solution that benefits both parties. Whether employees are having disagreements amongst themselves and have asked for support, or you’ve been asked to deal with a difficult customer, you’ll have to be ready to deescalate, remain professional and friendly, and return to the restaurant floor with a cool head.
Balance inventory levels
Managers are responsible for overseeing inventory levels, which directly impacts costs, ordering and customer dining experiences. Managers are expected to find the best ways to handle stock turnover and storage, both for health and safety reasons and for financial reasons. Better inventory management can lead to increased customer satisfaction since they are receiving fresher food. It can also lower costs, since better management will mean less wastage and shrinkage.
Onboarding and training staff
Restaurant managers are usually responsible for finding and hiring new employees, and welcoming them aboard. This might include writing the specifications of the job for an advertisem*nt, conducting interviews, and providing initial training to new staff. Some businesses have a policy in place for hiring with a very straightforward welcoming and training procedure in place. This usually includes guidance on health and safety training and pre-written interview questions. Other times it’s up to the manager to decide how to conduct training, making sure that new employees are fully trained in how to carry out their role, customer service procedures and general rules and policies.
Understand the technology
Obviously, every restaurant will operate with different pieces of equipment and have its own way of doing things. There are some common pieces of equipment that all growing businesses should consider to help automate processes and operate more efficiently.
A point of sale (POS) system
Having a powerful POS is like having an extra business manager on board. Your point of sale takes the data you input, and translates it into convenient business reports. Some of the reports you can access through an Epos Now POS solution include:
- Individual product performance, GMROI, profit margin per item
- Sales reports based on time, week, and quarter
- Sales per employee
- Product promotion / special offer reports
- Stock level reports - includes the option to automatically reorder inventory once it’s reached a certain level
These reports are crucial as they inform all aspects of your business, and allow you to make better management decisions. They also update in real-time for the best possible accuracy, and they can be accessed remotely since it’s a cloud-based system. As well as reports, there are also 100s of integrations and apps available to link to your POS. No need to input data manually, or collect information from a range of sources and spreadsheets.
- User-friendly website builder with drag and drop functionality
- Click and collect, delivery, and tableside ordering
- Projections based on sales and time-based shopper trends
- CRM that includes customer order history, contact information, and details
- Bookkeeping and account integrations that are fed by sales inputted to the POS
- Employee records, scheduling and leave
- Till links to KDS for faster service
- Table management system
- Booking system with the ability to cancel, rearrange, and contact guests
- 24/hour IT support
- Offline sales are available with Epos Now Payments, so you can continue taking card payment without an internet connection
All of these operation, and more can be handled by the Epos Now Restaurant System. Using a reliable POS system has been proven to streamline business processes, with 86% of businesses investing in technology to improve their productivity in 2021.
Restaurant manager and owner guides
Epos Now has a full library of resources dedicated to those working in the restaurant industryon our website. Here are our most sought after guides for restaurant managers and owners:
- How Much do Restaurant Managers Make?
- How Much does a Restaurant POS System Cost?
- Welcoming and Greeting Guests in a Restaurant: A How to Guide
- Restaurant Mission Statement Examples
- How Many Members of Staff do I Need in my Restaurant?
- How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan
- Restaurant Branding 101
