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Pro, which allows the operator to put all their numbers in once, Instead, when they discover they need to spend $500 dollars and
tie all their systems together, and hold their management team
accountable. So it has everything from manager logs and labor
controls and cash controls to complete food and beverage systems.
Everything that you can imagine to run your operation is at your
fingertips as long as you have internet access.
Nick:
Awesome, sounds good. David, here’s what I really want to get
answered for our Bar and Restaurant Success audience. Running a
profitable kitchen obviously takes a lot of work. You have to know
your numbers. And I’ll admit, I’m not perfect. I’ve been a victim of not
knowing my food costs and all that. So my question is this, David.
What is your formula for creating and maintaining a successful
kitchen operation with the least amount of effort for that busy
restaurant owner or that busy bar owner?
David:
I wish I could tell you there was
just one easy thing to do. I’ll
tell you that there are things
that we can do that are easy,
and then eventually we’ve got
to move you to a point where
we’ve got to get the hard stuff
done. So if I was looking at it
and I wanted to quickly make
a change in my business, there
are three systems that I would
have put in place right away that
don’t take a lot of effort that
gives you a lot of control.
One of those systems is
called the Purchase Allotment
System. This is where we take
into consideration your sales
forecast, your target budget for food costs, your actual sales for
food that have happened during that time, and what your purchases
are. It is kind of zero-based budgeting, if you will. It discovers what
your raw food cost is if you had no waste, no theft, no spoilage – a
perfect restaurant, which does not exist. And it says if I run at 30
percent food costs, what I’m looking for, and I did $1,000 dollars in
sales, I should have used $300 in product. The next two days, I think
I’m going to do the $1,000 dollars each day. Well, I think I’m going
to use another $600 dollars in product.
By doing this on a daily basis, what it allows us to do is create a
budget for what our chef or kitchen manager is allowed to purchase
to stay in budget. What’s powerful about it is it makes sure you have
enough food on the shelves, but when that manager – and let’s say
we give them leeway to order $500 dollars more than whatever
that number is, they cannot order it without the owner’s approval.
This puts control of the bank account back into the owner’s hands
without having to micromanage your chef or your kitchen manager.
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a penny more, they have to come to the owner, tell them they
discovered what the problem was, and how they fixed it. Then
the owner can decide. “That’s fantastic. Thank you for proactively
changing this so that we don’t make this same dumbass mistake for
the next 45 days until I get my next P&L.” But I also might have the
ability to say, “I’m sorry, you can’t order that product. I don’t have
the cash,” because cash pays our bills, profits don’t.
You add two clipboard systems to this, and I guarantee you we can
reduce your food costs by three points overnight, without recipe
cards and without taking inventory. And those two additional
systems are a key item report and a waste sheet. Waste sheet is
a keyboard system literally tracking what you have wasted, what
has been spoiled, what has been dropped, what you’ve discovered
stolen, what has been misordered. And a lot of kitchens don’t want
to put it in place, because they
think it’s an ‘I gotcha,’ like if I show
you our mistake, I’m losing my job.
Wrong! It’s a proactive management
tool. We want to see what problems
we had or challenges we have so
that we can identify who needs
training, who should be moved from
one station to another, and who
should be fired. And it can be as
simple as: why is your food cost up?
Well, if you’ve noticed, the front of
house has hired three new servers,
and they’ve been double ordering
and running back here and saying,
“Don’t make that.” And it’s been too
late; we’ve lost the product. So we
can identify that the front of house
needs to do some training. The idea
is it’s a proactive management tool.
Whatever challenges I see for a
day, as a manager, I’m going to try and fix those today so they don’t
happen tomorrow. It’s an incredible tool – clipboard system.
The last one is what’s called the Key Item Report. It’s literally a
count sheet. How much product did I have on the line when I
started the shift? How much should I prep or purchase? I add those
together, and I know how much I could sell. So if I had fillets and I
was butchering my own tenderloins: I started with five, I butchered
10 more, so I start with 15. At the end of the shift, I go to my point
of sale system and run an item by item sales mix report or velocity
report or product report. How many fillets did I sell? Let’s say I sold
10. I subtract that from 15, and I have five left. I then take my butt,
walk into the kitchen and into the cooler, and I count how many
steaks I have left. And if I only count four, I’d better see one on
the waste sheet, because that’s my control. If it’s not on the waste
sheet, one of two things happened, one worse than the other. One,
I either have theft, or worse than theft, I have management not
using the systems I put in place to control my numbers.