r/Restaurant_Managers

I know this is a WILD question and we are lucky to have this problem. I really do appreciate this team member.

One bartender picks up EVERY shift that’s up for grabs. They want to work 6 days a week, happily work open-close, never complain about the workload. They’ll pick up bar, server, host, expo, dish. All of it.

Other staff members are starting to get really frustrated because they don’t get a chance to pick up extra shifts. Our scheduling system lets an employee put a shift up, then another employee can choose to grab it. Somehow this bartender sees this shift instantly and gets it 95% of the time.

I’ve started to receive complaints from more than one staff member who say it isn’t fair for someone to work open-close often and they should be limited to 5 days a week.

From my perspective, one day they’re going to burn out, even if they’re feeling good now.

How would you approach this situation? Technically they got the shifts fair and square and have the bandwidth to work effectively.

Today's one of the worst days in our industry. From church goers, to stuck up snobs crawling out of the woodwork.

I'm not even going to go into my normal spiel for holidays. There's no saving today.

Bite your tongue, throw on a smile, and keep your head down.

Ain't no one worth losing the job over.

Stay strong, it'll be over before you know it.

Former server here and trying to understand what this situation probably means internally.

I got fired a while back because during that time my dad was dying and I became unreliable. I was late a lot, called off sometimes, and took too many smoke breaks during shifts. I fully understand why management let me go.

At the same time, I was also one of their strongest servers performance-wise. Great reviews, high sales, high tips, etc.

Recently I reached back out asking to come back. The head manager eventually brought me in, we talked, I took accountability for everything, and he told me he’d give me another chance and that the scheduling manager would contact me.

A week went by and I heard nothing. I texted and emailed the scheduling manager politely and got no response.

Today I called the head manager again and when I explained I hadn’t heard from the scheduling manager (and it’s been a week) he gave me a knowing “Ohhhh right.” then he immediately asked if I could come in today. As we were ending the call, I asked “is everything okay?” because the silence made me anxious, and he said “yeah, I’ll talk to you in person.”

From a restaurant/management perspective, what does this sound like to you guys?

Doing the process one by one is absolutely slow AF, ain't no one have time for that.

So we'll try it this way.

Leave any kind of comment below, so I have usernames in one place

Make a joke, leave a period, drop your spiciest memes idc 😂

Leave a comment so I can get you approved.

Edit: for anyone that is confused

https://www.reddit.com/r/Restaurant_Managers/s/f7BMskn17x

Please read the bottom paragraph.

If you've already been approved, you're there to go and can disregard this. It's slow doing it one by one so I'm trying to streamline it so it's quicker.

Oh yeah we're fucking doing this!!

A certain unnamed companie's PR firm is making fraudulent reports, and complaining we won't remove the comments

#So you know what, fuck them

Let's hear every nasty dirty secret you can spill

Don't be shy, we ain't banning anyone

I'll go first, Taco Bell: Pedophiles, pedophiles everywhere. Also knew the outcome of Roe v Wade before the public.

Hey all,

I took a new job as the GM of a brewery tap room and one of my big tasks will be to create formal SOP’s for the business. It’s a relatively new brewery and they don’t have any formal internal documents. I am going to have to observe for a few weeks-months before I can really start diving into this but I’m just wondering…

What are some things that tend to get missed in SOP’s? Things I should be looking out for to include in the documents.

Thank you!

Hi,

I’m a 21 yo GM at a family orientated franchise chain. I am managing an extremely busy store. I mean queuing before the store even opens and then straight through up until closing.

I have been successfully managing this store for about a year and a bit now. Recently the owner took away my entire core management team. 2ic, 2 BOH and 2 FOH. They then promoted servers as managers. So i’m stuck. I haven’t had an off day in more than 5 weeks. No overtime. I have been working Open - Close every single day - about 98 hour work weeks.

So I am looking at alternative careers that I can venture into. I had a passion for this biz but it’s being filled with hatred and remorse at the moment.

What do you recommend I do?

TIA

I’ve been in the restaurant industry my entire life. I’ve been a manager for about 17 years now and I’m looking to leave for something else. I want a more consistent schedule, I’d like weekends and holidays with my family. I just don’t know where to start.

I’m a high performer, I’ve been a GM for 5 years now and consistently turn in great P&Ls, I just don’t know what to look for where my skills translate.

Those of you who has made the leap, what do you look for?

concept: QSR, order at the counter and proceed through the line like a chipotle.

responsibilities: store manager role, not a GM, basically responsible for schedule making and managing shift employees and the operation of the shift overall. no paperwork or accounting or other administrative tasks other than opening and closing the register. HCOL area in major city but very close to public transportation. must speak Spanish to work with kitchen and chef.

how much do you value this role at? also don’t message me asking for an interview I will not hire off here I am just trying to get a sense of what this role should actually pay. not trying to solicit market information just curious as to what managers on here expect this or a similar role to pay.

Idk if this is allowed but I had a very strange encounter today while doing some interviews. I use Indeed and had an 11am and 11:30am interview. First one doesn’t show up but the 11:30 does. I glance at his resume again and the name is Jon Doe (I’m just using fake names.) introduce myself and offer him a seat. First thing he say is that his name is Buba…..So a different name and it sounded like a nickname. He gives off a bad vibe as we continue the interview, at one point I notice he gives me a little white lie about his living situation and previous job. At the end of it I asked him to text me his name and email and after I talk to the rest of management I’ll let him know if we want to bring him on (I also wanted to do a background check first.) He just texts me Buba. I just want to know what’s the point of doing this? Why make an indeed profile but give me a different name when you show up?

I know this is a WILD question and we are lucky to have this problem. I really do appreciate this team member.

One bartender picks up EVERY shift that’s up for grabs. They want to work 6 days a week, happily work open-close, never complain about the workload. They’ll pick up bar, server, host, expo, dish. All of it.

Other staff members are starting to get really frustrated because they don’t get a chance to pick up extra shifts. Our scheduling system lets an employee put a shift up, then another employee can choose to grab it. Somehow this bartender sees this shift instantly and gets it 95% of the time.

I’ve started to receive complaints from more than one staff member who say it isn’t fair for someone to work open-close often and they should be limited to 5 days a week.

From my perspective, one day they’re going to burn out, even if they’re feeling good now.

How would you approach this situation? Technically they got the shifts fair and square and have the bandwidth to work effectively.

Hi everybody! I’m going to be moving at the end of the month so I’ve been applying for new jobs in the area. I have a couple interviews lined up but I’ve been at my current job for years now and don’t really remember what to expect for manager/assistant manager job interviews.

I feel confident enough in my basic interview skills but what are some questions I should try and prepare for that you might ask if you were going to hire a new manager?

Had been hired as GM and worked with maybe the absolute worst staff I’ve ever been handed. Got through some months of correcting that and finally got things to a better place. While I’ve acquired many grievances along the way (pay vs work expectoration and lack of salary, poor fit in terms of views on good service and taking care of staff and team members as two examples) - I was mostly willing to overlook this. Until a problem employee sent me multiple messages complaining about the schedule she feels entitled to ending with “I’m not coming tomorrow, I’m going to a job fair.” I wished her the best and removed her from the schedule. Now because she can’t go to work at another of our locations like she thought she could (this was her plan because a previous problem coworker was moved to another location)- they’re telling me to put her back on the schedule because she’s claiming she didn’t mean she quit. So I resigned. I’ve gathered a few hard lines in the sand over the years- and a total lack of support and backing by upper management is one of them. It sets a precedent for other staff that they can do this too without repercussion. My area manager said they’ll performance her out asap - to which I said “oh but, retaliation… so good luck with that.” I’m told I’m a little too uptight - but I’ve been down that road before and it never ends well.

I run a small fledgling wine import/distribution business supplying hotels and restaurants (on-trade).
A hotel has asked us to host a wine tasting for ~50 guests with 6 SKUs. I’m told there will be a lot of buyers there but we’ve been burned with that before.
We’ve previously done a few tastings for free to get traction, but I’m questioning whether that’s the right approach going forward.
Context:
Approx 24–50 bottles required
Hotel is not yet a customer
No confirmed listing or order yet
They want us to present the wines during the event
My questions:
In your experience, is it standard for the supplier to cover the wine for an event of this size?
Do you typically charge the venue, discount the wine, or tie it to a minimum order?
What kind of commitments do you usually require (listing, volume, exclusivity, etc.) before agreeing?
Any structures you’ve seen work well (e.g. crediting tasting cost against first order)?
Trying to avoid setting the wrong precedent where we’re just giving away stock without converting accounts.

Using a throwaway account for obvious reasons. However I am currently a GM at a well known casual dining concept. I’ve been with the company 10+ years have a track record of success and have a great relationship with my superiors.

Recently I was asked to move to a different location no biggie it’s closer to my house. The problem is when I got to the location there’s some clearly wrong things going on. Not minor things big things. For example, line cooks working with 2 different names(for example they’ll clock in as one in the morning and clock in as a different one at night) this is so they can work more hours and avoid OT. It’s just not one doing this it’s like 6 of them.

Our salaried kitchen manager does this as well. He will work his shift salaried manager shift then clock in as someone else and work the line.

Lastly, the safe is $9k short.

I spoke to my direct boss about it who I have a great relationship with. He doesn’t want to it to get above him and he wants to handle it internally which I get for obvious reasons why. However I feel compelled due to the severity of what’s happening that something has to be said to the higher ups, mostly to protect myself.

Should I go to the higher ups or handle it amongst ourselves?

I have a question; advice would be appreciated.

I've been looking for advancement within the restaurant I'm working at. It's a destination location with a 4.6 star review score on Google. We're a casual/fine dinning restaurant. I've been working there for three years now. I'm able to be scheduled for every position except for kitchen staff.

I was promoted to lead bartender and then demoted in five months or so. The reason was, as I was given, they no longer needed a bar lead. During my acceptance meeting for the position, I was told that with a little training, we would talk about the bar manager position. During, my time I asked for training, mentoring, feedback, anything for the current position, and the possible position to come. I received nothing. Some time later I was told a bar manager was hired. I worked with the new bar manager for mentorship, to only get told to not advance myself, that my technices were to advanced for the bar. For the record...I still don't know what that meant.

Recently, I was asked to write a document to update our steps-of-service, because the way that I conducted my service as a server was exactly what they were looking for. I wrote it. It was a document that included the steps-of-service plus my philosophy on how I conducted my service as I was asked by one of the managers. Later, I was given a due date, a company meeting for the upcoming summer season. I made it, and was told that I'd received feedback, and a "we'd be in touch" from the GM. I received no word of any kind. Meeting came and during that meeting no mention of the document that I wrote, and found out the new steps-of-service was written by a manager that left for a new position at another restaurant a few days earlier. I still haven't heard anything thing about it.

One more thing, I've applied for restaurant manager twice now. I found out that my applications for the position went under the radar, the hiring manager and owner didn't know the application existed. A new manager was hired. Just so we're awake, I'm okay with it the hiring, because I understand that person had more credentials than I. I would have hired that person over I. My problem was that I wasn't given a chance. I was told that we'd do an interview for myself and that been more than four weeks now. I've asked for feedback, criticism, ways to improve, and I have been told that there isn't anything that they could tell me or teach me.

I'm confused. I have no idea what to think or feel about any of this. No one seems to be talking to me about anything.

I was wondering how you guys feel about getting Surveys. I currently work for a very corporate restaurant chain and my bonus is tied into getting under a 3% dissatisfaction as well as 3 other factors. These other factors are great, my staff's training is at 100%, I am meeting my speed of service and I got 5 stars for my last inspection... I am currently sitting at a 10% with only 30 surveys that have been filled out. I have been trying to fix the issues and for the most part they have gotten gotten better. My problem currently is they keep threatening my job if i can't get it under 3% and even with the rest of my scorecard perfect I still get $0 bonus and with the amount of work I have put into this store since I took it over from the last GM is sort of like a slap in the face. I was just wondering if anyone else on here has any experience with

I've been in restaurant management for over a decade and have been working as a GM for 3 years and I think I'm done. I love the work but I can't stand the constant babysitting I have to do. I solve some interpersonal relationships and then 2 more cooks start beefing over nothing. I need to get out of management. Has anyone gone from management to serving and how did they feel about that change?

Please let me state that this is absolutely not a marketing post or an invitation for any solicitors lurking. The switch is done; at this point I'm mostly looking for silver linings. Checked with mods to make sure this was ok.

Recently started at a new job managing in a restaurant at an upscale resort hotel. The F&B director has encouraged me to really take ownership of our reservations system and refine our practices for inputting guest notes, cross-checking with hotel arrivals, etc. -- this is great because it totally aligns with my experience & interests and I see a ton of potential to both make processes more efficient and create more opportunities to personalize the experience for our guests. I have a ton of experience doing so with OpenTable at other properties, but this resort made the switch to Resy a few months ago and I am having trouble adapting my workflow.

Main thing that's driving me insane - am I missing something, or is there no way to see the live floorplan in a browser? I can book reservations on a computer but between server sections and specific seating requests I find myself doing a lot of strategic manual table assignments, and as far as I can tell there's no way to do so without an iPad. One workaround I've found is bringing my Macbook to work because it can natively run the iPad ResyOS, but this is still a little clunky compared to a true browser interface and I would rather be able to do it with the Windows PC in my office.

I'll balance it with something I do like compared to OT - we take a credit card on file for our cancellation policy, and with Resy, if the guest has previously booked with us, that card info is saved and can be re-used for future reservations. This was not the case with OT and I always felt like it created a lot of extra friction for repeat guests taking a card each time.

Really though I'm just interested in hearing from people who have made the switch & how you've adapted your workflow - I don't think we're going back at this point, so I'm mostly hoping to hear about things people like about Resy VS OT to make me feel better about it lol. Discoverability/marketing is not really a factor, we are the kind of place that is fully booked up regardless in high season & we are pretty conservative with how many online bookings we allow so we can prioritize space for hotel guests.