From the Blog

Smiling business man working at cafe

Diary use & Clear Communication using Cellphone Reminders

The following notes below are all very good reasons why you should utilize a management communication diary: Diary = Communication system = All management = Same page = Same Picture Write clear and use one line at a time per sentence. When tasks or Jobs are done tick them off and contra sign. WhatsApp groups

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icon logo with the concept of smart choice / good choice for culinary business, organic food products

Food Premises Monthly Health & Safety Inspection Checklist

The Food Premises Monthly Health, and Safety check is a monthly check done to ensure the safety of your team and your guest. When challenges or problems are detected you can action your maintenance team to correct all. The point of departure for this exercise is to appoint a Safety Representative who will be responsible

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Restaurant Strategy Benchmark Marketing Business Ideas - S.W.O.T Analysis

Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats Analysis

The purpose of a S.W.O.T. Analysis is to determine your: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities  Threats You have the opportunity to analyze your business clinically without sugar-coating poor performance, or areas that require improvement.  Evaluate your marketing and planning strategies, ask the question, what is working and what is not working? Once you have determined your challenges

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health protection, safety and pandemic concept - male chef cook wearing face protective medical mask over restaurant kitchen background

Restaurant Staff Safety and Awareness

Complacency is the dangerous word when we discuss SAFETY! It becomes such a front-of-mind daily routine task, a block ticking exercise that the importance of the exercise is missed completely.  Health and Safety are important because it protects the well being of employers, visitors, and customers. Looking after Health and Safety makes good business sense. Workplaces that neglect health and safety risk prosecution, may lose

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Safety at work concept. Hand holds cubes wooden block with safety icons; safety first, protections, health, regulations and insurance.

Occupational Health, Risk & Safety Check

Health risks at the workplace, such as heat, noise, dust, hazardous chemicals, unsafe machines, and psychological stress, cause occupational diseases and can aggravate other health problems. Conditions of employment, occupation, and position in the workplace hierarchy also affect health. Employee mental well-being directly affects how employees think and feel about their job and organization. The multiple roles of the employee in the hospitality environment

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Chef examining his food orders

Do You Know Where Your Stock is Moving to Next?

Once weekly stock counts are completed it is possible for the manager responsible for this task to establish what stock items need to be ordered for the coming week to ensure complete availability of menu items. This blog ignores the fact that there could be stock variances and other procedures to follow that are not

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Chefs working in kitchen in restaurant - Fire

Personal Safety in a Restaurant

A key part of training your employees is showing them how to use your kitchen equipment properly. Refer to the following checklist to ensure that misused or faulty equipment doesn’t cause an emergency in your kitchen. Do regular monthly Health and safety checks. Health and Safety are important because it protects the well being of employers, visitors, and customers.

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waitress and cooking team at kitchen

Portion Control & Production Staff Duties

Consistency is the name of the game. If your portion sizes vary from one day to another or from one shift to another you will have guests that realize there is inconsistency and you will create complaints. Secondly, you will have fluctuating food costs from week to week, and your cash flow will be a

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Woman freelancer leafing through pages of a diary in a coffee shop. Entrepreneur working in cafe. Business woman uses paper reminders and schedules. Girl writes notes diary, makes business plan

Daily Management Mental Reminders List

When I become busy and bogged down for short periods during the year, I developed this list, to keep me on track with all my responsibilities. I found it extremely challenging at times to remain focussed and to get my head back into the game when random events interrupted my day. Apart from the fact that

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Waitron, Service, Motivation & Flow

Meeting & Greeting Guests People buy from people they like. You need to think fast, understand the approaching clients’ dress and body language quickly, and act. Have your “ice breaker” ready, and give them an unconditional positive smile! Give them a warm welcome however be careful not to overdo the welcoming and cause it to

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How to write a standard operating procedure for your restaurant

How will we define restaurant operations management procedures? “Restaurant operations management procedures are various activities, procedures, controls and checks that are carried out in a restaurant to form a comprehensive coping mechanism or system to ensure that the restaurant business remains in business and sustainable “.  These activities include however are not limited to: Accounting

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Checking in and receiving of deliveries and capturing the invoice

Receiving deliveries and checking in the order is the start of one of the most important responsibility circles in your business. This is the first step in checking quality and quantity, two of the most determining factors in your food cost. If the quality is poor you will have stock losses and if you sign

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Image of wooden table in front of abstract blurred restaurant lights background

Electrical Consumption Control Sheet

Electricity is one of the few overheads that we cannot go without and where we have a choice of how we will manage the consumption thereof. Life happens and the speed of everything happening around us causes us to become driven on autopilot.  This preserves us to an extent unfortunately it also causes us to

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Mature new small business owner calculating online restaurant bill expenses and taxes

To Monitor your Expenses follow these Steps

There is absolutely no reason for stock items not to balance between items used and items sold. Especially items that are packed singular or used as it is received from the supplier. a Can of coke is a simple example.  Balancing of items becomes slightly more complicated when you manufacture and pack an item. a

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Manager planning for the day in front of laptop

Management Table Layout in the Morning

Pilots use their instrument panels to land their aeroplanes, even in the dark!  If they can trust their instruments the pilot in charge will land the plane with ease without having to look out of the cockpit window to see where he or she is going.  The layout of the list of documents below is

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Rolls baking in oven displaying temperature

Optiman Temperature Control Sheet

The Optiman temperature control sheet assists me to keep track of all equipment that is supposed to maintain a specific temperature. To maintain the cold chain for frozen and defrosting food items is not the only reason to keep a temperature control sheet. A cold chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain. To maintain the cold

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Chef with clipboard doing inventory at kitchen

The Ebb and Flow of Stock Control

How long is a piece of string? It doesn’t really matter, as long as you know where the beginning and where the end is, it does not really matter you can follow the piece in-between.  What is the beginning and where is the end of your stock items. The system below is incomplete if you

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Smiling waiter communicating with customers whilst taking their orders on a tablet

Speaking in Pictures: How do we communicate successfully?

Telephonic communication is crucial, especially to get right the first time. People are communicating with each other and cannot see facial or hand gestures, body language, or examples to reinforce their explanation or communication. People communicate in pictures, and if notes are not taken down to remember the details it is very likely possible that

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Chef showing comparison between fresh and frozen meat on bread board

Manufacturing In-house & Capturing the Data

Working with products takes skill and experience to maintain the integrity of the item you are working with.  Frozen and or refrigerated items – each time a product is frozen and defrosted it loses flavour and moisture. When you look at the icicles in cells they are very sharp pointy crystals and these sharp pointy

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