r/Restaurant_Managers

For years I've been wanting to own a restaurant / bar. I've managed my own rental properties for 10 years now. I've also been in the DJ and entertainment business for 15 years. All while holding on to a 9-5. I would like to retire at 45, next year, and rely on my rental income and bar/restaurant/gaming profits to do that.

Since turning 21 and going to bars and clubs, I always thought that I would love to own a place of my own. I love joy and happiness, people having a good time, dancing and creating memories with their friends, with their family, and co-workers. I would love to be a vibe and location source of future memories for many people.

I understand that's just a part of it, and not the reality of the business though. You have to manage inventory, manage people, and manage operation costs. My understanding is there's not necessarily a lot of money left over for the owner to keep, and plenty of stress, generally speaking.

With all that being said, I feel I could own and operate a great business. I also believe that I can train people to become owners themselves, and possibly expand or franchise my business model. (If it proves successful and sustainable.)

I'm in the process of selling a couple of smaller rental properties to purchase a couple new ones, and so for the first time in my life I can afford to purchase a restaurant location, but should I?

Please share your stories, positive or negative, but preferably both.

I appreciate your time and thank you in advance for sharing.

Hey everyone, my restaurant is having issues with glassware cause it breaks often (we're working on addressing that) but the immediate issue is we're constantly short on wine glasses. The ones our owner likes are expensive, therefore, harder to restock. Anyone knows of a good supplier for an NYC restaurant with a good catalog of options and not too expensive? Id like to get something that looks nice but its more built for fast paced. If that makes sense. Thank you everyone

I work for a popular restaurant chain in Italy, we mainly focus on burgers/salads/steaks, so our ticket time is a bit higher than a fast food, but not like fine dining. The store i work at is extremely close to the stadium of one of the most popular football teams in my country, and when their games take place we are organised pretty well/i know how to staff, we always get slammed but we are ready.

Soon the stadium will start hosting concerts for the first time, and i’m having trouble making the schedule, because i truly don’t know how to staff.

Any advice is appreciated, i’m a bit nervous because i don’t know what to expect, in my experience i’ve never eaten at a restaurant before or after a concert, so i’m not expecting as many people as when the football matches are sold out, but at the same time i don’t wanna make the mistake of understaffing.

Thanks!!!!!!

So my schedule is 3:30pm-12am 5 days a week with no way around it. Im curious what anyone with a similar schedule does after/before work. Do you smoke weed and watch tv til the sun comes up at 6am and go to bed then? Or do you go to bed right after work & try to have some sort of day before starting work. Or is it hopeless and Im just a crackhead now?😭😂

I guess this is a rant. I shall title it, "hiring season". But some of this still applies to last year's hires.

My hosts don't know what tallies mean. Or the concept known as "rotation". When I see them on a phone that isn't their cell phone, my heart drops. They have no idea what to do. They will mouth out what the customer is saying on the other end to me as if I can figure out what's happening and then fail to put the person on hold and just hand me the receiver.

My bussers/runners don't know even why a mop bucket exists. Their hair is the only thing wilder and more out of control than their communication skills which only consist of the word 'bruh' and complete mispronunciations of menu items.

My servers look at coke BIBs like UFOs. They are terrified of communication beyond them being cute. And it is not cute to forget to ring in a 10 top or to run a CC on the wrong table.

My team makes me laugh when I want to cry. My host that doesn't understand tallies lets me teach her about Jane Eyre. And compliments people genuinely. My busser that still can't figure out table numbers when we combine two tables still stays late to help his team. My server that a BIB machine would break, knows every little detail of closing to make sure the am staff has a good start. I adore what I do. But damn.

Didn't these kids have chores before I came along?

Wondering what y'all thinks is gonna happen in (checks imaginary watch) t-minus 4, hours from now for this situation.

This is a partial rant and partial just guessing at what's gonna happen. Have fun with it. If you think he's gonna be reasonable, explode, try to work it out, not speak at all! Forget! Whatever!

I already know y'all are gonna say get rid of him :p it's what I would say. Tbh, I havent because he.. ahem.. almost no longer existed himself and I felt like firing him was just one more stab in the chest, and I just couldn't.

Got a guy, been working for me about 1.5 yrs. Okay worker, I guess. Has his ups and downs, but finally going great. Anyway, I meant to pull him aside last week, and tell him how much of a wonderful job he's been doing and how he really seems to have settled into an ease of working. I had a very busy week and forgot. That's ok. Was gonna do it tonight. Really let him know I'm proud and appreciate him.

Except this last week.... To me, he's given wild excuses. Sick, back hurts, injured, etc, but then he goes and shows up 1-2 hours late saying he's fine, and then tells coworkers he was helping family. To me, he's been playing the "I'm showing up anyway even tho I'm injured cus I know you have a busy week and see what all I do for YOU?" (He literally said that to me mid-week).

However... Since he said that to me, I've finally gotten a few days off (and my managers have graciously left me alone to rest) - but he's been running his mouth about how ACTUALLY he got a second job. He's been harassing my manager "I make more than YOU now! How's that feel?! How's it feel huh?! Answer! Knowing I MAKE MORE THAN YOU but you're a MANAGER?" (For reference, this "second job" is a heavy lifting/load/construction job, he's a young male and my manager is a very petite female, so it's not like she can go gnab this job too and be on fair even ground - it's literally out of her grasp). He started gloating. It's mostly to her because the other employees are off by then. She said it feels like hes bullying her - he's so persistent about nagging her about it, with this big malicious smile (I know exactly what she's talking about as he's done it to me and it 100% feels like he's enjoying how uncomfortable it makes ya... but since I'm older, idgaf and I shut that down quick because the alternative is me getting real mean, real quick).

I told her she has my full support to tell him to (basically) stfu about the other job, focus on this one while he's here, and quit harassing her with it.

Apparently.. he told her he was gonna "talk to me" tonight about this "second job situation".

So.... I'm expecting an explosion ya?

I'm betting he will...

1. Gloat about the other job.

2. Demand to know if I would "miss him".

3. Tell me he expects to quit soon.

4. Ask how much I am paid so he could compare.

5. Get mad when I don't give an answer. (Which he will persist and insist and force a situation where I have to go Silent Treatment).

6. Try to get my Coworker "on his side" (it's the only day of the week we work samesies).

7. Realize he's revealed he'd been lying all week. That the managers talk. That they tell their supervisors. And I know. And my coworker knows. And that's why we aren't engaging in his "trap" questions.

8. Get more mad. Get loud. Start the insults and self-deprecation and fishing for compliments.

9. Realize it isn't working and go quiet.

10. Quit tonight, or wait mid-week and do a surprise quit.

I'm not worried. I've got a crew plan. It's just.. do we really need to do this song and dance...??

Also. Side note. Not sure what word I typed that flags advertisement xD

So my partner has been in the Boston restaurant industry for years - from bartender to Beverage director to AGM. Currently, he is bartending, but wants to go back into management for a steady salary position, plus he is getting older and his body can’t handle bartending anymore.

I helped him put together his resume + cover letter, and he has applied to so many places, I’ve lost count. He even had a few rounds of phone interviews, in-person interviews, in-house connections, a stage, but no call backs or job offers.

I’ve over heard him speak on his phone interviews and he is charming, professional - answering questions thoroughly and even making the interviewer laugh.

I don’t understand what he is doing wrong and what these places are looking for - any tips would be appreciated!

I work for a chain. It’s my first assistant management job. The workload (after running mostly closing shifts with the multiple equipment failures weekly, people calling out, quitting, coming in intoxicated, having to cover the absent staff, FOH and BOH staff who has to be followed around to make sure they are doing their job with me trying to pick up after them to take care of guests and make labor while trying to do my job) seems impossible. I have to work from home to keep up with all of the computer work required by corporate and other tasks that I’ve been assigned. I’m starting to burn out, and I haven’t even been trained in all areas of the position (which I want to be) because upper management (admittedly) has too much on their plate and they don’t have the time. I have definitely been putting my family on the back burner, and my work life balance is laughable. Is every restaurant management position like this? What is the general expectation of an Am? I am an incredibly hard worker, but this doesn’t seem sustainable. Thank you for your help

Hey yall, just curious about my fellow salaried professional in this fun crowd - what, if any, kind of secondary income are you able to accomplish with the schedules we work? I have a pretty solid 42 hours a week as a manager currently, and I would love to try and save for a house here in the next few years, so I’m looking to supplement my current income, but I’m having trouble finding something that works with this schedule.

Are any of you seeing success with a second job or income, and if so is it something you’d be willing to share?

So, relatively new to restaurant management here. I've always tried to run a tight & clean ship, and expect all my staff to abide by normal food safety rules. However, due to three of our full time staff quitting within two weeks, we had to pull in one of our 3 owners to help.

He seemed to be fine the first week or two, doing the job as expected. But recently, he started seeing "ways to improve." Some were good ideas, but most weren't. His favorite, and one he's been pushing on FOH staff, is rinsing metal bar cups & milkshake cups in the hand sink. And reusing them. No soap. Just hot water and place it on a towel to dry.

He has all sorts of basic bad habits too, like washing his hands in prep/dish pit sinks or prepping veg without washing. I'm getting tired of correcting staff every single day and unsure how to even approach the guy about this. I tested the waters and kinda got a "so what" response. He will be there another good 1.5-2 months too.

TLDR; Owner washes dishes improperly in handsink, washes hands in dish/prep sinks, preps veg without washing, and tells staff to do the same.

I fired a server for altering/ adding money to credit card tips last year and she recently called me at work and apologized for what happened and asked if we'd consider rehiring her, she was one of our top performing snd most reliable servers and blamed the tip altering on having a substance abuse problem at the time, she said every night when she got cut and her tables started leaving she'd celebrate by taking several pills in the bathroom, Xanax klonopin adderall or opiates, she'd be high af while doing her side work and not in her right mind while entering tips, she had trouble keeping the numbers straight and accidentally added $10 to 3 different tips. She said she's clean now and has been for a while and would like a second chance. Thoughts? Would you consider rehiring this person under certain conditions if she truly had gotten clean?

So I don’t know what it stems from, but I am so annoyingly insecure as a worker in general and it’s probably having an impact on my performance/ how people perceive me. My last position I was a bar manager and would constantly hint at needing validation, mainly from my GM- usually in a playful ‘see I’m so good at my job’ or something along those lines. If I was a little short with an employee/ had to give them shit for something I’d always over explain and try to justify myself for doing my job? N then if it’s busy and I’m stressed or weeded I would automatically think I’m doing a bad job instead of simply understanding that I cannot do 20 things as once. If my manager isn’t happy/ is obviously focused or busy I automatically think they’re mad at me and I’ve done something wrong and often then (against my own judgement) annoy them even more but asking for confirmation that they’re not mad at me.

Fast forward, I started a new position as a bartender (old bar got shut down rip) and they offered me a supervisor role within my first two weeks (it’s a new open so I don’t see this as a red flag as some people have mentioned to me) and tonight we got slammed pretty early on and I was the only bartender at the time. The Guinness’s were pouring inconsistently and the good tap ran out so I asked the manager to change it for me and then felt immediately guilty because we have 2 other taps that are full but I don’t like how the head settles n hoped they didn’t think I was stupid. Then I got short with the servers continuously verbalising orders to me when I’m 5 chits deep etc. Anyway- at the end of the shift I go to my GM and explain and, as I do, lowkey hint for some criticism/ validation idk. But he’s clearly busy, I realistically know he’s not mad at me and also hasn’t had a day off in 2 weeks and is literally managing a busy night but I can’t get it out of my head. And then because I’ve asked him then I feel like he’s mad at me for asking and now questioning my skills.
I mean it doesn’t show good leadership second guessing my own performance and in general it’s just jarring and I feel myself getting annoyed at myself for doing it because why do I need this constant reminder that I’m not bad at my job and it’s okay to be weeded and the world doesn’t revolve around me lol

Any tips on how to not be so insecure and be at peace with doing the best I can and knowing I’m not a total failure in the industry? - I see the irony of making a post about seeking validation by seeking validation from restaurant managers lol

As stated in my earlier post, we are going all in on this.

Again at this time any app developers are banned from this sub.

Plenty of subs for you to go harass, go fuck with some of them

If you have u/hive-protect blocked, you will be banned.

If you contribute to ANY AI subs, you will be nominated for a ban. We will be reviewing in what capacity users have participated in, before a decision is made.

If you're using it for normal everyday shit, great we don't care.

If you are using it to build apps, you will be banned.

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Hive-protect: what it does is in its name. It protects our hive. It can see all the comments you have made, it can see all the posts you have made. Even if your profile is curated.

As I said, if you have it blocked, we will assume you have nefarious reasons for doing so, and you will be banned.

So everyone make sure, that it is not blocked on your end, or you will receive a ban.

So far I have only added a few, ones that I have seen are common amongst the bots that post. More will be coming in the next day or two.

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Again let me make this clear, we don't give a shit if you're using AI for daily everyday things, we really really do not care.

Every single day, no matter what we do, they are still able to bypass our filters. That will not happen anymore

We are done with the fucking app Developers, enjoy your last days on the sub

Have a good day.

"The purpose of this subreddit is to foster discussion amongst members of this trade and is in no way intended for gathering data or answering questions regarding or pertaining to software or hardware development"

- Mod Brando

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At this time we are banning any app developers within the community. It was a misunderstanding of a rule, that has led to their presence. You cannot understand how much of a my bad that is.

I have a couple things cooking behind the scenes, I hope will work out. Give me a few days, and you should see them around the sub.

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RULE CHANGES:

New rule: Rule 6, no app developers

Many of our rules were repetitive, and were pretty much the same rules that are in the terms of service that you agreed to when you signed up for your reddit account.

So going forward any kind of harassment, racism, misogyny, brigading, etc.. can now be reported under "No ToS violations."

________________

As usual any questions, comments or concerns I will address below. 👇

Also anyone has any ideas for the sub, go ahead and shout It out.

I'm doing a consulting gig in another state. One of the items I'm looking at is the bar inventory program. I've discovered that there's a fairly large discrepancy between the set catalog prices of the liquor items, and the actual price being paid, due to case discounts, or even multiple bottle purchases. As I've been going through months of invoices, I've seen prices fluctuate widely from week to week.

So, the question is, what should I set the bottle price at, on the inventory program? The pre-discounted catalog price? The most recent post-discount price I can find per invoice?

I realize the % per shot won't be affected hugely, but over an entire 200+ item inventory, the swing between a pre-discount inventory cost and a post-discount inventory count could be quite large.

Thoughts?

I work at a nice place in NYC, popular restaurant fairly new, our chief of operations is asking us managers to get reviews with our names on them, you know, the way servers do, of course reviews are always important but I feel like its awkward for managers to request reviews for themselves to guests, I get it when we're told to ask guests for a review for the restaurant but idk, something about having to have managers names feels odd and uncomfortable to me.

Feels like our boss doesnt trust we are doing out job by touching tables and more than caring about rating, is trying to gather some sort of evidence that we talk to guests.

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?

Update #1: Everything ended up being okay. The head manager just wanted me to talk to the other managers so they could hear directly from me that I take accountability for my past punctuality/tardiness issues and that it won’t happen again.

They ended up putting me on the schedule immediately. I start Friday night and I’m doing doubles Saturday and Sunday, which honestly is great because I really need the money right now.

Thank you guys so much for reading my post and taking the time to give advice, opinions, and suggestions. I genuinely appreciated it. Gas and bills are insanely high right now, and I really needed this second job, so that’s where a lot of my anxiety was coming from.

Thankfully, everything worked out.

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.