Uncovering Restaurant Pitfalls: Strategies for Streamlined Success

Running restaurant operations is like falling into a deep hole—you never know how long it’ll take or how much it’ll hurt. It’s challenging for everyone involved, especially for owners and GMs. Since the industry revolves around people, it’s easy to see why it feels this way, but there's more to it than just the human factor.

Every restaurant has blind spots and pain points, some unique to each location. From individual staff dynamics to human traffic flow, and even the design of the place—anything can create challenges. Low seasons can spark gossip, while poorly designed spaces may encourage staff to find places to hide or waste time. Each of these issues must be managed professionally, or you risk losing staff, revenue, and even worse, your reputation.

Although these challenges can feel like a nightmare for many restaurateurs, there are ways to prevent or at least minimize them. Let’s dive in:

1) Create Standards and Procedures

Smaller restaurants tend to do things their own way, often neglecting to formalize their processes. While I understand the need for flexibility in this industry, not having written standards rarely works. Every restaurant needs clear-cut procedures and must stick to them. This establishes a framework for operations and makes expectations clear across the board.

2) Training and Development

"Training and development" has become a buzzword in recent years. Managers love to say they focus on "developing great people," but in many cases, it’s all talk.

Once you establish your restaurant's standards, make sure you’re organizing the right training sessions, setting KPIs, implementing tracking methods, and outlining growth paths for your team. This isn’t just about today’s success—bringing in and developing talented people ensures ongoing success down the line.

3) Performance Tracking

Tracking performance is essential to running a smooth operation. It’s not just about sales and hours worked—things like proactivity, teamwork, and communication all play a role in your restaurant’s performance.

Make sure you’re keeping an eye on all of these factors. If your team senses that performance isn’t being tracked, efficiency will drop almost immediately

4) Optimize Floor Plans

Optimizing your floor plan means creating a functional and profitable layout in both front and back of house. This includes everything from stocking areas and workstations to designating spaces for specific tasks like polishing or trimming. Make every square foot count.

A well-optimized layout ensures your team can move efficiently and complete tasks without chaos. It also gives you more control over the space, helping you keep tabs on what’s happening where..

5) Invest in Technology

This is one of the most underestimated areas, and I get why. Many restaurant owners think technology begins and ends with the POS system, often opting for the cheapest one. But if you’re looking to grow, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

Tech tools don’t just ease operational challenges—they offer valuable insights into your business. With the sheer amount of data coming in daily, it’s hard to find the time to analyze everything yourself. Even if you do, it’s almost impossible to generate meaningful insights from it all. Investing in the right technology allows you to automate these processes and focus on the bigger picture.

With AI being the hot topic these days, the opportunities to streamline and automate operations are vast. It allows you to focus on the guest experience while gaining full control over your back-of-house operations with a few clicks.

There are countless other components that contribute to smooth restaurant operations, but I’ve highlighted the most important and common ones. If you have questions, comments, or opinions, feel free to share them below.

Enjoy your Sunday!