Saturday, February 16, 2008

Restaurants Fighting to keep Managers

The restaurant business is flooded with opportunity and it is hard to keep managers as well as staff. The turn over rate is probably higher than any other type of business. I have been with my current restaurant company for almost two years and I have been transfered to five different restaurants all because of managers quiting or getting fired.
I find that most low end restaurants can not compete in terms of pay scale with the higher end restaurants. So most people like myself get hired into low end restaurants just for management experience for a year or two then move on.
I just got hired for $9,000 more on the year then what I make now at my curent position so of course I will be moving on. There are tons of restaurants all over so this increases the amount of opportunity and makes it that much harder to keep managers.
This is why most of the time when you hear someone say "when they first opened they were good now they are terrible." is true because there probably were three or four sets of different managers to come through which makes it harder to be consistent.

Friday, January 11, 2008

The slowest time of the year

Its after the holidays and everything is slowing down. The restaurant industry slows to a crawl. This dosn't mean we don't have to work as hard. In fact being in a management position we have to work harder.
Now we have to cut labor and run with a skeleton crew so if we get busy we get screwed in a sense. This means we have to run around and make the restaurant run with the least amount of staff as possible.
If tables don't get cleaned quick enough I have to clean tables. If the food isn't getting cooked fast enough I have to cook and if tables aren't getting waited on fast enough I have to assist the servers.
Everyone has to work a little bit harder when we get busy due to labor cuts but the busy periods only last a couple hours this time of year and we mostly remain slow.