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.

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.

Happy Holidays

Its the holiday season and the shopping rush is on. Whats this mean for the restaurant industry? It means most every restaurant is getting hit with holiday partys and loads of customers coming in from long days of shopping. A money making season.
It means employee call offs so they can attend holiday partys. It means gift card sales and pie sales. It means working on xmas eve when most people have off. So if you go out to eat this holiday season just remember were getting the rush just like the retail stores.

Customers (food stupid) no offense

The hidden secrets of most chain restaurants is pre made food. Why you may ask? Its easy, uniform and quicker to prepare. Its the belief that most employees don't have enough experience to make the product in house and it would take to much training to teach them. It is also the belief that the customer can't tell the difference and its true. Most people wouldn't know the difference between products made in house and pre fabricated unless your a foodservice professional.
Take for instance simple fried food items like poppers, mozzerella sticks, mac and cheese balls. These items have been served in tons of restaurants but could you tell the difference if they told you it was homemade?
An even bigger question is does it matter? Well it does to me because if your going to serve me pre fabricated food I should just stay home take it out of the box and make it myself. To most people it probably dosn't because they can't tell the difference anyway or they don't have the time to cook for themselves so they don't care.
I'll leave you with this thought. If your going to pay the prices in a high end restaurant to have a nice meal shouldn't it be homemade?