Chef prepareing food for recipe in kitchen restaurant

Food Cost: Not Just an Outcome but a Culture

At one point or another Food and Beverage operations have had “issues” with food costs. I remember working for highly respected Executive Chefs and watching them turn into maniacs digging through the garbage and blaming everything and everyone for a high food cost. Talk about a letdown seeing someone you idolize desperately trying to fix a problem.

Personally, I didn’t and don’t see the point of digging in today’s trash to solve a problem that happened last month.

I hadn’t thought of this in many years, but it all came back when a friend told me a story recently.

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menu on table in restuarant surrounded by food and dishes

Menu Pricing: What is the Right Price?

Getting menu pricing right is extremely important. If done right, it can drive sales and profit margins. If done wrong it can lead to profit loss and can be challenging to correct.

It can seem very difficult to determine what is the right way as there are so many opinions on how to price a menu. This is most likely due to the number of variables involved, such as menu style, location, and demographics that each property needs to consider. This article provides general pricing principles and considerations, but there is not one concrete answer that fits all operations.

Instead, we will explore how to use data and your competitive set to help determine your prices and a few other strategies to help lessen the shock when you need to increase prices.

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Chef in kitchen of restaurant preparing food

How to Adapt and Succeed with Reduced Staffing Levels: Fine-Tune or Redesign

This article is the last in a series about facing the reality of staffing levels in today’s changing industry. If you missed the last two articles Hours of Operations and Menu Size and Purchase vs Produce In-House, make sure to read those too. To round out this discussion, I will focus on fine-tuning and redesigning your processes for long-term sustainability.   

In the past efficiencies and productivity improvements were looked at to reduce payroll costs, It is hard to imagine currently that anyone would have an excess of employees. Now, we are looking at changing the operation to match the number of employees needed just to operate. 

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chef preparing fresh food in a kitchen

How to Adapt and Succeed with Reduced Staffing Levels: Purchase vs Produce in House

When it comes to staffing levels, it’s not just about attaining and retaining talent. As the industry changes, it’s about learning to adapt to the new reality of staffing levels. In this series of blogs, I’m exploring the three main ways to address staffing levels on an ongoing basis. If you missed last week’s blog Hours of Operation and Menu Size, I suggest that you take a few moments to read through it after reading this one.   

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two chefs in kitchen staffing

How to Adapt and Succeed with Reduced Staffing Levels: Hours of Operation & Menu Size

For years, the Food & Beverage and hospitality industries have faced many challenges to acquire and retain talent at all levels. As we all know and have read for many months, this has been compounded by the changes in the workforce since the pandemic. This article is not about how to retain or attract employees as there is a lot of great information and posts available already. This is about dealing with the reality of long-term staffing shortages.

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