Systems and Processes

Restaurant labor costs are likely the greatest expense in today’s food & beverage operation and have always been an area of focus for restaurant operators. With rising wages to attract employees, minimum wage increases, staffing shortages that increase overtime pay and retention/training cost, food & beverage labor costs have become an even greater focus.

Labor shortages are nothing new, and with low entry-level wages, physically demanding work, dealing with customers, weekends, holidays, and varied schedules, it has always been a challenge to attract people to the industry. For those of us that love the business, it was a small price to pay for doing something we truly enjoyed. We accepted our schedule changing at the last minute, shifts getting cut, being signed out by our supervisors 30 minutes before we were finished cleaning, and being called in on a moment’s notice. Rarely was anyone happy about these practices, but that is how the industry worked, and it is what managers did to control labor costs.

When we enter the food and beverage industry, we hear different terms that reference the number of guests to expect or that were served. Whether it be PAX (unit) in banquets, reservations, or customer counts, we quickly learn that “cover” is the term most widely used. Simply, one cover represents one customer, so if you have 100 customers, you have 100 covers.

Choosing the right food & beverage software system depends on whether you have existing systems and software or if you have a blank canvas in a new operation.

There are some great systems that can perform many functions, but before deciding to purchase a one-stop system you need to detail exactly what you need and how you want it to perform. For example, a system may have a great POS component with table management but lack analytics or it is difficult to add invoices to the inventory application.