Meals For Pondering - Is Your Food And Beverage Company Being Managed Correctly?

Posted by Shira on January 21st, 2021

I consume food. I consume beverages.

Therefore, I am qualified to oversee a Food and Beverage operation.

In assessing the operations of many clubs/resorts each month, I discover that a person of the most improperly run, inconsistent areas of club/resort operations is Food and Beverage. Specifically in member owned environments, which are often supervised by a club board, individuals appear to believe that because they eat in restaurants, they in some way have some level of knowledge that allows them to make company decisions about this important aspect of the club. The truth is that this is one of the most intricate departments in a club to handle, control, and produce a constant experience.

Let's ask a couple of concerns!

Is your Food and Drink experience suitable for what your members/guests want to have in your club/resort? Are you priced effectively, expensive, or too low? How do you understand? Are you tracking cover counts by day? By shift? By hour?

Are your food choices stuck in yesteryear, a good balance of old favorites and new selections, or edgy? Is your menu developed for function or fashion? Do you change your menu quarterly, or a minimum of semi-annually to keep it fresh? Or is it altered every year or two and become a club dinosaur? What are your item specs and part sizes? Is every product on your menu costed? What is your objective for a la carte food expense? Do you know the contribution margin on every item on your menu?

What about your unique occasions. Are they truly unique? Do they develop a buzz in the Club? Are they eagerly expected or the same thing that was done the last 10 years with nothing more than the year altered in the newsletter and marketing piece promoting the event? Is your personnel challenged every quarter this site to attempt brand-new events? New cost points?

Got Worth?

What about value added programs? It's taking place every day in the hospitality industry. Chili's, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Flemings, Cody's Roadhouse, McDonalds, Quiznos, Subway, and many other national franchises are actively programming to keep people being available in. Any question the success rate of franchises is over 90% while the success rate of separately owned dining establishments has to do with 10%?

What are you performing in your club to produce a "WOW" for your members/guests in your Food and Beverage offerings? Are you standing pat on your filet and sea bass questioning why you are doing so few covers? Or, are you trying brand-new ideas that may supply "meal replacement" dining instead of just "special celebration" dining?

Something as basic as Delighted Hour can create additional use. Comfort food such as meatloaf, chicken casserole, lasagna, or comparable for" at or during the week are popular. Taco bars, pasta bars, burger night, half cost on bottles of house red wine, Fresh Fish Fridays or a Friday Fish Fry, a Chef's selection at a special rate on slower evenings, sushi nights, appetisers at an unique cost, home entertainment, and many other concepts and occasions drive use, offer incremental profits, and keep the staff working. Are you explore brand-new events in your club/resort? Offer it a try. You'll be surprised at the buzz it creates.

The Experience

How is your dining room provided? With white tablecloths? No table linens? Placemats? Are you charging appropriately for the experience you are providing?

How are your buffets presented? Elegantly with skirting, floral screens, and shiny silver chafing dishes? Or fundamental with little or no frills? Does it make good sense?

Do you have standards of operation to make sure the food and beverage experience for your members/guests? Is every employee using a tidy and pressed designated uniform? Exists a particular manner to present menus, serve, food, mixed drinks, and red wine? Are members called by name? Specify steps of service in location?

Does the service staff understand the composition of every item, sauce, and portion size from the menu? Is training provided a minimum of month-to-month? Is your staff selling suggestively?

The Technical Aspects

How frequently do you take a physical inventory? Is there "self-reliance" in the stock procedure to ensure that the counts are precise? Is stock rates adjusted routinely to show the most recent expense the club is spending for all inventoried items or is the expense the club paid in 2015 still being utilized to identify stock worth?

Do you follow this mantra when receiving and inventorying products?

If you purchase it by the pound, weigh it. If you purchase it by the piece, count it. If you buy it by ounce or length, measure it? Under no situations, accept it blindly.

I am impressed at how typically deliveries are accepted and signed for without even physically being in the same room as the items that were delivered not to mention inspecting the packing slip or billing versus the products got. Shipment individuals become smart very quickly to those who hold them accountable and those who don't. A couple of pounds of missing out on steak here or a couple of bottles of missing liquor there costs a great deal of money over a prolonged amount of time.

How much unusable food is stashed away in the freezer, often a chef's buddy, and continues to be counted every month throughout inventory yet is essentially worth little or nothing?

What does the organizational structure appear like in your club's F&B operation? How are your supervisors compensated? Are they incented to produce a particular financial outcome, train the personnel, and maintain standards? Or are they paid simply for revealing up?

How is your service staff paid? By per hour wage? Tip pool? Some combination of both? Does your pay structure promote tenure or turnover? What about overtime? Are you paying overtime? Lawfully?

In addition to costing every product on every menu, have you done the exact same for alcohol, beer, and white wine? Do you have defined pour sizes? Are they being stuck to? Do you have pourers which permit only for the put size for which you are charging? How much of your club's resort's money is bound in wine inventory? Have you established par stocks?

Do you have a Food and Beverage minimum? Does it make sense for your club? Do you have a minimum monthly service charge? Should you?

Do you offer a staff member meal? How is it accounted for? Is it accounted for at all? Do you enable workers to get rid of food/beverage from the club? (A bad concept!). Do you permit your employees to take in alcoholic beverages at the end of a shift? (An even worse idea!!).

Personal Events

What about your Personal Events? Is your catering menu priced right? What does priced best mean? Have you assessed the competitive environment? What are you doing to bring wedding events and meetings to the club/resort? Are you covering the costs of establishing and breaking down every room based on the varying needs of each event?

Do your private occasion policies make sense? When is the "guarantee' due? When is payment in full needed? Do you require a signed agreement? Do you even have a contract that you need be signed?

A Solution

Lots of concerns! Get a management business that will work collaboratively with you to address all of these and any others and develop a tailored food and beverage experience that reflects your unique situation and offers what your members/guests desire and want to pay for.