It’s one of the most frustrating dilemmas in all of restaurant management – what do you do with an employee who has such a great work ethic but has such a bad attitude? How do you manage an employee who has great quality work but complains all the time? How do you deal with the crew member who is reliable but poisons the whole culture? This is such a tricky situation that it will require some thought for each individual situation, but in this post, I plan to tell you how I have been able to work through these situations to retain both a great employee and a positive work environment.

Have you ever hired someone who seemed just untrainable? Or what about hiring someone who seemed great in their interview but seemed to be a different person when they showed up to work for their first day? As a restaurant manager, you already know that interviews can’t always be the best way to judge a candidate, so it’s important to learn what to do when you’ve accidentally made a bad call and hired a not-so-great employee. Setting up a new-hire for success is a skill that must be learned if you want to succeed as a restaurant manager.

Let’s review what we have discussed so far about the three batteries. Each of us has three different types of batteries that we use to get us through our day, our body battery, our mental battery, and our emotional battery. At night, our body battery is replenished through sleep, and our mental battery is recharged as well, so long as we get an adequate quality sleep. We can condition our bodies to not only recover from the day easier but improve our capacity for great work through physical exercise and avoiding technology. Now’s the time to talk about the third battery, the emotional battery.

Everyone’s emotional battery is different. Some people seem to never have their emotional battery depleted at all. Some seem to have their battery completely run out after 10 minutes of being awake. This battery is going to be very specific to you, and you will have to find your own ways to recharge and condition these, but I will try to point you in the right direction so you can discover these.

We’ve all experienced it; we’ve all been there – burnout is a real thing. In this industry, it’s hard to find anyone who isn’t burning the candle at both ends. It seems like an impossible task to try to be the manager your company needs as well as enjoy the ability to relax when you need to take a break. It may seem impossible, but this whole blog is about doing the impossible. So today, let’s talk about how to avoid burnout and keep performing your best, even when your body and mind and heart are at their limits.

You have three batteries – physical, mental, and emotional. In other words, you do this job with your body, your mind, and your heart. As we get tired from being overstressed and under-rested, our batteries get depleted and we start getting that feeling of running on empty, because you are, quite literally, running on empty. Working yourself through a depleted battery is how you get to anger and frustration in the job, and usually, it’s when your job performance starts getting poor and you feel like wanting to quit.

We’ve all experienced it; we’ve all been there – burnout is a real thing. In this industry, it’s hard to find anyone who isn’t burning the candle at both ends. It seems like an impossible task to try to be the manager your company needs as well as enjoy the ability to relax when you need to take a break. It may seem impossible, but this whole blog is about doing the impossible. So today, let’s talk about how to avoid burnout and keep performing your best, even when your body and mind and heart are at their limits.

You have three batteries – physical, mental, and emotional. In other words, you do this job with your body, your mind, and your heart. As we get tired from being overstressed and under-rested, our batteries get depleted and we start getting that feeling of running on empty, because you are, quite literally, running on empty. Working yourself through a depleted battery is how you get to anger and frustration in the job, and usually, it’s when your job performance starts getting poor and you feel like wanting to quit.

Every manager has a character to them that helps them stand out in the mind. I am going to start profiling the managers I used to work for to help you understand how you can create your own character that does not need to fit a picture of what you think a successful manager ought to seem. I’ve had so many managers that have had strengths and weaknesses, things about them that I appreciated and became frustrated with, but there is one manager from my past that I truly feel was flawless in her job. In this post, I will give a breakdown of the best general manager I ever had and what made her so great.

Look, we’ve all had to do it – we’ve all had to have awkward and difficult conversations as a part of this job. It’s never fun, and rarely is it easy. But in this career, it must happen sometimes if we want to get free. I have been a part of both sides of the tough conversation before, and here I’ll show you how I’ve been able to keep my cool and calm demeanor while communicating the necessary things that often hurt the other person.

Having a tough conversation with an employee is a lot like throwing up – you don’t want to do it, but after you do it, you feel so glad you did it. Don’t shy away from the conversation. Understand that if you say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done, often times, better things come as a result.

It’s not so discern whether an interviewee will be a good fit for your company or not. Although you will never know if a candidate is good until they actually start the job, there are some tips and tricks to use to help discern whether an candidate will follow through on their promises to work hard and follow procedure. Here are the ways that I’ve found help sift through the candidates that will prove their worth and the candidates that will poison the culture.

This job would be so much easier if it weren’t for the people - the customers, the bosses, and the employees. Unfortunately, the reality is that this job requires us to handle difficult personalities from top, bottom, and side-to-side. As restaurant managers, the group that we can have the most influence over is our employees, and its usually the group that gives us the biggest headache. Being able to influence a team to work for you instead of against you is one of the greatest skills you can learn as a manager. The technique is to develop employee buy-in. In this post, I’ll explain to you what employee buy-in is and how to develop it in your crew so you can cut down on the stress of the job, because I know that’s what we are all truly looking for.

Have you ever hated one manager and loved the other despite the fact that both get the same results? What makes a manager a good fit for a specific company? There are many different management styles, and having the right one can make or break your career. In this post, I will explain to you what the different styles of management are and why it matters to choose the best one for you and for your company. As well, I will show you how to find the best style of management that fits your own personality the best.

In a previous post, I spoke about the two most controllable costs that you need to focus on in order to keep your overall costs under control. In that post, I wrote about the first controllable cost, food. In this post, we will talk about the second factor that keeps your finances in line – labor.

Let’s discuss what labor cost really is. In short, it is what you pay to your employees for the time they spend working for you. Their paycheck is your labor cost. Disregarding payroll taxes and payroll service fees, essentially, if you combine all of the employees paychecks together in one week, that is that week’s labor cost. Keeping the labor cost to a minimum will help you significantly on your goal to having a financially balanced store. In this post, we’ll discuss the methods I’ve used that have helped me keep labor under control without making employees feel like they’re being stretched too thin.

Every restaurant has two controllable costs that take precedence over all other costs – food and labor. In this post, I’m going to teach you how my experience has helped me conquer these two demons and save them from throwing away thousands of dollars.

Your food cost is what you pay to your commissary and/or vendors. What you spend on the product you sell is your food cost. This number goes up as you order more food and goes down as you order less food. The problem we face is that our sales may stay stagnant, but our food cost goes up. What that means is that the food is being used at a rate higher than necessary. Your employees are giving out portions that are too big, throwing away too much food at the end of the night, or, and this does happen often, employees are stealing. Instead of taking that as a loss, the key to success it to find why that food is actually disappearing so you can create a gameplan as to how to save it.

You may be surprised to know that a restaurant is the business most often to run out of money and shut down. Almost every time, that business shuts down because of POOR MANAGEMENT. How can you expect a restaurant to run well and make a profit if the management is unfocused and unmotivated – not interested in the betterment of the restaurant as a whole? At the same time, if you put a good manager in a terrible situation, you can find opportunity for success in places you’ve never thought of. In that way, the reason most restaurants fail is definitely poor management. Here is how great managers prevent the failure of restaurants and pave the path to success.

Have you ever felt like you aren’t in control of your own crew? Do you feel like you aren’t really the one calling the shots in the restaurant? If you feel like your employees walk all over you, it’s time to take back your store and command respect from your team and get back on track towards progress and growth. It may feel impossible, but it isn’t. Here’s how I was able to go from a weak manager to a strong leader.

Ever wonder why some restaurants run smoothly while others feel like constant chaos? It usually comes down to this: management vs. leadership. One of the most common pitfalls of restaurant management is not understanding what the difference between the two are when to use each one. The most important thing to know is that a manager utilizes systems to ensure ease and flow of operations, and a leader creates a culture of excellence within their restaurant consisting of a motivated and responsible crew. Though you are called a “manager” your job is to wear both hats. You cannot be an effective restaurant manager without being both manager and leader. Your ability to master both responsibilities is the key to your ability to master your whole position in this job.

You and I both know that being a restaurant manager means constantly burning the candle at both ends. At times, we even feel sick because of lack of sleep and overwork. For too many of us, this usually ends up as a sacrifice of our health, both physical and mental. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let me show you how you can stay devoted to your job and maintain your health and sanity at the same time. As you maintain your physical, mental, and spiritual health, your job will also maintain its health.