Foods For Pondering - Is Your Foods And Refreshment Company Being Run Correctly?

I eat food. I consume beverages.

For that reason, I am qualified to manage a Food and Drink operation.

In examining the operations of numerous clubs/resorts monthly, I find that a person of the most badly operated, irregular locations of club/resort operations is Food and Drink. Particularly in member owned environments, which are typically managed by a club board, people appear to think that since they dine out, they in some way have some level of knowledge that allows them to make service decisions about this important element of the club. The truth is that this is among the most complex departments in a club to handle, control, and produce a constant experience.

Let's ask a couple of questions!

Is your Food and Drink experience proper for what your members/guests wish to have in your club/resort? Are you priced appropriately, too high, or too low? How do you know? Are you tracking cover counts by day? By shift? By hour?

Are your food choices stuck in the past, a nice balance of old favorites and new choices, or edgy? Is your menu developed for function or fashion? Do you change your menu quarterly, or at least semi-annually to keep it fresh? Or is it altered every year or two and become a club dinosaur? What are your product specifications and portion sizes? Is every item on your menu costed? What is your goal for a la carte food cost? Do you know the contribution margin on every item on your menu?

What about your special occasions. Are they actually unique? Do they create a buzz in the Club? Are they excitedly prepared for or the exact same thing that was done the last 10 years with absolutely nothing more than the year changed in the newsletter and promotional piece promoting the event? Is your personnel challenged every quarter to attempt new occasions? Brand-new rate points?

Got Worth?

What about worth included programs? It's happening every day in the hospitality market. Chili's, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Flemings, Cody's Roadhouse, McDonalds, Quiznos, Train, and numerous other nationwide franchises are actively programming to keep people can be found in. Any wonder the success rate of franchises is over 90% while the success rate of individually owned dining establishments has to do with 10%?

What are you doing in your club to produce a "WOW" for your members/guests in your Food and Beverage offerings? Are you standing pat on your $32 filet and $28 sea bass questioning why you are doing so few covers? Or, are you attempting new concepts that may offer "meal replacement" dining instead of just "unique event" dining?

Something as easy as Happy Hour can produce additional usage. Home cooking such as meatloaf, chicken casserole, lasagna, or similar for" at $8 or $9 during the week are popular. Taco bars, pasta bars, hamburger night, half cost on bottles of house red wine, Fresh Fish Fridays or a Friday Fish Fry, a Chef's choice at an unique cost on slower evenings, sushi nights, appetisers at an unique rate, home entertainment, and lots of other principles and events drive use, offer incremental earnings, and keep the personnel working. Are you try out new occasions in your club/resort? Offer it a try. You'll be shocked at the buzz it creates.

The Experience

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

How are your buffets provided? Elegantly with skirting, flower display screens, and glossy silver chafing meals? Or primary 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 staff member using a clean and pushed designated uniform? Exists a specific manner to present menus, serve, food, cocktails, and wine? Are members called by name? Specify steps of service in location?

Does the service staff understand the composition of every product, sauce, and part size from the menu? Is training supplied a minimum of regular monthly? Is your personnel offering suggestively?

The Technical Aspects

How often do you take a physical stock? Is there "independence" in the inventory procedure to ensure that the counts are precise? Is inventory pricing changed frequently to show the most recent cost the club is spending for all inventoried products or is the expense the club paid in 2015 still being used to figure out stock worth?

Do you follow this mantra when getting and inventorying items?

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

I am surprised at how often deliveries are accepted and signed for without even physically being in the exact same room as the items that were delivered let alone examining the packing slip or invoice against the items received. Delivery people become smart very quickly to those who hold them responsible and those who do not. A few pounds of missing steak here or a few bottles of missing out on alcohol there costs a great deal of money over an extended period of time.

How much unusable food is stored in the freezer, frequently a chef's best friend, and continues to be counted each month during inventory yet is basically worth little advertising screens or nothing?

What does the organizational structure look like in your club's F&B operation? How are your managers compensated? Are they incented to produce a particular financial result, train the staff, and keep standards? Or are they paid simply for showing up?

How is your service staff paid? By hourly 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 item on every menu, have you done the same for alcohol, beer, and wine? Do you have defined pour sizes? Are they being abided by? Do you have pourers which permit only for the put size for which you are charging? How much of your club's resort's cash is bound in white wine stock? Have you recognized par stocks?

Do you have a Food and Drink minimum? Does it make good sense for your club? Do you have a minimum month-to-month service charge? Should you?

Do you offer a staff member meal? How is it represented? Is it represented at all? Do you allow workers to remove food/beverage from the club? (A bad concept!). Do you allow your workers to take in liquors at the end of a shift? (An even worse concept!!).

Personal Events

What about your Private Events? Is your catering menu priced right? What does priced ideal mean? Have you evaluated the competitive environment? What are you doing to bring wedding events and meetings to the club/resort? Are you covering the costs of setting up and breaking down every space based upon the differing requirements of each event?

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

An Option

Lots of questions! Get a management business that will work collaboratively with you to address all of these and any others and develop a personalized food and drink experience that reflects your special circumstance and supplies what your members/guests desire and are willing to spend for.