Culinary Cues

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

This may seem like a strange topic for a blog focused on the restaurant industry and the world of food but hear me out. Zoom became our office (for many businesses – not all) and suddenly we had a way to function, at least at some level. How will we work if we can’t interact?” Let’s find ways to work remotely”. So why not?

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Social Media Food Safety Retail Back of House 348

Culinary Cues

AUGUST 7, 2021

Identifying problems has never been a challenge in the restaurant industry – there are many. Let’s look for a moment at one of those problems (challenges) and apply these three steps: PROBLEM: The restaurant industry, universally, is having an impossible time trying to find competent, committed individuals to work in all positions.

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Social Media Cash Management Blog Equipment 474

Culinary Cues

APRIL 10, 2023

To some it may simply seem like the squeaky wheel syndrome (a handful of people with loud voices) as dialogue about exodus from the restaurant business continues to raise eyebrows. There are, unfortunately some restaurants who fit the accusations. Those bad apples are having a terrible impact on the bushel.

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Employee Relations Restaurant Law Waste Article 472

Restaurant365

AUGUST 21, 2020

Successful restaurant owners and operators don’t just provide great food. The people piece of the puzzle can be challenging for restaurants. Because of the complicated nature of human resources (HR) and the sprawling regulations surrounding payroll, HR and payroll can be a recurring headache for restaurant owners and operators.

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Blog Restaurant Law Recruiting Employee Relations 78

Culinary Cues

APRIL 1, 2024

Past maintenance and the boiler room of massive furnaces providing heat and hot water for twenty some odd floors of guest rooms and eighteen banquet rooms ranging in size from twenty seat board rooms to two-thousand seat ballrooms, and the three restaurants that grace the main lobby. Organized chaos would be the right phrase to use.

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Back of House Kitchen Safety Hotels Front of House 318

Culinary Cues

JULY 23, 2023

Most restaurant owners, managers, family members of cooks, friends of cooks and chefs, those in other professions, service staff, and restaurant patrons, don’t get it. The model makes sense from a clear business perspective. Most people don’t get it.

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Guest Recovery Seasonal Menu Presentation Customer Experience 404

Culinary Cues

MAY 13, 2023

Is it culinary school, working in well-known restaurants, finding an established chef to mentor them, or is it something else entirely? If you can afford the cost and the time, of course a culinary school would help as an integral part of your plan. This is the biting question, the one that helps a young cook decide what path to take.

Hotels 426

Hotels Point of Sale Cash Management Training 426

Culinary Cues

APRIL 15, 2023

My town leaders, bless their hearts, try to figure out ways to strum up cash flow for small businesses. It’s early spring, mud season as it is commonly called, and they are putting in a Yeoman’s effort at organizing another restaurant week. If you are not in the restaurant business, then maybe this sounds reasonable.

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Seasonal Menu Café Point of Sale Social Media 447

Culinary Cues

MAY 8, 2023

If a chef can manage a week or two here or there it will be at that rare time when business is off and even then, chefs are checking their email a few times a day to see what crisis is occurring while they try to relax. Five weeks’ vacation might be nice, although chefs probably wouldn’t know what to do with themselves for that long.

Kitchen Safety 428

Kitchen Safety Food Safety Coaching Training 428

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 15, 2023

There are also those who work during this time of the year so that others can enjoy the time with family: UPS, Postal, and FedEx drivers; retail store workers, military, police and fire, doctors, and nurses, and those who are part of the hospitality/restaurant/travel industries.

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Hospitality Travel 2024 Uniforms 380

Culinary Cues

AUGUST 28, 2023

The media is in love with the drama, as confessions of abused cooks find ample press time, and despondent cooks who leave the business trash talk their previous employers. After absorbing all the negative press and glamorized abusive behavior it’s no wonder restaurants are having a tough time recruiting employees.

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Entertainment Back of House Consumer Goods Recruiting 363

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Long before the restaurant chains of today, decades prior to the birth of fine dining, experience dining, and molecular gastronomy, there were neighborhood cafes that were part of small communities across the country. The restaurant was for eating and catching up with the flavor of the town.

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White Paper Hospitality Fine Dining Reference 319

Culinary Cues

OCTOBER 19, 2023

How many people in your kitchen alone could be the next great chef, the owner of a chain of restaurants concepts, the developer of a great new food product line, or the winner of a James Beard Award as a Rising Star? Could learning be a key to restaurant success? Give everyone a chance to feel as if it were their restaurant.

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Training Seasonal Menu Back of House Leadership 367

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Those occasional shifts when the chaos overtook our planning and systems, were part of our education. Whenever someone tells me that they don’t take regular inventories in their kitchen I cringe and know they have little idea about how a restaurant makes money. For all of these, I am grateful.

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Kitchen Safety Food Safety 2024 Inventory 416

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

This was a tradition of early holiday shopping, hoping to beat the maddening crowds that typically flood shopping districts and restaurants this time of year. The stores were empty, and restaurant service staff were staring out windows from the vantage of unfilled seats. These businesses can’t give up! President John F.

Customer Experience 362

Customer Experience Customer Service Food Safety Retail 362

Restaurant365

MARCH 5, 2020

It’s 2020, and your teams are already using technology that improves efficiency and controls business costs. From cloud-based POS systems to mobile apps designed to improve employee satisfaction and streamline scheduling, technology is bettering business and changing the landscape of restaurant management.

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Blog Management Management Cash Management 146

Culinary Cues

APRIL 1, 2020

Desperation has sunk in for those of us in the restaurant business. Some try and paint a brighter picture by projecting that as soon as the quarantine is lifted – people will return in droves to their previous lifestyle and fill those empty restaurant seats. This is a time to THINK DIFFERENTLY about every aspect of our business.

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Waste Cash Management Entertainment Take-out 498

Culinary Cues

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

There was an initial moment, maybe as a young guest in a restaurant, or possibly as a “first job” dishwasher, when the light bulb switched from off to on. With a friend in tow, you made a reservation at a noteworthy new restaurant in town. There was a time, maybe not too long ago, when you knew very little about food and cooking.

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Food Order Presentation Café Waste 342

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 23, 2023

In terms of a restaurant, it might be: “We expect to grow our business by 20%, win the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, earn a Michelin Star, or reach a profit after taxes of 9%”. No one – I repeat – NO ONE – will ever be excited about a business (sporting team or restaurant) with lackluster goals, or none at all.

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Coaching Sports Point of Sale Take-out 374

Culinary Cues

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Certainly, there are issues and things to be addressed and fixed and there is little doubt that life has not always been fair and kind when it comes to kitchen work, but like so many other businesses and industries – the positive far outweighs those scars and wounds. 80%of single-unit restaurants in the U.S. In 2021, there were 14.5

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Agriculture Tourism Transportation Café 368

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 20, 2024

There’s a reactionary movement that I keep seeing in restaurants; a movement that assumes the answer to the restaurant bottom line is to take more and give less or give too much to justify raising prices. If we fail to look at the entire restaurant package, then we fail to realize how to earn profit. Come on, we know this!

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Fine Dining Food Truck Back of House Pricing 389

Culinary Cues

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Those days in restaurants that were once recognized as a time to close and let traditions thrive are now some of the busiest business days of the year. It made perfect business sense to take advantage of this opportunity to boost a restaurants’ bottom line and fill a need expressed by restaurant guests.

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Hospitality Café 2022 Specials 375

Culinary Cues

AUGUST 22, 2022

Paul de Vance in southern France, or the walled in villages of Tuscany, the narrow streets of Oslo, Norway, and the typical hidden villages found in parts of historic Germany; places that were home to those special little restaurants that reflect the terroir of the region. That was it!

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Seating Front of House Back of House Cash Management 442

Culinary Cues

MAY 12, 2022

I get it, profit in restaurants is sometimes hard to come by. Restaurants get hit from all angles so when there is a chance to push the envelope on pricing – many do. These are the restaurants where dining is much, much more than just consuming food. It’s so hard to make money on that 10 oz. Prime Filet or 14 oz.

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Pricing Training Consumer Goods Customer Experience 352

Culinary Cues

APRIL 29, 2022

This is a direct message to all of those young cooks just starting out, dishwashers, culinary students, and seasoned veterans of the kitchen – you can go as far as you want to go in the food business as long as you are willing to put in the work, build a plan, and stick to the plan. Build this into your plan.

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Influencer Book Small Business Take-out 379

Culinary Cues

APRIL 18, 2023

The restaurant business is sometimes like the canary in the coal mine and at other times like the father of teenage children – the last to know. Most of the problems in restaurants were there before but not so vivid, not so “in your face”. Plan, equip, train, evaluate, educate, and celebrate each and every employee.

Food Truck 319

Food Truck Back of House Education Training 319

Culinary Cues

FEBRUARY 10, 2024

So, here’s the thing – knowing how to operate a restaurant is not difficult – executing the steps is a whole other story. The simple answer (if there is such a thing) is that they really don’t know “how” or they suffer from “lazy restaurant eyes”. A small detail, but a signal of lazy restaurant eyes. What is needed?

Uniforms 360

Uniforms Small Business Dine-in Training 360

7 Shifts

MARCH 10, 2021

Successful restaurant owners have many traits in common. These may be traits that come naturally to the best restaurateurs, but they can also learn some valuable habits to help them efficiently and effectively run a business and meet their goals. Here we've outlined seven practices of highly successful restaurant owners.

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Management Management Small Business Email Marketing 370

Restaurant365

JUNE 26, 2020

While many American businesses have been impacted by COVID-19, the restaurant industry is among those hit hardest. In response, many restaurants adapted to shutdowns across the country by offering drive-through or curbside pick-up, allowing them to remain partially open and serve customers who were sheltering in place.

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Blog Audits Employee Relations Restaurant Law 78

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 3, 2023

I have long embraced this philosophy when it comes to restaurants, but it also can apply to any business. Let me explain: A few years ago, (50 years ago) I had a conversation with a wonderful woman who owned and operated a successful neighborhood restaurant. Happy, welcomed employees produce happy food.

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Hospitality Customer Experience Customer Service Small Business 375

Culinary Cues

APRIL 23, 2022

The margins are very tight, in fact they are so tight that most business savvy people would wonder why anyone would ever want to own a restaurant. From the dishwasher to the prep cook, line cook to sous chef, and server to restaurant manager – food cost percentages must be something that everyone takes on as a job requirement.

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Food Seasonal Menu Waste Point of Sale 381

Culinary Cues

MARCH 26, 2022

Are you thinking about owning a restaurant? You are not alone if the thought of putting your name on a restaurant awning has crossed your mind. One of the most tempting forays into entrepreneurship is the restaurant business. Instead, let’s look at some of the common reasons why restaurants fail (this is only a sampling).

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Cash Management Social Media Restaurant Law Communication 366

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 29, 2024

We have labored over the effects of this change but have been very slow to reinvent the way that we do business – to once again, create an environment where individuals relish the opportunity to learn and grow as cooks, exhibit passion about the craft, wear their uniforms with pride, and feel great about saying: “I’m a cook!”

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Kitchen Safety Guest Recovery Uniforms Food Safety 381

Culinary Cues

JANUARY 11, 2022

Entering the restaurant business has always been like a non-swimmer jumping in the deep end of the pool and hoping that he or she will float. Those who think they are entering the restaurant business with visions of wealth and prosperity are more often than not setting themselves up for disappointment.

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Customer Experience Café Training Hospitality 367

Culinary Cues

APRIL 9, 2024

You thought you were good, a solid line cook or prep cook, a couple years of experience under your belt working in a busy restaurant. So, you applied for a job at one of the best restaurants in town, a place admired by all. You were on fire and felt confident that you would be a star in any operation. Embrace it.

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Uniforms Waste Café Take-out 323

Culinary Cues

MARCH 22, 2023

No longer involved in the company she sold, Chef Silverton, is owner and operator of Mozza Restaurant where exceptional Northern Italian dishes are highlighted on the menu. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence must become a life plan.” It may be elusive, but perfection is the inspiration that pushes us forward.

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Coaching Fine Dining Café Training 368

Culinary Cues

OCTOBER 30, 2023

Suddenly, the restaurant world was able to loosen the grip of recognition that cost a fortune to earn and maintain and realize that when it comes down to it, it’s all about food excellence measured on taste and flavor as well as appropriate value. If fine dining is your objective, then make the commitment knowing what’s involved.

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Fine Dining Front of House Dine-in 2016 353