A More Systematic Approach

I have continued to make observations of the restaurant throughout my time here, and about midway through the month I started to notice some consistent negative trends. These were all issues that were easily remedied by creating and implementing basic systems.

Food Prep
We were preparing far too much food each day for our low sales volume. I created a food prep list that is based on sales volume. Therefore, on slower days – like Mondays – we do not prepare as much food in the morning as we would on a busier Saturday.

Chicken Rotation
We were consistently forced to quick thaw chicken when I first arrived. This seemed ridiculous because of our low volume. I created a system to ensure that we always had enough chicken thawed based on our sales volume, without thawing significantly more than we need. Since the implementation of this rotation system, we have not had to quick thaw chicken even once!

Waste Tracking
The team was trained to ring in waste on the register and discount it like a coupon. While this is great for food cost – simply putting waste into the marketing category – it does not give us an accurate picture of our food cost gap or giveaways. Now, team members track waste on paper by marking an easy-to-use waste tracker that is kept in the boards area.

Build-Tos
There were no build-tos created for truck ordering. This caused us to frequently run out of some items and have way too many of other items. An inconsistent inventory can encourage team member theft and can also be extremely frustrating if not enough stock is ordered. The build-tos enable us to manage inventory in a much more effective manner.