The Managers Walk-through and Figure Eight is key to your restaurant success.
Everything starts and ends with management. Have you ever visited a restaurant and not once seen a manager? How about visiting a restaurant that was ran chaotic and dirty? These are the restaurants that fail with-in the first year.
90% of start-up restaurants fail the first year, leaving 10% that survive. There are literally hundreds of reasons why restaurants fail, the most common reasons are:
- Poor Location
- Poor Advertisement
- Lack of Training
- Lack of Funds
- Inferior Food and Service
- Dirty Restaurant
- Unable to Manage Food And Labor Cost
- No Customer Recovery Skills
- No Customer Service Skills
- Etc
You can defiantly increase your restaurant’s success by training your managers and staff members correctly. Great tasting food, service, atmosphere and quality training is key to repeat business. You need to also manage your bottom line by managing food and labor cost. There are a lot of factors that determine a well ran restaurant.
What is the Manager’s Walk-Through and Figure Eight?
It is the manager’s walking path during any given shift. When a manager begins their shift, they need to conduct a pre-walk-through of the entire restaurant, starting with the exterior. As they inspect each area of the restaurant, these issues need to be corrected as they go or delegated to
During the Manager’s Walk-Through What Do We Inspect?
Exterior and Parking lot:
Is there cigarette butts and trash on the ground? No overflowing trash cans.
Lobby Area:
No fingerprint on the front door glass. Lobby area clean and organized. A seating chart is set up. Wait sheets available. Our menus available and clean? Staff is properly greeting all guests with a warm and friendly smile as the guest enters and leaves the restaurant in a timely manner. The staff is professional, clean and in proper uniform.
Restrooms:
Trash cans not overflowing. Bathrooms are clean and sanitized and well stocked with paper towels, toilet paper, baby wipes, sanitation napkins and hand soap. If you have a restroom checklist is it up to date and being used properly.
Dining room:
Music is playing at a comfortable sound level. Is the dining room clean and organized? All tables and condiments set up properly. Enough staff scheduled to accommodate your customers. Managers are visiting each customers table to ensure that wow service is provided. Servers are providing top notch service to each customer. Servers are recommending the specials and are suggestive selling and up-selling the menu. Drinks are being refilled to all customers.
Service Area:
The service aisle checklist is used correctly. Is there enough silverware, dinnerware, glassware and cups available. Ice bin filled. All food supplies and paper supplies such as: carryout containers, cups, napkins, condiments and carry out bags available. All foods have a proper date dot on them, no expired product. All food products are properly rotated first in, first out (FIFO). Server side work chart filled out and completed properly. Sanitation bucket in use and is the water at the proper PPM level. Quat tablets 200-220 recommended PPM. Chlorine tablets 50 PPM recommended. The sanitation water temperature works best between 75°F – 100°F. Ample supply of sanitation test strips available. Server cleaning assignments assigned and completed correctly.
Dish Room:
The three compartment sink properly set up. First sink: soapy fresh, clean hot water, the temperature should be at 110°F. Second sink: fresh, clean hot water, the temperature should be at 110°F. Third sink: fresh, clean sanitation, water, temperature should be between 75°F-100°F. The sanitation water PPM level should be: Quat tablets 200-220 recommended PPM. Chlorine tablets 50 PPM. The sanitation water temperature works best between 75°F-100°F. Is there a sanitation bucket with sanitation water in it? Is the water in the dish machine at or above 165°F.? Is the final rinse at 180°F.? The dish room must be clean, sanitized and organized. The employee should be in proper uniform and wearing a hat. A bucket should be set up for breakage.
Kitchen:
Is the kitchen checklist being used correctly? Are there enough products available to get through the shift? Are date dots being used? Any expired products? Are products rotated properly, first in, first out (FIFO)? The kitchen needs to be clean, sanitized and organized. Cook side work chart up to date. Are there employees in proper uniform and wearing hats? Is the equipment at the proper temperatures? Fryers and grills at 350°F. Breakfast, Grills: pancakes and French toast, grill 350°F. Egg grill at 275°F. Cooks should be quizzed on certain food internal temperatures such as chicken 165°F ground beef 158°F, ground pork 160°F, beef, pork, veal, lamb, and roast 145°F, fish and shellfish 145°F, eggs 160°F. Casseroles and leftovers 165°F.Proper serving utensils being used: tong’s, ladles and scoops. Is the steam table temperature water 165°F. Food maintained on the steam table at 140°F or above. Are dinnerware and carry out supplies available? Sanitation bucket in use and is the water at the proper PPM level? Quat tablets 200-220 recommended PPM. Chlorine tablets 50 PPM recommended. The sanitation water temperature works best between 75°F–100°F. Ample supply of sanitation test strips available. Cook cleaning assignments assigned and completed correctly. Are the guest food tickets with-in your standard ticket times? Make sure you assign where you want each kitchen staff member to be positioned in the kitchen. Remember the phrase aces in their places. Assign each employee in a position based on their strengths. Who is the best grill cook? Who is best to run the front? Who is your best fry cook?
Prep Room:
Past prep sheets on file for inspection. Present prep sheets being used and used correctly. Prep portions and product weights correct? Are proper cool down procedures done correctly. The product prepped hot food cool down procedure is a 6 hour step.
140°F to 70 °F in two hours or less, 70°F to 41°F in four additional hours or less. The total cool down is six hours. Proper date dot procedures used? Are product being rotated properly, first in, first out (FIFO)? Food stored on the correct storage shelves: Raw meats such as chicken and seafood should be stored below prepped or ready to eat foods. Here is the following format of storing any meats or seafood’s in refrigerators from top to bottom: Top shelf prepped or ready to eat foods, whole fish and whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and fish or seafood’s, any raw chicken. All foods should be stored in a proper approved standard food storage container with a drain shelf and lid. Cooks should be quizzed on certain food internal temperatures such as chicken 165°F ground beef 158°F, ground pork 160°F, beef, pork, veal, lamb, and roast 145°F, fish and shellfish 145°F, eggs 160°F, casseroles and leftovers 165°F.
Walk-in Refrigerator, Freezer and Dry Storage:
Walk-in refrigerator is organized. Date dots in use. Proper food rotation first in, first out (FIFO). No expired product. Foods stored in the correct container and stored on the correct shelves. Walk-in floor swept and mopped. Walk-in Temperature is at 41°F or below.
Walk-in freezer is organized. Date dots in use. Proper food rotation first in, first out (FIFO). No expired product. Foods stored in the correct container and stored on the correct shelves. Walk-in freezer floor swept. Walk-in freezer temperature is between -0°F to -5°F. Use Kool-Klene No-Thaw Freezer Cleaner from Ecolab to clean your freezer floor.
Dry Storage is organized. Date dots in use. Proper food rotation first in, first out (FIFO). No expired product. Foods stored in the correct container and stored on the correct shelves. Food cans not dented with labels faced to the front to be read easily. Dry Storage, floor swept and mopped. Dry storage temperature should be at 71°F.
When conducting the walk-through you should be checking for the correct temperatures in all refrigerator/freezer reach-ins throughout the restaurant.
Have a notebook available as you conduct your walk-through to record any discrepancies. At the end of your walk-through delegate any issues to the staff members to correct. Follow up on those discrepancies with those employees. Make sure you give direction to the employees on how to correct the issue and a time frame as to when you want those discrepancies to be corrected.
The walk-through will take anywhere from 45 minutes up to 1 hour to complete. A proper walk-through = a properly set up shift.
When you are done with the first initial walk-through then you are ready to run your shift. All throughout the shift you should be conducting a walk-through from the parking lot to the manager’s office. This is commonly referred to as the manager’s figure eight path. The first walk-through is very detailed.
The rest of your walk-throughs need to be service related, such as:
- Eliminating any eyesores from the view of the guest.
- Service standards
- Restaurant cleanliness
- Procedures and policies
- Food safety
- Time and temperature
- Food ticket times
- Quality of foods
- Restroom standards
- Customer service
- Customer complaints
- Guest recovery
- Manager table visits
- Checking all refrigerator and freezer temperatures
- Back door is locked
- Safe is Locked
- The manager’s door is locked.
- Managing labor and food cost
- Giving direction to the employees and following up on that direction.
Make sure there is another manager covering the shift as you conduct the walk-through, this is so that you are not disturbed. A great idea is to cross schedule the off-coming and the on-coming managers shift. Meaning, if you have the am manager, scheduled till 4 PM, schedule the PM Manager at 2 PM. The am manager starts the walk-through at 2 PM and ends at 3 PM. The am manager from 3 to 4 PM will finish the am paperwork, money counts and will communicate to the on-coming manager the day’s events or concerns.
Some restaurant owners will look at the walk-through as a nuisance or it is not necessary. They may even say I am wasting money on having managers crossed scheduled. Here is the big picture; you will lose more money on not having a shift properly set up. This walk-through is designed to increase great customer service and decrease customer related issues. This walk-through if done consistently and correctly will save you money in the long run instead of losing money due to guest complaints or bad service.
Which do you want a chaotic unorganized restaurant or a well run restaurant?