Restaurant Inventory Count Sheet

The Restaurant inventory count sheet is helpful to record your inventory of products. Knowing your inventory count will help you determine if products are being wasted or used properly. Why are weekly inventories so important to your bottom line? Because 70% percent of your inventory losses are employee related.

Server Errors – How to prevent or reduce server errors

Train the servers to use their order pads and not to rely on memory. When taking the customers orders write down the orders from left to right. After writing down each order repeat the order back to the customer for clarity. This method is to prevent serving the incorrect food and “auctioning off” the food when it is delivered to the customer.

When the server places the order in the POS system they should enter the information from top to bottom and double check the order before sending the ticket to the kitchen. When delivering foods to the customer make sure the steam is coming off the plate. Hot food is hot. Cold food is cold.

Plate presentation and clean rims are important. If there are any special request make sure it is indicated on the ticket and verbally communicate it to the cooks. This goes for the same for allergens. Before food delivery to the customer, the server or food runner cross check what’s on the customer’s check compared to the cook’s ticket.

Preventing Cook Errors

The lead cook or the kitchen manager should be the only person pulling the checks from the kitchen printer. The same individuals also should be the only persons calling back the orders to the other cooks. This will reduce confusion and possible mistakes.

The cooks and servers should serve food with proper ticket times. The ticket time is measured from the time the server places the order until the food is delivered:

• Breakfast – 8 to 10 minutes or less
• Drink orders – 4 minutes or less
• Soups or Salads – 4 minutes or less
• Appetizers – 7 minutes or less
• Lunch – 10 to 12 minutes or less
• Dinner – 12 to 15 minutes or less. However, some items cook longer, like steak. Then the server should also advise the customer that the steak may take longer to cook.
• Dessert 7 minutes or less.

Deterring Employee Theft

Unfortunately, employee theft happens in every restaurant. There are ways to reduce theft. Make it difficult for employees to steal:

• Lock the walk-in, freezer and dry storage during all peak times.
• Make sure that the employees stock food and supplies prior to the peak times.  Typically, employees may steal during the busiest times in the restaurant because the managers and other employees are too busy to notice.
• Conduct bag checks, however, remember to be fair and do bag checks to everyone.
• Inform the employees to always place all large bags or book bags in a designated area up front.
• Better yet, install a security system as an effective way to reduce theft. Place cameras in the kitchen, above the registers, place cameras in the front door and back doors and in the manager’s office. This will deter possible theft.

Use the Restaurant Inventory Count Sheet every week. This will help you stay on top of any issues. It could be theft or just staff members who do not follow procedures. The earlier you catch it, the less revenue you lose.

In addition, here is a link where you can find useful spreadsheets that can help reduce food waste and revenue loss, such as more complete inventory systems to calculate labor and food costs.

 https://www.workplacewizards.com/restaurant-spreadsheets/

Restaurant Inventory Count Sheet

$3.99