80/20 vs. 4: Restaurant Marketing By The Numbers

The Pareto Principle has long been hailed as the Holy Grail of marketing, the one rule by which all marketing efforts succeed or fail.  The principle itself is pretty simple: 20% of your customers drive 80% of your sales.  There’s always a core group of loyal customers who not only spend money in your restaurant, they...

A Glossary of Restaurant Lingo, Slang & Terms

A     * All Day – the total amount.  If table 12 orders two orders of salmon and table 19 orders four orders of salmon, that’s “six salmon, all day.” B     * Back of the house – the back end of the restaurant, the kitchen and storage areas, where the chefs, cooks, prep people and dishwashers primarily work.     * Bev Nap – the little square paper napkin which a beverages rests on.     * Brigade...

3 Reasons Food Prep Equipment Helps You Cut Costs & Improve Quality

There’s nothing quite as exciting as watching a busy restaurant’s kitchen gear up for the dinner rush.  Every chef and restaurateur knows that thorough preparation is the only way to effectively combat the chaos that is a kitchen during peak dinner rush.  And that’s why the kitchen starts prepping hours before the guests...

Restaurant Grease Management: How Traps Will Save Your Butt

Grease is an inevitable byproduct of your restaurant’s kitchen.  Unfortunately, grease doesn’t disappear when it gets washed down the drain.  Instead, it tends to build up and stick to the sides of pipes and drainages, just like cholesterol in diner’s arteries. And just like cholesterol, that buildup over time can cause some serious problems.  Best case scenario, your kitchen smells like a rotting cesspool.  Worst case,...

10 Ways To Make Your Restaurant More Profitable

1. Reduce Food Costs With A Descending Dollar Report A Descending Dollar Report is a fancy way of saying “Find the 10 food items you spend the most money on every month.”  Once you know what those 10 items are, start looking for ways to cut your costs on each one. Talk to your distributors and see if you can find a similar or even better product that’s less expensive.  Also don’t be afraid to pursue other distributors...

Fryer Oil Maintenance: Tips To Make Oil Taste Better & Last Longer

The fryer is one of the central cooking appliances in many restaurants and commercial kitchens.  And central to every commercial fryer is the shortening or oil in the vat.  Maintaining that oil is key to producing great-tasting product every...

22 Restaurant Management Tips

One area of the restaurant industry we have continually focused on here at The Back Burner is management.  I don’t have to tell you that restaurant managers are often overworked and underappreciated, and that’s on top of the stress involved with trying to manage a business in one of the largest and most competitive industries out there. These tips are meant to be useful tidbits that will make you a more effective manager,...

Management Styles – Micro Manager or Laissez Faire

Your management style can have a lot to do with your success in running a restaurant, or any other business. While people can debate all day long about which is the best management style to use in different situations, one thing people will agree on, if you get it right (or wrong) it can have a big affect on the success of your business. There are a variety of management styles, and most effective managers use a combination of...