What do you like about your favorite restaurant? I have a few personal favorites and the reasons are simple and I suspect they are the same as yours. I’m talking about casual dining, not the five-star, upscale dining experience. Most of us don’t go to those establishments on a regular …

Everyone’s got an opinion.  And in the internet age, everyone can and does voice their opinion online.  A short search online will bring back at least one person’s opinion about every kind of business under the sun, from eye doctors to painters.  Restaurants are particularly targeted by the masses of …

Replacing the commercial faucet on sinks in your restaurant doesn’t have to be a difficult job.  Following a couple simple steps will help you replace old or worn faucets in your kitchen very easily. For starters, there are two types of faucets: 1. Deck Mount – These faucets attach directly to …

If your restaurant or bar has beer on tap, you already know how much customers appreciate a good pour.  Beer on tap tends to taste better, and from a business perspective, buying kegs gives you a better margin than buying it in bottles or cans.  For most restaurateurs, beer taps …

Your guests don’t just come to your restaurant to eat – they come for the experience. Servers are there to do more than make drinks and take orders – they are there to “serve.” That means give the guest the experience they desire. It’s the server’s job to “read the …

Above is an image of my favorite thermometer for everyday food service use, the COMARK PDT-300. Here is why: It is NSF approved and meets the Colorado requirement for a thin probe thermometer to measure the temperatures of thin foods such as patties, fillets, etc. It reads quickly, in just …

It was taken as a good sign recently when the Nation’s Restaurant News reported that employee turnover in the restaurant industry was on the rise for the first quarter of 2011.  This means more jobs are being created and more vacancies need to be filled in the restaurant business than …

SURVEY IS NOW OVER It’s been the talk of the country all summer long: the state of the economy.  There’s a lot of uncertainty out there, and that’s why we want to know: how is the economy affecting your business – good, bad, or indifferent? We are preparing a report …

Not all brewing equipment is created equal, and the success of your quest for a great cup of coffee can largely rest on the type of brewing equipment you use.  When investing in new coffee equipment, it’s also vitally important to purchase a brewer that can handle your weekly volume. …

Getting ice from the ice machine bin to your customer’s drink glass without contaminating it is a food safety consideration that is easy to overlook.  That doesn’t mean it’s any less important than the other danger points you deal with every day while preparing and serving food in your restaurant.  …

Starting a restaurant of your own is a thrilling, stomach churning, one of a kind experience that will probably change the entire path of your life- for better or worse! While recent research has finally put to bed the widely quoted, but totally false claim that nine out of ten …

If I had one wish to be granted to make my job easier, it would be that the people I work with could somehow know what I know about restaurant equipment. As much as 50% of equipment breakdowns (possibly more) are due to equipment being misused by staff. Commercial restaurant equipment is …

Here at The Back Burner we have talked a lot about food safety.  It’s an ongoing project for any restaurateur, and also a potential matter of life and death for any food service business given the stakes if a food borne illness were to break out in your restaurant. So …

Inc. Magazine did an article recently about pizza and pub owner Nick Sarillo, a restaurateur with blue collar roots based in the Chicago area.  Sarillo has built his business based upon a corporate culture that emphasizes customer service and employee development. Sarillo’s Nick’s Pizza & Pub is another example of …

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 …