Ken Burgin

Restaurant Productivity

Cost Control

ChatGPT and Recipes

How to Use ChatGPT for Recipe Management in a Restaurant Kitchen

June 14, 2023 No Comments

Are you keen to make more use of technology in your culinary and business operations? ChatGPT, can revolutionise the way you manage your kitchen, from organising your recipes, scaling dishes and optimising food costs, to suggesting ingredient substitutions, planning menus, and enhancing staff productivity. Also, check How to Use ChatGPT to Create Training Material for Restaurant & Cafe Employees. I asked ChatGPT how artificial intelligence, while maintaining a personal touch and creativity in your kitchen,

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Improve Restaurant Management

Using the 80-20 Rule to Cut Costs and Improve Restaurant Management

August 28, 2022 No Comments

The 80/20 Rule is simple – it says that a relatively small number of causes (about 20%) is responsible for a great number of effects (roughly 80%). This is good news – if you find out what the 20% are and work on them, you can have a significant impact on sales improvement, cost reduction and improved restaurant management. This often means 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers (particular individuals, or

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Restaurant Systems

Hospo Reset’s Product of the Week

July 6, 2022 No Comments

Every week in the Hospo Reset Newsletter, we share a product or service that’s caught our eye – for kitchen & beverage management, staffing, facilities management, marketing and overall productivity. This is not an endorsement, please do your own assessment of suitability for your business. Here’s the list so far, and it’s updated every month. Food, Menus and Kitchen Management Restoke manages back of house functions like recipes, menus, ordering, work lists, staff training, plus

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Restaurant Standards

How to Set Clear Restaurant Standards to Avoid Mistakes & Frustration

June 18, 2022 No Comments

It’s often easy for staff to misunderstand or ignore instructions. About the correct way to serve drinks, greet a customer or balance the till – if the standards aren’t crystal clear, someone will take shortcuts. There are five key issues to cover so everyone understands – not hard to write down, but they’re often overlooked. And every time you ignore someone who’s done the job incorrectly, you’ve actually set a new, lower, standard. Standards are

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Reducing Food Waste

Podcast 18: Reducing Food Waste – New Strategies and Solutions

June 6, 2022 No Comments

Dianne McGrath has been doing some remarkable work on sustainability in the hospitality industry. While everyone believes in reducing food waste and improved sustainability, she has done detailed research on how the problem shows up in restaurants and foodservice, and how to make practical improvements. Ken Burgin interviewed Dianne to find out what he’s learned from her research, and how that can be used by operators and the wider food production industry – the production

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Reduce Waste

Podcast 15: 8 Ways to Reduce Waste and Inefficiency in Restaurants and Foodservice

April 20, 2022 No Comments

In this podcast, Ken Burgin looks at Toyota’s classification of 8 different types of waste, and how you can use this in hospitality to cut costs, increase efficiency and improve the bottom line. Toyota built its world-class success by watching and controlling every step of the manufacturing process, especially waste. It’s very useful to apply the discipline of manufacturing to hospitality – we produce things too! This classification of 8 Types of Waste is based

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Food Delivery Truck

How to Get a Better Deal from Food & Beverage Suppliers

February 16, 2022 No Comments

The relationship between hospitality venues and their suppliers is a complicated one. Sometimes, vendors act like a business partner, tipping you off to new products and trends. Other times, you feel as though they are competition, squeezing out every last cent. The best way to manage this paradox is to have some supplier tips and tools up your sleeve – here are some suggestions. Many small hospitality businesses run their price negotiation on a weekly

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Wine List Profits

How to Increase Wine List Profits and Popularity

November 16, 2021 No Comments

The wine list is an essential part of your restaurant or hotel beverage service, so let’s apply intelligent design and business thinking to increase profits and ensure it appeals to the greatest number of people. Covid has given us time to rethink menus, and customers have come back with less money in their pockets. The popular Aussie BYO is now available in fewer restaurants, and there needs to be a rethink about the wine range

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Kitchen Management

Successful Kitchen Management for Non-Chefs and Restaurant Owners

November 15, 2021 No Comments

If you depend on the profits of a food operation, you need to understand kitchen management, and how to move in that space with confidence. Here’s a quick guide to how a non-chef can become much more skilled in managing ‘secret kitchen business’ – it can be satisfying and very profitable to understand the workings of production, staffing and cost control. Create Effective and Easy-to-Use Kitchen Management Systems Introduce a Digital Ordering System. No more

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Pandemic recovery plan

Expect a Tough, Demanding Summer for Restaurants and Cafes

October 5, 2021 No Comments

The Covid delta variant is widespread, limiting activity and creating fear of new variations. People are nervous, which always limits spending. There’s very little of the ‘see you on the other side’ mentality that was a saving feature of 2020. What are the challenges that business operators will need to navigate in the next six months? Vaccine resisters are a tiny minority, but noisy – and if you expect young staff to handle them at

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