Ken Burgin

Restaurant Productivity

Staff Recruitment & Management

Health & Wellness Guide

Health and Wellness Guide for Restaurant & Cafe Staff – Sample

August 14, 2022 No Comments

Our employees often lead high-stress lives: long hours, heat, tension and a lack of proper breaks or time to unwind. It’s the nature of hospitality, but we can’t ignore the negative effects on health and wellness if we are going to fix the problems of staff shortages and our failure to attract career-minded people. The broader issues of health and wellness also underpin concerns about mental health – the old saying ‘a healthy body means

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Restaurant Crisis Planning

No-Crisis Planning for Restaurants & Cafes

August 7, 2022 No Comments

Crisis and drama seem to be part of daily life in hospitality – something most of us learn to put up with and live through. We often have it for breakfast! But, with a little thought and planning, you could thrive instead of just surviving. Your life would be less stressful, costs would be lower and your businesses more profitable! Effective crisis planning and management is a must. That’s if you want to stay sane

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Restaurant Employee Welcome Pack

How to Create a Welcome Pack for New Restaurant or Cafe Employees

July 19, 2022 No Comments

What’s in your Welcome Pack for a new employee? These are easy to set up, and will have you standing well above your competitors – most of them just say: ‘hello, there’s your apron and locker, now get to work!’ A great way to make a positive impression right at the start. Present the pack in a ring-binder that can have documents easily added or taken out – better than in a folder that can

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Customer service problem

Using Restaurant Negatives to Create Positive Improvement

July 10, 2022 No Comments

A little negativity can sometimes be useful – tapping into the very human tendency to complain can yield a whole range of useful material when teaching customer service. A recent workshop I ran on ‘quality service’ was going nowhere fast: a group of strangers, a cold room and first topic in the morning. So I decided to pop the cork and ask each table to come up with their 10 pet hates when visiting a

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honest staff

Creating a Culture of Honesty in Foodservice

July 10, 2022 No Comments

The hardworking and committed staff you want are looking for a positive, honest and respectful workplace. Creating and maintaining that is a powerful way to attract and keep good people. It also flows through to the quality of service and care of customers. The elements of a positive culture include: A Code of Conduct – in writing and publicly available. Short points about your commitment to honesty and hard work, plus care and respect for

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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 Managers

Podcast 19: Developing Restaurant Managers for the Digital Age

June 20, 2022 No Comments

Management is a lot more than carrying a big bunch of keys and covering the roster. A massive increase in operational complexity makes the manager role more demanding, and also more effective if the data available is harnessed accurately to show real-time results. Ken Burgin interviewed Liz Perkins from The Hospitality Company on this very interesting topic – she has a background as a chef and business owner. Liz now coaches hospitality operators on how

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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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Building Teamwork

Podcast 17: Building Teamwork in Restaurants and Cafes

May 22, 2022 No Comments

Wherever there are people working together, there will be team dynamics, negotiation and the sharing of tasks and responsibilities. A good leader guides this process to get the best from their people – and chef Glenn Flood has many years of experience making this work. It was great to talk with him about Building Teamwork in Restaurants and Cafes – in the kitchen and front of house, and improving relations between the two sections. In

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Kitchen Front of House

Reducing Tension Between Kitchen & Front of House

May 17, 2022 No Comments

Friction between floor staff and kitchen is wasteful and unnecessary, but it won’t go away by itself. It usually needs intervention by senior management to bring all parties to their senses – here are the key issues that need to be understood and resolved: Make sure everyone understands the word ‘teamwork’. Think in sporting terms – a successful team has agreed rules, a variety of skills, they chase a good score, they have good leaders,

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