The Time Management Game in the Restaurant & Food Services Industries

A well known experienced restaurateur oncetypically spend a fair amount of time and wasted time
summarized the restaurant, night club and affiliatedevery working day are firstly time spent with vendors
food industries as "In the restaurant business you (theand suppliers.
owner) have to be there (on-site on the premisesThe second is in the preparation of ingredients
inspecting and supervising). Otherwise the hams startthemselves or on items that lack profitability for their
walking out of the freezer all by themselves. This mayventure.
be one way of looking at the food service trade yetFor purchasing one stop shopping and automated point
at the end of the many restaurants, cafe and bistroof sale systems are the way to go. Sure its as if you
owners may wonder who got the best deal. For all theare driving all over town getting the best bargain -
hours put in they just as well worked for someonehowever in most cases your most limited commodity
else and not had the headaches and responsibilitiesoverall of yourself in your business is your time. Time
owning and running a business entails. Putting in suchwasted is not only money thrown down the sink but
hours is not only hard or impossible on a family life, butalso your precious, limited time squandered. Make it a
in the end may well work out to a wage below thepoint to try to deal with one vendor only or in the
minimum wage of their state per employee hourcases of specialty items - as few vendors as possible,
worked.and on an appointment basis only. Preferably on top of
How can an owner of such a business manage andthat you can schedule one block of time per week - at
juggle their workload so that all in they are putting inyour preference for that purpose.
reasonable and human work time hours?Food preparation is another area where time can be
It is common and popular route now for those wanting,saved even if you feel that you must make
or always wanting "to open a restaurant" to go the"everything from scratch". Often owners and
franchise route. It is not so much that you are buying amanagers of food and hospitality service industries not
restaurant or any other business when you purchase"leveraging" their suppliers enough or "reinventing the
a franchise. It is that the purchaser is obtaining for thewheel" when if they only asked their favorite suppliers
value of his money proven systems. It is the systemsor even outside specialty providers if they might not
that are on the table - not the food service orsupply basically that identical product or service.
hospitality business.In the end delegation and systems employed can both
Two areas of emphasis that owners and operatorssave your business as well as your health and sanity.