Have you ever felt you’re not welcome or don’t belong in the kitchen? But sometimes, you sit down with the chefs, work out problems, and organise improvements – it’s a satisfying experience: this is real kitchen management. You’ve also had times when the kitchen was slammed, and everyone did a great job – high-fives all around and maybe a thank-you beer for the team!
But you can still feel that you’ve got no right or confidence to go into your own restaurant’s kitchen. The staff know you’re an outsider, and while you want to look credible in your own business, they also know you are way out of your comfort zone. But you pay all the bills for the food they cook and any mistakes they make—having control is essential!
This is not about being a control freak; it is about having more confidence and insight into kitchen management. Modern control systems can create genuine management teamwork between kitchen, front-of-house, and business owners because you will all be working with accurate figures and results.
Developing Control Systems for Business Owners and Kitchen Staff
1. Set up digital ordering and recipe management
This gives you and the chefs detailed information about the cost of ingredients and deliveries. Most big suppliers offer online ordering portals.
– Load all your recipes into the recipe management system. This will give everyone an understanding of the profit margins on each recipe, updated with changing supply costs.
– Popular complete systems include Restoke, Loaded Reports and Cooking the Books, and for online recipe management, CookKeepBook or Fillet. It’s worth appointing someone as the Recipe Controller – responsible for recipe costing updates and proper use.
2. Make the kitchen space efficient and easy to use
– Keep equipment well-maintained and up-to-date – stuff that doesn’t work drives kitchen staff crazy!
– Improve the workflow – sometimes, outside eyes (like yours) can see a better way—move benches, add shelves, eliminate bottlenecks, etc.
– Look for labour-saving equipment that will reduce wage costs. It may not be cheap, but the return on investment usually pays for itself in months. It’s worth visiting suppliers to see what’s new or attending the next Trade Show.
– Competent staff hate working with people who can’t do the job – make sure you recruit people who know what they are doing!
– An efficient system has the owner running the hiring process, with solid input from the head chef or kitchen leaders. Make sure to move quickly with interviews and job offers – it’s a race out there!
– Set up online rostering to make the process easier for the chefs – give them a wage budget that they can’t exceed each week, and full oversight of daily and hourly wage costs.
– Share honest numbers about wage costs, from your rostering system.
– Share the sales figures and costs for a true Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) figure – many chefs have never had accurate figures shared with them, so they may need coaching to understand what’s covered.
– Not stocktaking each week? No problem – divide the week’s purchases by total sales for a good-enough COGS percentage, especially if you keep it to food sales divided by food purchases. But if you want proper control, it’s time to start stocktaking – take the lead with this, here’s how.
– Create a simple one-page dashboard for your team, ready by Tuesday every week – COGS, wages, sales and trends – this is the truth!
Congratulations – you’re now taking control of your largest operational cost – food and kitchen wages. This means much less ‘us and them’ thinking, and ‘secret kitchen business’ – now you can move in the kitchen with confidence and credibility. Chefs also learn the business side of how a restaurant or cafe works – something they all want and so rarely have offered. This can be a big incentive for people to stay! And if you want to develop an incentive system, you now have strong foundations on which to build it.
Time to Take Action on Kitchen Management
– Take the pressure off the kitchen with unrealistic expectations, and create jobs that they can do well and have great results. Fix the equipment and make the space easier to work in. This can be done right away!
– Organise online rostering and recipe management, with full access for the kitchen leaders – how they have the tools to be accountable.
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Have you ever felt you’re not welcome or don’t belong in the kitchen? But sometimes, you sit down with the chefs, work out problems, and organise improvements – it’s a satisfying experience: this is real kitchen management. You’ve also had times when the kitchen was slammed, and everyone did a great job – high-fives all around and maybe a thank-you beer for the team!
But you can still feel that you’ve got no right or confidence to go into your own restaurant’s kitchen. The staff know you’re an outsider, and while you want to look credible in your own business, they also know you are way out of your comfort zone. But you pay all the bills for the food they cook and any mistakes they make—having control is essential!
This is not about being a control freak; it is about having more confidence and insight into kitchen management. Modern control systems can create genuine management teamwork between kitchen, front-of-house, and business owners because you will all be working with accurate figures and results.
Developing Control Systems for Business Owners and Kitchen Staff
1. Set up digital ordering and recipe management
This gives you and the chefs detailed information about the cost of ingredients and deliveries. Most big suppliers offer online ordering portals.
– Load all your recipes into the recipe management system. This will give everyone an understanding of the profit margins on each recipe, updated with changing supply costs.
– Popular complete systems include Restoke, Loaded Reports and Cooking the Books, and for online recipe management, CookKeepBook or Fillet. It’s worth appointing someone as the Recipe Controller – responsible for recipe costing updates and proper use.
See also: The Best Way to Do Restaurant and Cafe Stocktaking
2. Make the kitchen space efficient and easy to use
– Keep equipment well-maintained and up-to-date – stuff that doesn’t work drives kitchen staff crazy!
– Improve the workflow – sometimes, outside eyes (like yours) can see a better way—move benches, add shelves, eliminate bottlenecks, etc.
– Look for labour-saving equipment that will reduce wage costs. It may not be cheap, but the return on investment usually pays for itself in months. It’s worth visiting suppliers to see what’s new or attending the next Trade Show.
See also: How to Increase Restaurant Kitchen Productivity
3. Take the lead with staffing
– Competent staff hate working with people who can’t do the job – make sure you recruit people who know what they are doing!
– An efficient system has the owner running the hiring process, with solid input from the head chef or kitchen leaders. Make sure to move quickly with interviews and job offers – it’s a race out there!
– Set up online rostering to make the process easier for the chefs – give them a wage budget that they can’t exceed each week, and full oversight of daily and hourly wage costs.
See also: How to Write Better Job Descriptions for Restaurants and Cafes
4. Share the numbers
– Share honest numbers about wage costs, from your rostering system.
– Share the sales figures and costs for a true Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) figure – many chefs have never had accurate figures shared with them, so they may need coaching to understand what’s covered.
– Not stocktaking each week? No problem – divide the week’s purchases by total sales for a good-enough COGS percentage, especially if you keep it to food sales divided by food purchases. But if you want proper control, it’s time to start stocktaking – take the lead with this, here’s how.
– Create a simple one-page dashboard for your team, ready by Tuesday every week – COGS, wages, sales and trends – this is the truth!
See also: Kitchen KPIs – How to Measure the Performance of Your Restaurant Kitchen
10 Ways to Help Chefs Maximise Productivity and Control Costs
Recipe for Growth: How to Improve the Number Skills of Your Chefs
Congratulations – you’re now taking control of your largest operational cost – food and kitchen wages. This means much less ‘us and them’ thinking, and ‘secret kitchen business’ – now you can move in the kitchen with confidence and credibility. Chefs also learn the business side of how a restaurant or cafe works – something they all want and so rarely have offered. This can be a big incentive for people to stay! And if you want to develop an incentive system, you now have strong foundations on which to build it.
Time to Take Action on Kitchen Management
– Take the pressure off the kitchen with unrealistic expectations, and create jobs that they can do well and have great results. Fix the equipment and make the space easier to work in. This can be done right away!
– Organise online rostering and recipe management, with full access for the kitchen leaders – how they have the tools to be accountable.
– Talk with suppliers about moving the ordering to online platforms – they prefer that anyway. See: How to Negotiate Lower Prices with Restaurant Suppliers
– Make time for a short weekly management meeting with key staff based on the results that everyone has achieved.
If better control helped you cut food & labour costs each by 2%, what would you save in a year?
One Week of Food Costs = $______ – divide by 50 = $______ X 52 = $_______
One Week of Labour Costs = $______ – divide by 50 = $______ X 52 = $_______
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