Restaurant Operations
Practical insights to streamline your day-to-day restaurant management.
Suppliers: Getting Better Prices Without Wrecking the Relationship
Most restaurants accept their supplier prices as fixed. They aren't. Here's how to negotiate properly, check what you're actually being charged, and stay someone your suppliers want to look after.
The First Week: Training a New Hire So They Actually Stay
Most restaurant staff who quit early decide in their first few shifts. Here's a practical week-one training plan that gets someone useful fast — and makes them want to stay.
Restaurant Labor Cost: The Number That Quietly Decides If You're Profitable
You watch food cost like a hawk — but labor is the other giant number, and it's the one a single bad schedule can blow up. Here's how to calculate labor cost percentage and actually keep it in line.
Cutting Food Waste: The Profit Sitting in Your Bin
Every restaurant throws away food, and most owners have no idea how much it costs them. Here's where waste really happens, how to cut each kind, and why the bin is the cheapest place to find profit.
Restaurant Inventory Management: Stop the Money Leaking Out of Your Storeroom
Your walk-in and storeroom are where profit quietly disappears — over-ordered, spoiled, over-portioned, or walked out the back. Here's how to actually manage inventory instead of eyeballing it.
How Much Money Does a Restaurant Actually Make? An Honest Look at Margins
Restaurants look like cash machines from the outside — full tables, busy tills, money everywhere. The reality is one of the thinnest-margin businesses there is. Here's where every dollar really goes, and the levers that decide whether you take any of it home.
Why Do Your Best Staff Keep Leaving? The Real Cost of Restaurant Turnover
Every time a good server or cook walks out, it costs you far more than the job ad — it costs consistency, morale, and money you can't see leaving. Here's why the good ones actually go, and the fixes that cost almost nothing.
Food Cost Percentage: How to Price Your Menu So It Actually Makes Money
If you don't know your food cost percentage, you're guessing at your prices. Here's the simple formula, the numbers to aim for, and how to use them to price a menu that actually turns a profit.
The Case for a Smaller Menu: Why Cutting Dishes Can Grow Your Profit
A giant menu feels generous, but it quietly bleeds your kitchen, your margins, and your customers' patience. Here's why trimming the menu often makes a restaurant more money — and how to do it without losing regulars.
Managing Multiple Restaurant Locations Without Losing Your Mind
Going from one location to several breaks the systems that got you here. A practical guide to running multiple restaurants with consistency — standardising operations, keeping quality even, and managing it all from one place.
How to Stop Reservation No-Shows From Killing Your Revenue
An empty reserved table on a busy night is pure lost money. Here's how restaurants cut no-shows for good — with reminders, deposits, easy cancellations, and a booking system that does the work for you.
Commission-Free Online Ordering: How to Take Orders Without Losing 30% to Delivery Apps
Third-party delivery apps quietly take up to 30% of every order. Here's how to set up direct, commission-free online ordering for your restaurant — keep your margins, own your customer data, and still stay on the marketplaces.
Online Table Reservations: The Complete Guide to Booking More Covers and Cutting No-Shows
Everything restaurants and cafes need to know about online reservations in 2026 — how table booking systems work, how to slash no-shows by up to 50%, and how to take bookings 24/7 without answering the phone.
Menu Engineering: How to Design a Menu That Sells Your Best Dishes
Your menu is your hardest-working salesperson. Learn the psychology and layout tricks of menu engineering — how to arrange, describe, and price your dishes so guests order what's most profitable, without feeling sold to.
The Data-Driven Restaurant: Using Analytics to Unlock Hidden Revenue
Most restaurants are sitting on a goldmine of untapped data. Here's how smart operators are using analytics to reduce waste, optimize their menus, and find revenue they didn't know they were leaving on the table.