The Manager On Duty

Being a restaurant manager is a constant balancing act—walking the fine line between the demands of owners, the needs of workers,

FOH and BOH dynamics, and the never-ending goal of driving profit while keeping everyone happy.

It’s a role filled with tough decisions, many of which aren’t always popular but are often necessary for the greater good of the restaurant.

So here’s a  look inside the mind of a manager—to explore the reasoning behind their decisions and provide answers to the questions you’ve always wanted to ask.

From behind-the-scenes insights to tough calls, our experienced manager is here to help bridge the gap.

Deena, our experienced Manager on Duty, is here to answer your questions and shed light on why managers make the decisions they do :

Hi Deena, I’ve been serving for about 10 years now, and I work in a nice spot. Sometimes during the week, things get pretty slow, but our manager won’t cut any servers. I’m in a state where we make $2.13 an hour, so when it’s dead, we’re barely making anything.

Why wouldn’t they cut us?

and is there a way to ask without stepping on toes?

I think a question like this deserves a multifaceted answer.

There are many reasons why a manager might refrain from making cuts on a slow night.

They could be waiting to see if business picks up—making cuts prematurely could ensure poor service if the remaining waiters are stretched too thin.

It could also be the owner’s preference to keep everyone on.

Alternatively, they might just not care and don’t want to pitch in if it gets busy.

Keep in mind that we all know more mistakes happen on slow nights.

One thing to understand is that, out of all employees, waiters and bartenders are the only ones who bring in money—they create a positive cash flow by selling to their customers.

Every other position, although completely necessary, reduces income.

For example, cutting a host who makes $20 an hour reduces labor costs, while keeping a waiter at $2.13 an hour potentially brings in sales.

In my personal opinion (based on the fact that you said this is a nice place and that it’s slow “sometimes”), there are three ways to approach this:

1. Approach the manager and inquire whether they could use a lead waiter—someone who earns a higher hourly wage and, in return, helps train new staff, checks closing/opening side work, and acts as a go-to for other staff, thus alleviating pressure on the manager. This could get you a higher hourly wage at all times; I utilize several lead employees myself.
2. Suck it up, buttercup. When you look at your wages daily, you develop a false sense of how well you’re doing. Instead, assess your earnings month-to-month—or, if you can’t wait that long, week-to-week. You’ll likely notice that the money works itself out.
3. Request off the slow days or find a new job.

I hope this bit of insight helps. At the end of the day, the choice is yours.

Hi Deena, I’m a line cook at a casual spot, and on some shifts, we don’t have an expo.  Sometimes a server will ask for something “on the fly” because they forgot to ring it in, and I get that things get busy. But I also don’t want to mess up the flow or throw off the other orders by trying to help. How should I handle these requests without causing a backlog—or making things tense with the server?

I am going to shoot straight from the hip here.

Refire tickets are a priority, it doesn’t matter who screwed it up or how it happened, the guest is suffering.

If you put that order at the head of the line, the delay will be imperceptible to the guests after it.

At most restaurants there is a procedure to follow, for instance, in mine we use small pieces of paper that look like this… 

RECOOK TICKET

ITEM: _____________

TABLE: ____________

SEAT: _____________

SERVER: __________

The server will fill out the information and give it to the chef to place at the front of the ticket line. That means when the item is ready anyone can run it to the table, delivering it quickly, or the manager brings it and knows exactly where it belongs by reading the ticket. 

We can always regroup at the end of the shift to find out what went wrong and discuss how to avoid that issue in the future.

Lesson: Refire tickets are a priority.