Operating a restaurant business is more than simply providing food to customers. There is plenty of management going on behind it, and you have to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Opening a restaurant does sound like a great idea, and many people think that it is a simple business to run. However, it is not always the case since managing a restaurant can be tough and complicated. You are not only opening the shop and serving customers coming into your restaurant. There are plenty of management works that you have to master.
Simply opening a restaurant will not ensure that it will be instantly famous or booming despite the rising culinary trend. In fact, almost 60% of restaurants end up closing within the 1st year of operations only because the owners do not understand the huge management work behind restaurant operations.
Creating a restaurant checklist is one of the best solutions for keeping track of the necessary work to do. We have compiled some checklists you need to consider implementing in your restaurant management.
Food quality is not the only important thing in the restaurant business. A clean, neat, and well-managed restaurant is just as important. Therefore, it is important to prepare everything beforehand.
The restaurant opening checklist includes every step necessary before opening the restaurant, from cleaning the shop thoroughly, preparing the dining room settings, preparing glassware and silverware, refilling any essential items, to cross-checking the menu with the kitchen staff.
Download the Opening Checklist by clicking here.
Front of the house is everything located in the front part of the restaurant used by the customers, including the dining area and bathroom. You will need to create two checklists for the front of the house operations, which includes opening and closing checklists.
The opening checklist for this area includes setting up the dining area and bathroom, organizing the table settings, as well as restocking all necessities. Meanwhile, the closing checklist for this area includes cleaning the area, taking inventory and restocking the bar, organizing the area, and managing finances.
Similar to the previous point, the back end operations checklist also consists of opening and closing checklists. The opening preparation usually consists of the preparation of the kitchen station and inventory stocking since most of the preparation had already done the night before during the closing.
The back end opening preparation includes cleaning, chopping ingredients, preparing tools at each kitchen station, and restocking inventory. Meanwhile, the closing preparation for the back end operation includes cleaning, ensuring food safety, inventory checking, organizing, and ensuring general safety.
It is important for the kitchen to be always in a clean condition. Therefore, it has to be cleaned, sanitized, and organized regularly. Cleaning the kitchen stations is important to maintain hygiene as well as making them less confusing, which in turn help the kitchen staff prepare the food quickly and effectively. That is why restaurant cleaning checklists are also important in restaurant management.
Download the checklists by clicking here:
Marketing checklist is focused on marketing effort during the service. It is an integral part of the restaurant operations, which can affect the growth of the restaurant. Marketing checklists contain any efforts conducted to increase sales, make sure the presences are felt on social media, and make the brand known by the public.
Shift change checklist is also important in restaurant management; therefore, you need to ensure that the transition runs smoothly. The previous manager should complete all his tasks so that the next manager can take up the operations smoothly.
Not only required to finish his task before the shift change, but the first manager should also provide all important information regarding the previous shift to the next manager.
Download the Midday Checklist by clicking here.
Finally, the service ends, and it's time to close the shop. Closing the shop is more than just flipping the sign from "Open" to "Closed". There are also important steps to do. Restaurant closing checklist includes every step necessary before closing the restaurant.
These steps include cleaning every space and surface area of the restaurant, restocking essential items on the table, kitchen, bathroom, counting inventory, and many more. Having a good and well-executed closing procedure ensures that your opening preparation for the next day runs smoothly and properly.
Download the Closing Checklist by clicking here.
Digital Checklist is a software program or application that helps streamline and make your operations more efficient and effective. The main objective of using a Digital Checklist in your restaurant is to keep the service and product comply with the SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) applied in your organization.
Baca juga Why Don’t Employees Comply with SOP?
To this day, many restaurants, managers, & owners are still using the conventional way to monitor SOPs Compliance, which is using a paper checklist. However, this traditional way of SOP Compliance monitoring is considered less effective & efficient.
Baca juga How to Improve Compliance with SOPs Effectively
Using a paper checklist for your SOP Compliance Checklist will cost you more money and time. This is because your employee needs to print all of those papers every time your employee does the assessment.
With a Digital Checklist, you can put all of your SOP lists into a Digital Checklist software or app and assign an employee to do the assessment according to a predetermined schedule.
On the other hand, your employee can access the Checklist through their mobile device. So, it will make it easier and faster because the software or this mobile app is designed to be user-friendly.
That's why utilizing a Digital Checklist as one of your operational systems is an excellent investment for your company's sustainability. Apart from costing you less money, it will also reduce human error in data processing, so you'll be able to analyze data accurately for your management decision.
Utilizing a Digital Checklist since 2021 early, EFG (Express Food Group) has managed to achieve 52% More Faster in Daily Audit Store Completion. Furthermore, with 94 stores to operate from 5 different brands in 3 countries, EFG can achieve their operational excellence with 94% in Daily Audit Completion Rate.
Read more about EFG Story in achieving Operational Excellence by clicking here.
Processing the data from the Audit Report should be objective and as accurate as possible. Accurate data processing is necessary for the management team to create corrective strategies. Read more about Pancious as one of our successful clients by implementing Nimbly in their operational system. With more than 23 outlets to manage simultaneously, they could validate the reports objectively by utilizing the real-time photos & videos feature in Nimbly.
Read more about Pancious Story in achieving Operational Excellence by clicking here.
As a one-Michelin star restaurant from Singapore that was established in 2000, Putien achieved 67% more efficiency in doing the assessment.
Read more about Putien Story in achieving Operational Excellence by clicking here.
All of the three big companies above have realized paperless operations in doing the daily assessment. As we all know, paper usage for day-to-day business operations is substantial; by implementing a Digital Checklist system into our business operations, we will reduce costs on paper by 100%.
As you can see from the explanation above, there are a lot of checklists you need to prepare when managing a restaurant. These checklists are important to make sure that the restaurant management runs smoothly.
Manually implementing restaurant checklists requires a lot of time and effort. However, you can use Nimbly to create and assign digital checklists to each of your outlet so that preparation can be tracked quickly and efficiently. Additionally, the issue tracker will also help the company to find possible issues at hand and provide information about it quickly thanks to the real-time dashboard.
Nimbly is a mobile solution that digitizes operations, improves efficiency, and generates cost savings by providing companies' management with data-driven insights from field operations remotely and in real-time.
Indonesian 
English 
