Presentation Tips for Restaurant Managers: The Pre-Shift
By Daniel Harper · Career & Business
How should a restaurant manager run a pre-shift meeting? Keep it to about ten minutes and the same order every time: covers and bookings, what is off the menu, the specials, one service focus and one specific thank-you. Let the team taste the specials instead of describing them. Feedback during the meeting should say what to do next, not how good or bad someone is.
A restaurant manager gives one presentation more often than any other, and it is usually over before most guests arrive: the pre-shift meeting, sometimes called the line-up. Ten minutes, standing in the dining room or by the pass, with the front-of-house team and often the kitchen. It sets the tone for the whole service. A restaurant manager also presents in two other rooms: to the team when the menu changes, and to the owner when the numbers are reviewed.
The pre-shift meeting
Run it in the same order every time, so the team knows what is coming and nothing gets forgotten:
- Tonight in numbers. Covers booked, walk-ins expected, large tables, the busiest half hour.
- What is off. Anything the kitchen has run out of or taken off, said clearly so nobody promises it to a guest.
- The specials. What they are, what is in them, allergens, and how to describe them.
- One service focus. Not five. "Tonight, every table gets a water refill without asking."
- One thank-you. Specific, and to a named person.
Ten minutes, then go. A pre-shift that runs to twenty-five minutes eats into setting up and is mostly forgotten anyway.
Taste, don't describe
The best way to help a server sell a dish is to let them eat it. When the team tastes the specials during the pre-shift, they can describe the dish honestly, answer questions about it, and recommend it with conviction.
This is not just a nice habit. In a meta-analysis of workplace training methods, Michael Burke and colleagues found that the more a method engaged the trainee, moving from lectures and handouts towards hands-on practice and dialogue, the more people learned.1 Tasting a dish and talking it through is about as hands-on as menu training gets.
Feedback during the pre-shift
The pre-shift is also where the team hears how last night went, so make that feedback something they can use tonight. In their review of the research on feedback, John Hattie and Helen Timperley set out three questions good feedback answers for the learner: what the goal is, how they are doing against it, and what to do next.2
"Last night, tables 12 to 18 waited over ten minutes for their first drink. Tonight, the bar will run those tables until 7:30 and the floor will greet them within two minutes."
That is about the task, says what to do next, and embarrasses nobody. Personal criticism belongs in a private conversation after service.
The kitchen and the floor in the same room
Where you can, run the pre-shift with the kitchen and the floor together, even for five minutes. Most friction during service comes from the two sides working from different information: the floor promising a dish the kitchen is running low on, or the kitchen not knowing a table of twelve is in for a birthday. When the chef says what is off and the floor hears it at the same moment, a whole category of mid-service problems disappears.
Launching a new menu
A menu change is a bigger presentation, usually a longer session a day or two before the change. Have the chef walk through each dish, let everyone taste, cover allergens and how each dish is plated, and give the team the two or three dishes you most want them to recommend and why. Then run the first service with the old habit of a short pre-shift, focused only on the new menu.
Reporting to the owner
The owner's review is a numbers presentation. Owners want to know four things: sales against last year and against budget, food cost as a percentage of food sales, labour cost as a percentage of sales, and what you are doing about anything that is off.
For each number that is off, give one line: the cause and the action. "Food cost was 34% against a 30% target because of the price rise on beef; we've changed two dishes and a supplier, and expect 31% next month." Owners trust managers who explain variances before being asked.
After a health inspection
When the inspection result comes in, brief the whole team on it the same day, good or bad. Say the score, the issues found, what will change and who is responsible. A team that hears about the inspection only as a rumour learns that it doesn't matter.
For a hotel's version of these rooms, where the restaurant is one department among many, see presentation tips for hotel managers. And if you are interviewing for a manager's role in retail rather than hospitality, behavioral interview questions for store managers covers the questions you are likely to face.
References
- Burke, M. J., Sarpy, S. A., Smith-Crowe, K., Chan-Serafin, S., Salvador, R. O., & Islam, G. (2006). Relative effectiveness of worker safety and health training methods. American Journal of Public Health, 96(2), 315–324. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.059840
- Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487