Time Management

One of the hardest things that I have had to work with in my position is time management.  A lot of my time as the asst. restaurant manager is spent on the floor with my associates making sure that the restaurant is running smoothly and that the guests who are dining are happy with their experience.  The other part of my postition is obviously to handle the managerial work, including scheduling, ordering, meetings, etc.  My shifts are usually 2p-11p or 10a-11p and while this is certainly a lot of hours put in, I spend a lot of hours on the floor to help control labor and keep it down.  My manager Richard and I are only together for about 2-3 hours each day because he is at work in the mornings and I work the night shfits.  When we are working together the time is usually spent in meetings, or I will be on the floor because he is finishing up his work for the day (we share one computer).  I have been working diligently on finding the right time each night to get back to the office and complete my work.  What I used to do was wait until the end of the night when the restaurant closed at 11pm and finish up all the work I needed to do.  The unfortunate part about this was that I was not getting out of work until 1 or 2 in the morning which is no the right answer.  I have found that there is usually a slower time between 4pm-6pm and 9pm-11pm when I can get to the office and do the work that I need to get done. 

On a happier note, we are now only one week away from rolling out our new menu in the restaurant! We have already replaced the drink menu in the restaurant and have a brand new wine list.  This has been a long time coming! We wanted to roll out both new menus at the same time, but we stopped ordering the old wine and were down to 3-4 bottles of wine left.  It is a VERY exciting thing to be able to give the guest the wine that they want without having to substitute something else.  We will have our menu training this weekend, so this week I will work with the cooks to learn the new menu.  I unfortunately was not around for the months of taste testing and only know the new menu items by name so it will be fun to taste and learn the items that have changed.  We also have our monthly meeting this weekend and we will be focusing on the steps of service for the servers, bartenders, hosts, bussers, and room service staff.  I am really excited to start over with a fresh plate for the entire restaurant team with this new menu and can't wait to see how it works with the guests! More to come :)

Disclaimer: The purpose of this blog is to document a college internship experience. Content published on this blog represents the author’s ideas, opinions, and experience. This does not necessarily represent the views of the internship organization.