How to Become a Better Restaurant Manager (09 Key Responsibilities)

A restaurant is a place where customers pay to consume food that is prepared and served there. A qualified restaurant manager is essential to run a successful restaurant business.

At present, the Restaurant manager job is the most demanding and challenging job. To become a better restaurant manager, you must be intelligent, hardworking and skilled. Because a large part of a manager's job involves working with customers, suppliers and staff. If you look for an answer on how to become a better restaurant manager, you are in the right place.

Who Is A Restaurant Manager?

A restaurant manager makes sure the restaurant runs smoothly. They are one of the most critical parts of a restaurant. The daily activities of a restaurant are managed and supervised by managers.

The entire functioning of a restaurant is under the management of a restaurant manager. A restaurant manager tackled the entire restaurant.

To check how the front and back staff management team is working, also a manager duties. The main task of a restaurant manager is to make menu choices, food quality checking, Raw materials quality  and customer satisfaction measurements

Restaurant Manager Job Qualifications

Educational qualifications and skills are essential for a restaurant manager job. A skilled and qualified person can get opportunities to be a restaurant manager. 

 Qualifications Are:

• High school diploma or general education degree.
• Bachelor's degree in hospitality, food industry or management.
• Working experience in the relevant field.
• Being able to acquire and keep a food handler certification card.
• Working knowledge in personnel management, food planning and preparation.
• Knowledge about purchasing, sanitation and health codes, and security.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills are required
• Ability to tackle any problems to ensure restaurant operations run smoothly.

How To Become A Better Restaurant Manager

In this article, we briefly discuss how to become a better restaurant manager. It will be helpful if you want to build your career as a restaurant manager.

You can become a restaurant manager by following a few different routes. There are a few fundamental stages needed to begin a successful career in restaurant management, regardless of the route you take. The steps to becoming a restaurant manager are listed below.

Educational Qualification

Making a study plan at an early age is very important. A proper study plan and guidelines can ensure a better career. A specific degree in food or any management subject is one of many qualifications that are needed to be a restaurant manager. Anyone can choose these professions if they have a diploma or a higher secondary education. 

Additional Degree In Food or Hospitality Management

A degree in food or hospital management can help to become a restaurant manager. If someone has the willingness for this profession, he can achieve additional degrees in food or hospital management. It can be a 2 or 4-year study plan. It helps to develop skills in a particular sector. With this additional degree, one can get opportunities to join as a restaurant manager in a big restaurant without job experience

Entry Level Job or Internship

An internship or entry-level job at a restaurant is significant. It helps a lot in the future to develop career as a restaurant manager. They should try hard to develop skills in this period. The more they learn, the more opportunities they will get to join a renowned restaurant. 

Get Certified and Skilled

It is crucial to complete all your studies and gather as many certificates and skills as you can. Restaurant manager skills are most important to run a successful restaurant business. You can also get knowledge from your research. During this internship or study level, you may visit many restaurants to get experience.

Open Your Own Restaurant or Apply For Job 

After fulfilling all the requirements, you may apply for a restaurant manager job. If you have an excellent quality certificate and real-time work experience, you may get a job in a reputed restaurant. You may also open your own restaurant and work there as a restaurant manager.

It will help you to become a better restaurant manager.

Skills of A Restaurant Manager

Every leader should have specific skills and attributes. A skilled leader can help any business or organization to reach its goals. What skills do you need to be a restaurant manager? It is a fundamental question for those who want to build their career as a restaurant manager. Here, we have discussed some essential skills that are very important for a restaurant manager.

Excellent Communication Skill 

A person with Excellent communication skills is highly effective for any business or organization. One of the significant duties of a restaurant manager is to communicate with the customers, employees and others.

So, having a solid communication skills is very essential for a restaurant manager. Excellent communication skills help to create a positive work environment. A restaurant manager with highly effective communication skills can smoothly handle staff. Communicating skills may build good relationships with customers that encourage them to revisit restaurants.

Positive Attitude

A solid and critical soft skill for a manager is maintaining a positive attitude. A positive attitude promotes success and excellence in business. Having a manager with a positive attitude is essential to maintain a restaurant environment. It can also help your staff to work hard when the work pressure is high. 

On the other hand, a manager with a negative attitude can change the entire restaurant scenario, including customers and staff. It is beneficial to increase your restaurant profits. A positive attitude is always considered a strong base point for any employee. 

Problem Solving

At the time of managing a restaurant, you may find different kinds of problems. These problems can be between the employees, suppliers or customers. So the manager must solve these problems.

A manager with good problem-solving skills can handle the issues better with fewer complications. In this problem-solving criteria, you may have to face emergency medical issues, food shortages, and violence. Having intense problem solving skills can help to make instant decisions to solve problems. 

Multitasking skill

As a restaurant manager, you have multiple responsibilities to handle at the same time. These responsibilities could be interacting with guests, dealing with suppliers, discussing with staff and so on. If you can handle multiple tasks, you may choose a restaurant manager job.

But keep in mind that while performing multitasking responsibilities, you have to keep calm and quiet. You also need to keep track of identifying the dates of a perishable stock to establish budgets. While performing multitasking, try to reduce errors and do it properly.

Team Work

A restaurant runs through teamwork. To run a successful restaurant takes a lot of work, challenging and stressful. The restaurant has different parts, and every part has different criteria, responsibilities and staff. Different teams maintain it. 

As a manager, you will have to make sure that all of the team is working well. You can also promote your teamwork by discussing the team member's strengths and weaknesses. Teamwork is considered one of the most mandatory skills to become a better restaurant manager. 

Key Responsibilities of A Restaurant Manager

A restaurant manager's duties cover all areas of the restaurant. He has a lot of responsibilities. His responsibilities cover from daily operations to planning and business reporting and managing relationships with customers, staff and suppliers. Here, we outline the key responsibilities of a restaurant manager.

• - Leadership 
• - Market Research
• - Accounting and Finance
• - Hiring and Training Staff
• - Ensuring Customer Satisfaction
• - Inventory Management
• - Marketing and Advertising
• - Planning Menus and Pricing
• - Food Quality Maintaining

1. Leadership

Leadership is one of the most critical responsibilities of a restaurant manager. He has to lead the restaurant. He is the head of the team. As the head of the team, he has to give direction to the team members. A restaurant manager needs to organize daily work activities so that the restaurant can run smoothly.

A good leader can run a business very effectively without any hassle. Good leadership can maintain a healthy relationship with the other team members. It makes staff members happier and improves teamwork.

2. Market Research

Researching the market is considered a solid key responsibility of a restaurant manager. These responsibilities are mainly about researching the current market to attract more customers and making more profit. 

Market research can be divided into two main parts. One is to target the audience, and the other is competitor analysis. Targeting the audience is to find out who are the main customers. What are their behavioral qualities? What are their food preferences? Getting answers to this question can help to target the primary customer or audience. 

Another one is to analyze the competitors. As we all know, the restaurant business is very competitive, and surviving in the competitive market is very challenging. Competitor analysis should be conducted on a regular basis to stay up to date. 

3. Accounting and Finance

Keeping track of accounting and finances is an essential part of a restaurant business. These sectors can be divided into two main categories.

a. Managing Financial Budget and Cost Monitoring.

b. Maintaining Financial Records and Reports

1. Managing Financial Budget and Cost Monitoring 

As a Restaurant manager, it's essential to keep track of the financial budget and cost monitoring. Budget management is quite tricky. Every restaurant owner wants to keep the business open and get more profit. A restaurant manager needs to make a budget by analyzing several factors, including labor cost, cost of goods sold, net operating income, profit and inventory cost.

2. Maintaining Financial Records and Reports

Making money is vital to run a successful business. It is part of a restaurant manager's job to report on business performance. It is crucial for business growth. Collecting data from restaurant management software, analyzing them and making reports is a very crucial responsibility for a restaurant manager.

4. Hiring and Training Staff 

Hiring and training staff is one of the significant responsibilities of a restaurant manager. He has to educate all the staff about their duties who work back of the restaurant, front of the restaurant and restaurant operations staff. He has to hire onboard new employees and make outlines for their responsibilities. Along with this, he has to provide training for new employees and ensure that all of the staff is working well.

5. Ensuring Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction should be maintained as per restaurant standards. Customer satisfaction responsibilities include attending to guests, dealing with issues and collecting feedback.

When a customer faces any issues, the manager's responsibility is to attend to the guest, find out the issues and solve the problems as early as possible. He needs to make sure that customers are delighted with their services.

6. Inventory Management

Inventory management means that the restaurant and kitchen are stocked with everything that is needed to maintain staff and dining. A manager will have to make sure that the restaurant kitchen is stocked with the right amount of food. 

He needs to check on inventory variance, like the difference between the actual cost and the recorded cost of the ingredients. Moreover, he should also keep track of any kinds of food stolen, low-stock ingredients, over-portioned, wasted or stolen.

7. Advertising and Marketing 

The main motive for a restaurant is making more profit. For this purpose, you need to do more marketing and advertising. So that people know about your restaurant. You will have to make sure that all seats are total. You may use different types of social sites to optimize visibility on search engines or random advertisements. This responsibility is significant for a restaurant manager.

8. Planning Menus and Pricing

Menus or food item variations are one of the significant factors for a restaurant. Nowadays, people are obese with different types of food. So, planning menus for a restaurant is a tough decision. 

Choosing food items and adjusting their pricing according to the demographic is very important. The restaurant manager will research and create food and beverage menus in cooperation with the head chef. 

9. Food Quality Maintaining and Sanitation

Meeting health and food safety regulations is a crucial part of operating a restaurant business. Along with food quality, he also needs to make sure that the entire restaurant, from kitchen to sanitation, is neat and clean. They ensure the overall safety of the restaurant environment.  

Final Thought

Becoming a restaurant manager will take time to happen. This position is full of responsibilities. A person with high passion, strong management skills and high dedication can be a better restaurant manager. 

Most people start their careers from a lower position like the head of sales, food and beverage coordinator or assistant restaurant manager. As they gain experience, their position gets up.

Finally, they can get the chance to be a restaurant manager. This is how a restaurant manager's career can start. After getting the opportunities as a restaurant manager, he should try to maintain his responsibilities and always try to become a better restaurant manager.

FAQ

Question: How do you manage a busy restaurant?

Answer: Managing a busy restaurant can be challenging. To manage a busy restaurant, you need a proper management plan, well-trained staff, work coordination and advanced technologies. With this combination, you can manage a busy restaurant very quickly.

Question: How to manage restaurant staff well?

Answer: To manage restaurant staff well, you need proper management skills. First of all, you need to make sure that the staff feels valued. Always try to keep a positive attitude on your face to make a positive impact on staff. Be considerate and compassionate and allow independence at work.

Question: How much can a restaurant manager earn?

Answer: A restaurant manager's earnings may vary from country to country. But, In the United States, a restaurant manager's average salary is $56,864 as of August 27, 2023. But this range typically changes. The overall salary range falls between $51,638 to $63,952. It varies due to work experience, certification, additional skills or number of years spent in this field.