Kitchen management is the process of overseeing and coordinating all the activities in a restaurant kitchen. A kitchen manager ensures that the back of house runs smoothly at all times, often through effective menu planning, inventory management, scheduling, and operational planning. This role is worth a significant investment; after all, it plays an important part in your restaurant’s success.

The importance of kitchen management

As with any business, the success, resiliency, and longevity of your restaurant depends to a certain extent on how well it’s managed. This principle applies doubly to restaurant kitchens — after all, food is the core of your business. Investing time and genuine effort into building a strong kitchen management system pays off in a few key ways:

• Efficiency. In well-managed restaurant kitchens, tasks are completed quickly. Cooks prepare food efficiently, enabling servers to serve each dish while it’s still hot. This reduces wait time for customers, helps tables turn over faster, and ensures employees stay productive. Eliminating lag time and inefficiencies creates a better experience for both staff and customers.
• Quality control. The kitchen management staff oversees food preparation, inventory management, and sanitation — factors that have a big impact on food quality and food safety. Effective managers ensure ingredients are fresh and staff members are preparing and plating food consistently, which enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Cost control. By regulating and monitoring inventory, serving sizes, and food waste, a top-notch kitchen management system can help reduce unnecessary costs and maximize your restaurant’s profits.
• Employee retention. The restaurant industry is notorious for hostile work environments. When your kitchen management team is personable and communicative, it can create a healthy, supportive culture that employees love to be a part of. A positive environment goes a long way toward increasing employee retention, which cuts hiring and training costs and ensures a better experience for customers. Lower turnover also reduces the risk of a staffing shortage.

9 restaurant kitchen management tips

Kitchen management impacts every aspect of a restaurant business, from the quality of the food to the front-of-house operations. Whether you’re a new restaurant owner or an experienced kitchen manager, these tips can help you develop a smooth, effective kitchen operation.

1. Prioritize the customer experience

Even though most kitchen staff members won’t spend time with guests, their work has a direct impact on customer satisfaction.

Your kitchen manager can help keep customers happy by:

• Developing efficient food-preparation workflows
• Creating checklists for the start and end of each kitchen shift
• Ensuring clear communication with food service staff
• Running regular quality checks on clean dishes
• Suggesting menu adjustments as needed
• Implementing rigorous practices to prevent cross-contamination
• Establishing and enforcing cleaning and sanitation standards
• Working with restaurant management to improve scheduling
• Integrating kitchen management software

Every restaurant kitchen is different, so it may take trial and error to find the right practices for your business. That’s why it’s important to assess your operation frequently — regular evaluations make it easier to catch and resolve issues in the early stages.

2. Invest in proper training programs

Thorough employee training ensures every member of the kitchen staff has the knowledge and practical skills to do their jobs well. Depending on your operation, you might adjust your kitchen management system to include training on topics such as:

• Food safety standards
• Handling raw meats and shellfish
• Preparing allergy-specific foods
• Operating kitchen equipment safely
• Standard cleaning procedures
• Opening and closing the kitchen
• Storing and labeling food
• Plating each dish
• Working with food service employees

It never hurts to offer training in critical topics, even when you’re hiring experienced workers. Consider hazardous equipment such as the deep fryer — a short instructional session can prevent fires, injuries, and wasted food.

3. Maintain consistent food quality and presentation

Amid the excitement of opening a restaurant, your kitchen staff probably spent a great deal of time and attention on food quality and presentation. Over the years and months, it’s not uncommon for this focus to slip. The kitchen manager can keep employees sharp by establishing plating standards for every dish on the menu. Some restaurants even use diagrams and labeled photos as a reminder. A clear, consistent set of presentation rules also helps new workers understand and meet expectations.

The same goes for food quality; kitchen supervisors must be relentless about enforcing inventory management practices, cleaning practices, and food preparation workflows. Each of these small actions contributes to food safety and increases the overall quality of customers’ meals.

4. Foster open communication channels among team members

Open communication is one of the best ways to build a positive restaurant kitchen environment. Every staff member should feel comfortable asking questions and raising issues with other employees, kitchen management, and the restaurant manager. Managers set the tone; it’s important to insist upon respectful dialogue and a supportive atmosphere.

Historically, this type of kitchen has been an anomaly in the restaurant industry. If your team can establish a welcoming culture, you’ll have an easier time hiring and retaining talented line cooks, sous chefs, kitchen employees, and food service workers.

5. Develop a menu that balances customer preferences, seasonal ingredients, and profitability

Because the kitchen manager is so closely involved with the food-preparation side of your restaurant, they’re uniquely positioned to provide input on the menu. Encourage them to offer suggestions based on what they notice in the inventory management system and order data — their insights could prove extremely profitable.

It’s also a good idea to conduct regular menu engineering sessions with your executive chef, lead bartender, and kitchen management team. Make updates to suit operations, ingredient pricing and availability, profit margins, and customer demand. Keeping your menu current is a great way to maximize profits and keep guests interested in what you have to offer.

6. Implement efficient inventory management

Keeping track of inventory is one of your kitchen manager’s most crucial responsibilities. An effective restaurant inventory management system can have transformative benefits; it reduces food waste, cuts costs, and ensures every meal is prepared with the highest-quality ingredients.

The good news? With the latest kitchen management software, it’s relatively easy to manage inventory levels and ordering. Your manager can shore up the system by tightly controlling ingredient storage and enforcing a first in, first out (FIFO) system with the kitchen crew. They might also consider running a food-waste study, finding ways to standardize serving sizes, and adjusting portions for items that customers are frequently unable to finish.

7. Develop a detailed budget and monitor financial performance

It’s hard to maintain healthy finances if you don’t know where every dollar is going. While you or your general restaurant management staff might handle the overall restaurant budget, the food and kitchen budget is often the responsibility of kitchen management. Managers should keep a detailed budget and use it to monitor the kitchen’s financial performance. Interacting with finances on a regular basis makes it easier to spot opportunities for improvement.

8. Maintain kitchen equipment

Proper maintenance and repairs can help extend the lifetime of kitchen equipment, which reduces your costs considerably. Ask the kitchen manager to develop checklists and schedules for regular cleaning, inspection, and maintenance of:

• Grease traps
• Food-prep spaces
• Vent hoods and ducts
• Stoves, ovens, deep fryers, griddles, warmers, freezers, and refrigerators
• Areas behind appliances
• Flooring and mats
• Storage spaces
• Dishes, glassware, flatware, and serving items
• POS system

Well-maintained kitchen equipment keeps employees safe and empowers them to prepare the best possible food. It also protects customers; regular inspections ensure ovens are heating food to a safe temperature, for example.

9. Stay flexible and adapt to changing market trends

The restaurant industry is always changing, and your establishment must keep up to maximize efficiency and meet customer expectations. Following food trends, delivery trends, and restaurant technology trends can help kitchen managers identify the right items and decide when the time is right to make changes.

It’s particularly important to stay up to date on restaurant technology. If you’re currently using separate displays and printers for in-house and delivery orders, for example, the manager might use Grubhub to streamline order management. When Grubhub is integrated with your existing POS system, all orders flow to the same place for easier prep and packing. You might also consider AI tools, kitchen management software, automation systems, and self-ordering kiosks. 

Partner with Grubhub for more tips

Effective kitchen management is a pillar of your restaurant. When your kitchen manager takes an active role in improving and maintaining your operation, they can help boost profitability and longevity. Want to learn more about kitchen and restaurant management? Partner with Grubhub today to gain insights, resources, and efficient delivery and takeout solutions.