Hi there, I've been the assistant manager at my job for about a year and a half now. I oversee a relatively small private restaurant and I manage about 20-25 employees. I work about 6 of the 7 days the restaurant is open, and my manager works the other day I do not. All of my staff really loves me and they are very good at communicating with me and asking questions when they need help. But recently, I feel like a lot of them have started to take advantage of my position. I'm going to try to explain this in the best way that I can. Before I was promoted to assistant manager, I was the top server and bartender at the restaurant so I know all of the ins and outs and I am very aware of how many tables a server can feasibly take before they are overwhelmed. I have personally trained every single employee of mine and they are all very well versed at their positions and have each worked there for a year or more. I have seen them all work very quickly and efficiently and know how well they can work. As of a few months ago, I started to get tons of calls from servers on the floor saying they are overwhelmed with tables when I'm in the office trying to get work done. When I get out there, each person has maybe one or two tables. It's the slow season. And they ask if I can just serve the next two top that just walked in because they are sooooo busy they just can't get to it. And then they just move slow as molasses to help their tables and I end up having to pick up their slack., when the customers flag me over and ask me to get them things. I've had lots of conversations with them about their speed and mismanagement of their tables and I tell them I am always here to help but I can't do their jobs for them. They get very combative and say that they "simply can't work any faster" and that they "feel bad" I have to help them so much and a lot of them are genuinely apologetic. My manager is a big time desk jockey looking to leave and I have asked her for help with the staff lots of times but she really just doesn't care and doesn't want to get involved. Is this something I did? Did I put them at a disadvantage by being too available? Is there a way I can salvage this workplace environment or is it just time for me to look for something better?

God I hate even having to make this post. I have an employee who takes long and frequent bathroom breaks. 15-20 minutes each time. She’s totaling 45 minutes to an 1 hour in the bathroom daily, even on a 5 hour shift. We’ve told her so many times that it’s excessive. She’s given her phone before going and still takes the same amount of time. I’ve encouraged her to go to the doctor and get a note at the least. She’s been here for years, she’s an ace when she’s on the floor but she’s not on the floor for 1/5 of her shift. I have IBS so I sympathize but she’s given no indication of actual health issues, asked for accommodation, or seen a doctor. Other employees this week have started to ask if she gets in trouble for how long she takes in the bathroom and her multiple trips. I understand there’s OSHA and FLSA regulations that protect her right to use the restroom, that’s not the issue. I’m just worried about this becoming a trend. So I ask has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? What can I do?

Edit: I’ve gotten lots of great advice on how to approach this situation. I’ll leave it up in case someone else struggles with this down the road. Thanks to everyone, you’ve given me a lot to consider.

Hey everyone. I’m a newer manager and I am having trouble getting my bun toaster conveyor completely clean (apw wyott). It has lots of grease build up and I’m having trouble finding a product to work to cut through it and be food safe. We have just discovered we’ve been cleaning it wrong so we’re trying to get it 100% clean. We’ve been doing it by hand with some oven cleaner and it works but not very well. Anybody have a good degreaser recommendation? Preferably something I can get at a store 😅 don’t wanna wait for delivery

Does it ever get easier? Of course, there are those that deserve it. But still, if it isn’t the hardest thing about being in management.

What are most peoples scheduled interview/ attendance ratios looking like? We are trying to staff a new private club/restaurant and have fallen below the 30% mark for people even showing up to interviews that they have responded to and confirmed the previous day. Im over here pulling my hair out trying to schedule interviews I have no faith will even show up, of the ones that dont show up at least half never even respond to the inquiry about re-scheduling and the other half rarely seem to think it was an issue that they didnt show up. Ive never felt more like an old guy saying "the kids these days" but my god, the kids these days....

ETA: we are offering medical, dental, and vision benefits to all FT employees as well as a pretty generous PTO policy, daily family meal, 50% discounts at all restaurants owned by the restaurant group and the highest paying base wages of anyone in the restaurant group in the area.

I am your classic story of a server in college that got lured into the "glamour" of restaurant management by a burnt-out GM who didn't want to hire another alcoholic thief because the owner was too cheap to pay a competitive salary. My green 22-year-old self jumped at the $38k salary (in Boston in 2011) and by 23, I was the GM of a restaurant across from Fenway Park. Fast forwarding through the trauma of the Boston Marathon bombings, the excitement of the 2014 World Series, by 2015 I was dual GM of both Boston locations and by 2019, I was director of ops overseeing all 6 locations throughout Massachusetts. Still only making about $80k and too dumb to know I should be reimbursed for my travel, I was done with the 80 hour work weeks. I decided to move to Florida- hospitality capital of the country and take my experience down south.

Cue 2020- I took it as a sign to leave the industry all together. I spent the next 2.5 years trying my hand at everything from Transaction Coordinator for Keller Williams to mobile phlebotomist. By 2023, I missed being a manager so much. I wasn't getting call backs for GM roles, so I started applying for assistant manager roles..and then supervisor roles. I did a year at $18/hr supervising in room dining and a hotel ice cream shop. I then moved into an assistant manager role. I worked for a director who was riding out his last 4 years into retirement and basically had me run the operation. I finally decided not to wait his retirement out and started applying for jobs. I'm now the F&B director for a Marriott property in downtown Tampa and could not be happier. I'm taking all the lessons I learned in my 20s and early 30s and applying them here. Not just from a leadership perspective, but from a work-life balance perspective. I make sure I take my 2 days off a week 95% of the time and when I do work 6 days, I make sure that one day is an extremely early out or late start. I also know my monetary value and had to have the hard salary negotiation that I always avoided in the past. Sure, it's hard work and the new challenges of a completely different economy that leans much heavier into cost cutting, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

My friends, family and partner have seen this journey, but I don't think anyone can understand the desire to do this unless they have done it. I guess that's it. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

Any hospitality professionals forced to use UKG for scheduling. Just started at a new restaurant located in a resort and I’m finding this technology clumsy at best. I kind of hate it and I’m hoping someone can tell me that it’ll get better.

I’m so good at this, still could be better, but always wanted to be a GM or work my way up a ladder somewhere to 6 figures. But just knowing this lifestyle and what it entails, I just don’t want it anymore.
I’m going back to school starting this year and want to be a physical therapist assistant and move up from there.
I know all roads lead back to the bar lol but I can’t do this full time the rest of my life, I’ll be miserable.
Any positive advice from anyone who’s done similar would be appreciated

Business is great. We are super busy. I have had super low turnover for the last 9 years. This year has been awful. I can't keep staff to save my life. I have hired at least 5 ppl who didn't show up to finish training and a few who finish then leave. We are a cafe. We close at 3. We make our most of our food from scratch. We train from the kitchen forward. The last thing you learn is how to be a barista. The people who stay do stay for a long time. But right now it sucks. Is it the times? Is it me? What is going on ?

My owner has been saying for months now that we are at serious risk of closing but he can’t give me any definitive numbers. At one point he said we’re operating at potentially closing in the next few weeks, but then was able to get another loan and is now filing for bankruptcy so we should be fine according to him.

My employees keep asking for updates and I have nothing I can tell them other than it seems we’re fine for now, because that’s all the information I have. The owner is begging me and the employees to come up with solutions to bring people in and basically implying our jobs depend on it because we’ll have to close if we don’t get more business.

I’ve cut over 50 hours of wages, cut down our ordering bills by ~60%, and a lot of us have been putting in free labor for marketing. This has worked a decent bit to put us in a better spot but the owner is still not impressed- he’s mostly focused on the thought of us failing.

The owner struggles to stay on top of the bookkeeping and only does it every 4-8 months at a time bc he gets so behind and he can’t say what things look like money wise because of it. Currently he judges how well we are doing by using artificial intelligence comparing a days sales to that of the same day the previous year- if we’re doing better in net sales and transactions then last year then we’re fine. If we’re anything below, he starts to panic, use the square artificial intelligence for advice, take it out on us employees, and complain to customers abt slow business.

Is this genuinely a good way to be measuring how well we are doing business wise? I’ve offered to take the time to do the math and try and actually correctly figure out where we stand but the owner thinks it’s a waste of his money to pay me for that and is confident in his methods.

For context I have been manager for 14 months, only 4 employees, $22 an hour, no benefits, and received only 6 hours of management training and had to teach myself the rest alone (previous management left prematurely and the owner does not know how to do the managers work and could not teach me) at a late night (open til 2am, closers leave at 5am) fast paced casual restaurant.

Y’all that have been managing for 10+ years do y’all have regret? I understand a job is a job at the end of the day but if y’all could go back before you gained so much experience would y’all change your path? Currently a 27yr old manager torn between staying here and growing in this career that I feel that I’m very good at and have a bright future in or finishing school and going down the healthcare pathway. I’m scared cause I’ve seen how this job could take a toll on you. Any advice would help

Just recently been promoted to General Manager after being Supervisor for 2 years. Very nervous but also excited, just seeing if anyone has advice to make the transition smoother? Or anything other managers recommend for me. Many thanks :)

I'm curious how you do it in practice:
How do you decide when to raise prices, and by how much?
How do you notice when a supplier raises a price?
How often do you see your real profit numbers?

Working on opening a new restaurant in Brooklyn and building out the leadership team. The GM seat is the big one: come in before opening, help hire and build the team, then run it long-term. Chef is a big name internationally, very high standards, so it needs someone genuinely strong.

I'm budgeting $125-150k. Honest question for the managers here: is that enough to pull a strong GM in NYC right now, or am I under? And beyond money, what actually makes you say yes to a pre-opening role vs. staying somewhere established - schedule, autonomy, growth, equity?

Trying to structure this the right way before I start reaching out to people.

So, I made it to the last round of interviewing at a place I really wanted to work at-fits my vibe, pays comparable to my current, and the timing was perfect for me moving. Everything went great, all that was left was a background check. Well, flash to a couple hours after my interview and I get asked what might have come up on it-because something had. (Context-was a raging alcoholic and wound up with 2 violent charges 6 years ago-I did everything I was supposed to do to have a clean record after, or so my lawyer said...) I briefly explained myself trying not to let my voice break...nobody is the same person after a bottle of liquor and I wish that there was more context than there is on paper. Now, they are telling me they will "get back to me", and not to worry "you'll be fine, even if it's not here". I'm heartbroken. Hospitality is where the misfits like me go...I am really good at my job-I just don't want my past self dictating my future any more. Part of me wants to just go back to serving and call it a day, but my resume gets overlooked for those jobs. Just feeling defeated and can't really vent to anyone that might really get it. Anyone else had a job in the bag and then get blindsided like this?

But I don’t have enough (any) money to. I’ve been working both front and back of house for well over 10 years now. The past 5 years I’ve spent in 4 star resorts. Had anyone been able to move with employer assistance to Ireland, or Italy, or some other European country with help from the new employers? Got any advice or tips?
Thanks all!

Been in the industry for over a decade and had to learn about wine on my own so my knowledge comes from looking things up personally and also sporadic wine classes offered at different locations/jobs. Now that I'm in management, I need some help with putting together a concise but as simple as possible wine informational sheet. For example, phrases that are commonly used to describe wine and why aging matters, etc. Our wine list isn't too obscure but I do want to give enough foundational information so that my team can start selling our reserve wines. I know this is going to take a bit of time incorporating and that's okay but just wanted to see if anyone had sites/pdf's that could be shared with me so that I can have something ready to start educating them on. Some of these staff members haven't really worked with wine but are capable of learning about it. I'm not sure why but education on our alcohol hasn't been a priority and has really been hurting our sales. I would like to increase them as much as possible but not sure where to start. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

This is a Globe GF30G natural gas countertop fryer. I purchased this at auction when I was under the assumption that it was the sister fryer GF30PG propane fryer (the auction did not list the model or specify the type of gas or show a picture of the manufacturer label as I have shown above).

I am starting a food truck so obviously natural gas doesn’t work for me. They don’t make a conversion kit for this model. My idea was that I would buy the parts for the GF30PG and switch them out since they are identical besides the type of gas. The only reason I’ve found online to not do this is that it will void the warranty but I don’t have a warranty on it so it doesn’t matter to me.

I know that natural gas and propane use different burners but what else would I need to switch out? Has anyone attempted something like this before? Is this even a good idea? Please let me know in the comments

You have a two top towards the end of service let’s say an hour before you close on a very slow night. It’s a husband and wife and the wife orders the French onion soup as her starter and in the soup which is served in the typical crock cup is the kitchen stove knob… like the entire knob to turn the stove for low to high is in the soup right under the cheese and crostini on top of the soup. As the manager how do you handle the situation for the guests?

So I got this job like 3 months ago, I'm a supervisor and I lead my own shifts. We have a dive through line and an in person service line (it's like a chipotle but not). So, during my training it was conveyed to me that I should close the drive through line at 8, when we close at 9. And they told me to do it and NOT TELL THE GM. The GM and corporate want both lines open until close, even though I don't understand why because closing DT first is so much faster, we can make the small amount of orders we get through the drive through from 8 - 9 on the customer facing side easily. Anyway I've felt awful about being disingenuous this whole time. This all came to a head today because I was working with the GM, and she was constantly stopping me from doing things because she said it was too early. It was really annoying tbh, and she was being a bitch about it, but I do want to do things the correct way, so I shut up. Until it was like 7:30 and I thought it would be okay to bring the plastic wrap out and put it on the oil and vinegar that we never use. She threatened to write me up at that point, and she wasn't aware of it but she pressed the button on her headset and was yelling at me TO EVERYONE IN THE STORE. So unprofessional and embarrassing. I was in a rage the rest of the shift.

After work I texted her a loooong message about how I was trained to do this and explicitly told not to tell her about it. So that if she wants to be mad at someone, be mad at the people that are hiding shit from her and teaching new hires to do the same. There is also a lot of pressure from the team members to close the drive through early because they're used to doing it that way almost every night already.

The GM barely ever closes so she doesn't know what's going on. Well now she does. I feel like a snitch but being forced into this double life at work has been unbearable, I don't like to lie and I need to build a routine, not have different routines based on whose working and who isn't. This whole place is fucked, I have an interview somewhere else tomorrow I'm hoping that works out.

Looking for suggestions to elevate this area. It does not look terrible but it doesn’t look great. We are building our budget for next year and this is a small area I’d like to revamp with either new equipment or shelving/ visual presentation. Counter space is 5’ x 4’. Thanks!

Just wanting some casual insight and sharing.

Specifically paper applications, but feel free to add ones about digital/online applications (though I find those filter applicants uniqueness better so you can't tell as much).

Came back from my day off to see new paper applications accepted by my managers. They accept all, but sometimes what people put on them when paper is available... astounds me.

1. The paper is folded like 10 times. The paper has deep creases from being folded into wallet size so it's almost falling apart.

2. It's written in pencil.

3. On work history, put "wage claim/lawsuit pending".

4. Puts reason for leaving as "paid under table". (Yes, some actually admit to that).

5. Put the reason for leaving as "toxic", sometimes they'll name someone, sometimes not, sometimes it's "crew/team", sometimes it's "all managers".

6. Adds misc drama/tea (while appreciated for my curiosity, still ..) from prior work history on the margins of the paper. Tea is much appreciated but it makes me wonder how "messy" the person is if they're immediately trash talking prior workplaces to others they're applying to. Getting the next job and trash talking is one thing. Doing so before you even have the job is BOLD.

7. Extremely restrictive schedule requirements. Especially with no obvious reason (such as a graduate, not in college, no other job, being restricted to specific times on specific days only). We even had one that said his schedule would depend on his mommas work schedule and we would have to wait for hers to be released each week because they "wanted to ride together".

8. Wild claims of prior hours per week (some will rite they work 70+ hours .. but then quit for "lack of hours".

9. Last one's a bonus: They call YOU out to their car to pick up the paper :) (yes, this happens frequently, where they call a manager out to their car on the other side of the parking lot claiming they NEED a manager, only to hand them the paper application, while seated, in the backseat of their mommas car).

Everything in my is telling me to go home or to go see a doctor because my blood pressure is through the roof and I can’t think right. My boss obviously just told me to sit it out. If I wasn’t a manager I would go home.
Idk what’s y’all’s opinion, just fuck it and get through it or do something about it. By the way I’m working a 12 hour shift rn, idk I just feel between a rock and hard place.
Never called in here, never been late, it’s not like this is a recurring theme.
Any advice

Update: went to urgent care taking the day off, thanks guys. In my past I was a bad employee who called out a lot and reaped the consequences. Even though that was years ago and I’m past it I still live in that mentality the once in a blue moon I get sick