Barry Shuster

Executive Editor
RestaurantOwner Insights

Article

For Love or Money: How to Promote a Cost-control Mindset in Your Restaurant’s Culture

Cost control is not merely an accounting exercise. It includes empowering managers and employees to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and protect margins. A cost-control mindset should be the “heart of the house” in a competitive market with continually rising prices.

Success Story

Draganetti’s Ristorante: A Family Restaurant Legacy for More Than Four Decades

Passion, dedication, and an unwavering focus on providing an exceptional dining experience describe the Draganowski family's restaurant industry journey.

Article

Beyond Prime Cost: Managing 'Other' Restaurant Expenses

Prime cost is the total cost of sales plus labor cost, the largest and most volatile expenses of restaurant operations. Keeping these expenses in check is vital to staying in business. However, they are not the only expenses of running a restaurant. And with food, supplies, and labor inflation, you ...

Article

Raising the Bar: Boosting Bar Service Profitability

Efforts to rein in your restaurant’s expenses are meaningless if they do not increase profits. When looking for places to trim costs, operators are prone to take bar service for granted. It is a cash cow and profitable. And with food and labor inflation, there are so many other areas of the business ...

Article

New Kid on the Block: Best Practices for Hiring Key Staff from Outside

Hiring a head chef or general manager from outside your organization can bring a valuable fresh perspective. Yet filling leadership positions from an external candidate can also cause friction within the organization. In this article, we explore the challenges of bringing new faces ...

Article

How to Successfully Launch Your Custom Training System to Your Team

You've invested a lot of effort into building your custom training site—now it's time to "GO LIVE" and introduce it to your team! Properly announcing the new training modules with clear guidelines and instructions is crucial for long-term success.

Training Video

How to Accurately Calculate Your Restaurant's Food Cost

Accurately calculating your restaurant's food cost is critical, and fortunately, it's not complicated. Chef Omar Pereney walks you through the food cost ...

Training Video

It's Everyone's Job to Reduce Food Waste: Here's How You Can Help

Minimizing food waste is everyone's job, and this video will show your team simple, practical steps they can take to reduce what ends up in the trash.

Online Course

How to Manage the Most Important Number on Your Restaurant's P&L

Prime cost is made up of the largest and most volatile costs in any restaurant: food, beverage, and labor. We know that when restaurants start to track ...

Online Course

How to Setup and Use the Weekly Prime Cost Template

The Weekly Prime Cost Template is a series of integrated worksheets designed to generate one of the most valuable weekly reports in any foodservice operation ...