How to Train a Restaurant Manager

According to Upserve, 9 out of 10 newly hired restaurant managers start out at entry level. In other words, only 10% of new restaurant managers have an ounce of restaurant management experience when they start the job.

So even if you're promoting a rockstar server or chef, that doesn't mean they'll be a great restaurant manager right out of the gate, especially without the right training.

According to Toast research, even for profitable restaurants, hiring, training, and retaining staff is the biggest collective challenge for the industry right now. In fact, profitable restaurants are placing more emphasis on training their new hires than not-so-profitable restaurants are. This tells us that having the know-how on good staff member training will lead to more cash in your drawers.

Training is even more important for restaurant managers because they typically have the largest impact on your restaurant’s operations, team, and guest experience. Some restaurants — especially the larger ones — invest a ton in making sure their new managers are successful. Take Olive Garden, for example.

Olive Garden’s Manager-in-Training (MIT) Program

As a Manager-in-Training, you’ll participate in an extensive, 12-week training program. During the first phase of the program, you’ll receive an 8-week concentrated overview of each employee and manager position. In the second phase, you will travel to the Darden Restaurant Support Center in Orlando, Florida for four days of additional specialized training. When you return from Orlando, you will begin the final phase of focused training as a Culinary, Staffing & Training, or Service Manager. You will be assigned a coaching manager that will act as a mentor for the remaining three weeks of your training. During this period you will experience, hands-on, daily operations in managing the department that you will be responsible for leading upon graduating from the MIT program.

Most restaurants can’t dedicate this much time and money to staff training, but once you’ve hired the perfect restaurant manager, you need to take advantage of every opportunity to get them on board and up to the task if you want to set them up for success.

In this guide, we’ll outline how to streamline your training for restaurant managers in-house and point you to restaurant management courses and resources to help you train managers effectively.

Want to create a restaurant manager training manual as you go? Oh, cool — we already made one for you. Use this training manual template to create your own manager training guide.

1. Teach Managers Your Business’s Values

When you sit down with your new manager on day one to go through your restaurant’s employee handbook, discuss your restaurant's core values, how you and your staff enact them, and why you're passionate about building a successful restaurant.

Why? Today’s restaurateurs have strong values. They’re more concerned about the impact of their choices on larger world issues, and this is a big motivator. Nearly 9 out of 10 millennials (those between the ages of 22 and 37) would consider taking a pay cut to work at a company whose mission and values align with their own, according to LinkedIn’s Workplace Culture report.

Taking the time to sit with a new employee to kick off their training plan will instantly set you apart from the competition. Showing staff how they impact the larger success of your restaurant will motivate them to show guests why it’s such an awesome place. This small gesture early on can help team members feel greater pride in their workplace, which is key for employee retention. Happy employees decrease your turnover rate, become brand ambassadors, and are more inclined to provide outstanding customer service.

For more resources on staffing, check out our Guide to Restaurant Staffing.

2. Clearly Define Objectives and Goals

Before you provide managers with the resources they need to do the job, clearly lay out what you expect from them.

People with written goals are 42% more likely to achieve them than people without written goals. For the first month, quarter, or year of their time with you, encourage your restaurant manager to write down their goals for being on staff and keep each other posted on results.

Goals and objectives can take many forms. Here are some examples:

• Cultivate a better guest experience. Your restaurant’s reviews on Yelp, Google, Facebook, and other types of social media are an easy way to track this metric. Improving customer satisfaction should always be a goal of any type of food service.

• Improve restaurant staff morale. Conduct a quarterly employee NPS score to get a pulse check on how happy your employees are. Sort them into promoters (they love the culture), passives (they're unsure how they feel), and detractors (they wouldn’t recommend your workplace to friends or family). Then, act on their recommended changes by implementing solutions.

• Increase profit by X%. This goal is the clearest for restaurant managers: make data-driven decisions on inventory, menu prices, and food costs to increase restaurant profits and decrease spending.

3. Help Managers Get to Know Your Customers

A good restaurant manager knows their customers. A great restaurant manager uses customer feedback to improve the restaurant experience.

Have your managers keep track of guest feedback and make a list of the common complaints guests have in your restaurant.

More often than not, customers asking to see the manager aren’t in a great mood, so it’s valuable to prepare managers with potential solutions to an array of problems. If you’re still waiting on a replacement for that faulty ketchup dispenser that diners have been complaining to your wait staff about for a week, your manager should know when that new dispenser is coming in.

Teach your restaurant manager how to listen to complaints but also how to give customers an action plan and follow through on them. Here are a few examples of responding to common feedback.

• Bad service. If a guest is particularly disappointed by a server or bartender, they might call over the manager. Listen to their qualms and explain politely that you’re sorry to hear that and you’ll try to resolve the issue. Offer them something complimentary, if it helps.
  
  

• Bad food. Sometimes guests won’t be pleased with the quality of your food. “I asked for medium rare, and this is medium.” The easiest way to combat this problem is to take back the food to the kitchen staff to make it to their specifications while informing the guest they will chat with the chef to see what happened.

• Long wait time. For the first 10 minutes of waiting for a table, guests might tap their feet. For the next 10 minutes, they'll roll their eyes. Any longer and they'll probably ask for a restaurant manager. Calmly explain that their party will be seated at the first table available and that the fantastic guest experience and amazing menu items will make up for the wait.

Managers should be made aware of common day-to-day complaints, but it’s also important to keep them in the loop on ownership decisions, like price increases, planned promotions, and reservation system updates. When they’re in the know and have clear instructions on how to answer customer questions about these decisions, they’re better prepared to respond to and resolve any resulting complaints.

4. Help Managers Get to Know Your Space

From an unbalanced table in the dining room to an oven that’s just a little hotter than the others, every restaurant has its quirks. Your new manager should be made aware of all of them so they won’t be blindsided.

Even more importantly, restaurant managers should know all your restaurant’s equipment and who to call in the event that something breaks. You need to leave a list (or in many cases, a binder) of all the restaurant equipment in your kitchen, bar, and front of house, as well as the contact information for the mechanics or technicians who work with this equipment.

Without this information, your restaurant manager will be stranded when something goes wrong. And that is a when, not an if. What happens when the fridge breaks and you're not there? You know the deal. This is also why every employee, even managers should have a job-specific restaurant training manual.

5. Teach Managers Your Restaurant’s Tech, Tools, and Reporting

Every restaurant manager needs to be well-versed in the restaurant POS system and any restaurant reporting integrations your restaurant business uses. Some systems have POS training programs that walk you through how to use the system as a server, manager, and owner. If that’s the case, make sure your manager takes that training.

However, your new restaurant manager must also know the basics of inventory tracking, front- and back-of-house reporting, profit and loss reporting, menu pricing, invoicing, liquor control — the list goes on and on and is unique to every restaurant. Here are a few resources to help you identify what your restaurant manager needs to know, and help them get a technical restaurant education:

• How to read a restaurant profit and loss statement
• How to use a menu engineering worksheet
• The top 10 restaurant data reports for your POS software

6. Teach Managers How You’d Like Staff to Be Trained

A big part of a restaurant manager's job is working with employees to make sure they're happy and doing their jobs well. Restaurant managers must be comfortable interacting with staff both as a friend and as a boss.

Restaurant managers need to know the restaurant policies, the restaurant culture, and the necessary human resources procedures, such as hiring and firing. If possible, you might also want to ask the new manager to attend a leadership seminar or course.

Here are some restaurant staff training resources to give your manager:

• How to inspire employees with restaurant core values
• How to create a staff training program that engages millennials
• How to create a restaurant training manual

7. Invest In Restaurant Management Courses and Certifications

Your restaurant and its operations are unique, but a comprehensive grasp of how the industry works is important to a manager’s success.

Restaurant managers are staples in both the front-of-house and back-of-house, and it’s vital that they’re well-versed in food safety, food waste solutions, inventory management, sourcing, accounting, human resources, and more general restaurant management skills. Your kitchen isn’t exempt from the health code, after all.

You might not need to send your new managers to an ultra-intensive, off-site training program, but it’s valuable to give them access to restaurant management courses and certifications to help them improve their skills and become more effective managers. Especially as the industry evolves and changes.

Here are a few options available at hospitality schools or online:

• ServSafe® Food Safety Program for Managers
• Penn Foster Career School's Online Restaurant Management Career Diploma Program
• The ICE's School of Culinary Management

8. Keep Managers Up-to-Date on Restaurant Trends

The restaurant industry is constantly innovating and adapting, so your restaurant managers should, too. Provide your new restaurant manager with a list of publications to read and encourage them to subscribe to certain sites, online magazines, or forums.

These publications should inform them about their industry, the competition, and keep them up to date with what’s trending in the restaurant business. That’ll keep them creative and encourage them to try new ideas. Here are a few examples to start:

• The top 10 restaurant management blogs for restaurateurs 
• 9 restaurant podcasts you don't want to miss

Getting Great Restaurant Managers to Stick Around

Remember that stat from the beginning of this guide about entry-level general managers? They found that 9 in 10 restaurant managers start on the job without restaurant experience. But they also found that the median tenure of restaurant managers is 20 years. And 7 out of 10 restaurant managers plan to stay in the industry until they retire.

When you find great restaurant managers and invest a little time into training them properly, you’ve got a fair shot of keeping them for life. When they’re onboarded and trained effectively, managers benefit from the most important aspect of restaurant management training: on-the-job experience.

Restaurant management is a job that requires true passion and grit, and after a few weeks of running around the kitchen, diving into the data, and working with staff, it can become a job that keeps you going. Restaurant management courses, resources, and face-to-face training on your restaurant’s operations are great ways to set your managers up to discover that passion on their own.

Related Resources

• Chef Salary
• Bartender Salary
• Barista Salary
• Executive Chef Salary
• Line Cook Salary
• Sommelier Salary
• Restaurant General Manager Salary
• Server Salary
• Busser Salary
• Dishwasher Salary
• Barback Salary
• Sous Chef Salary
• Prep Cook Salary
• Restaurant Assistant Manager Salary
• Kitchen Manager Salary