It's Time to Bring the Back-Of-House to Light
After 16 years in the restaurant industry with extensive experience in both the back and front-of-house, we're confident calling our Business Development Manager, Ben Yates, an industry expert. He's celebrating 3 years now on the FreshFry team, and knows what makes the difference between a restaurant staying afloat and a restaurant truly thriving. Here's why he believes that a restaurant's back of house operations ultimately drive a restaurant's success.
"A customer's experience is affected by everything that happens – much of it comes from the place you don’t see – the back of house."
The Small Things Make a Big Impact
Running a restaurant is not a walk in the park. Restaurant owners and general managers are constantly juggling everything from reordering cleaning supplies to handling customer complaints, to meeting with suppliers, and even handling leftover tasks that didn't get done at the end of the night. It's easy to overlook simple things like remembering to reorder trash bags, herbs/prep ingredients, gloves, etc. Anything that’s a non-menu item is at risk of getting overlooked. But if you forget to reorder trash bags, how are you going to take out the trash? This leads to someone having to make a midnight run to the store so you don't leave food rotting overnight. If you miss some broken glass on the floor, how can you ensure employee safety? The little things will make a big impact at the end of the day.
If you’re putting too much time and effort into happy hour outreach or the investment on art work or linens, and not concentrating on quality, cleanliness, employee satisfaction - you're going to see it affect your bottom line.
Efficiency Improves Employee Morale
Employee satisfaction is the most important ingredient for a restaurant's success. If your employees are unhappy, a multitude of things can happen: they'll lie about or refuse to do tasks that are annoying and tedious, they'll have a bad attitude when serving customers, or they'll quit, and restaurant employees aren't exactly easy to find right now. Many restaurant owners and GM's get stuck in the "this is the way we've always done things, and it's worked for the last 20 years" mindset. But technology has come a LONG way. Imagine if most restaurants were still using paper tickets instead of an electronic system - that's not only annoying for employees, but it depletes the customer experience as well. Now restaurant have tablets sitting at the tables so they can order and pay whenever their ready instead of waiting on their server. There are better, quicker and safer ways to do things. You have to be willing to ask the question, "What else is there? What else exists to make my life and employees jobs easier?"
One massive pain point for back-of-house employees is oil filtration.
Having to drain oil constantly, sitting and waiting to filter it, moping up oil spills, and risking getting burned from hot oil - it's just a giant headache and annoyance for everyone involved. If employees skip this task, your food quality and customers will tell you. Unfiltered oil will compromise the flavor and quality of the food you serve every time.
It's time for a better solution.
FreshFry Pods are the easiest, fastest, and safest way to filter frying oil. No more oil spills, risking burns, spending time waiting on filtration, or employees playing "nose ghost" for who has to filter the oil that night. The only thing employees have to do is drop a Pod into each fryer at night, and take them out in the morning. It's that easy. Your employees will love how quick and simple it is. They'll be so happy that they can go home sooner instead of waiting on a long filtering process.
Reevaluating Your Back-of-House Operations Leads to Greater Success
Once restaurants see that there's amazing technology out there like FreshFry Pods, once they see how much of a difference it makes in their day to day lives and business quality, the whole game changes. They want to know what else is out there that they've been ignoring because of their old way of thinking. It creates this snowball affect that takes a restaurant's business from just-getting-by to thriving. All of the problems that they face on a daily basis get reduced by investing in new technology, which makes the employees happier, which means better service to your customers.
Taking the first step towards improving your business model is all it takes to open the doors to greater success. It all starts with your back of house operations. Ready to make some changes? Click below to give FreshFry Pods a try and see how simple and effective they are for your business.
