I spent yesterday reading a book called Starting a Restaurant by Howard Cannon. Here are some notes.

Staffing: Determine the important positions in the restaurant and write job descriptions. In bigger restaurants, each section (dining room, kitchen, bar). In smaller restaurants, their may just be a manager, assistant manager, or shift manager. They a responsible for training, building employee morale, improving operational performance, and more. Without these hands-on leaders, your staff will have a difficult time staying focused on what is and isn't important and may approach their responsibilities in an uninspired and undirected manner.

Make a staffing chart showing what positions you need to fill during each hour of each day throughout the week. This helps you ensure that you have all your bases covered during busy times and that you are not wasting labor dollars by having people stand around during slow periods. Guess at how many people you need, then as you gain experience, you guesses will get better.

Read ads, ask people, and check unemployment data so that you know how much the pay ranges are for each position. Hire key staff early and have them help set up the restaurant. Have others start as close to the opening as possible, while still having time for training.

An interview determines if they are smart, honest, and service oriented. "Tell me about yourself. Give me the five minute life story." From this you can draw your own conclusions. Ask the applicant for references and then call them. Then interview them a second time or have someone else on your team interview them. If you're not going to hire them, tell them within no more than two days so that you don't create bad feelings.

Equipment: Make a list of each menu item and the equipment needed to make it. Eliminate menu items if you think the equipment is too costly. Make sure equipment can be repaired or replaced if needed.

Food Manual: Detailed book describing each menu item and including recipes, raw ingredients, cook times, cook temperatures, size of each portion, preparation procedures, hold times, leftover and storage procedures, and cost analysis. A cooking novice should be able to read this manual and understand it.

Hospitality: Be polite, smile ("Hire the smile." And encourage it by doing it.), eye contact (don't roll your eyes, don't stare at the customer, even a very attractive one, and don't look past the customer), greet, listen, thank, and bid farewell. Hire secret shoppers and ask your guests for feedback. Give awards for good service. Have employees eat at the restaurant.

The Art of Shift Management: Preparing (staffed, stocked, organized, and ready to go), have a sift quarterback, score and analyze the shifts (post game news conference for employees to offer feedback), finishing off (clean the restaurant and get it back to where it was before the shift started, thank everyone).

Customer Complaints: "What can I do to make it right?" This is the most effective way to ask customers to give you the opportunity to keep their business forever.

Speed of Service: Teach your staff to hustle at all times, have well-organized work areas, be prepared for the shift and have everything stocked and ready to go (use a checklist), have best employees in their best place, teach the concept that three customers is a line (Just because it is not a peak period doesn't mean you shouldn't hustle. These customers don't like waiting any more than anyone else.), watch for bottlenecks (slide deployment: one employee assisting another with their duties to help speed things up).

Accuracy: Teach your staff to write down the order or to repeat it back to the customer, to visually verify ever item at the pass station before accepting it for the customer, repeat the order when delivering it to the customer, don't have an excessively long menu, use seating positions to take and deliver orders.

Food Costs: Most restaurants target 25 to 32 percent food costs, plus a waste factor of .5 to 1.5 percent. Food costs meeting your goal are dependent on proper portioning and preventing waste and theft.