Several weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about why working in a professional kitchen, apprenticing to become a chef, may be somewhat less glamorous than what the general public perceives. However, a chef, a sous, line cooks, and dishwashers do not a restaurant make. They work in the "back of house" (BOH). There is also the "front of house" (FOH) staff, the often forgotten men and women patrons first meet when dining at a restaurant. To provide some insight from a restaurant's public facing side, I am extremely pleased to introduce retired Chef (graduate of Le Cordon Bleu), Eta-Sigma-Delta Member, and avid diver, Marty Mendelson.

If you wander much of foodiePrints, you will find comments from Chef Mendelson (@mgm3 on Twitter) about subjects from ethnic food to what fin fish to buy if you are not located in a coastal city. He steps forward once again in the form of a guest blog. And, without further ado:

Over the last several weeks several people have expressed a view about why someone might want to not consider working in the BOH or Back of House in a restaurant. Some of these people have been in the business for a few years and others are only now making their forays in some form into the world of the restaurant cook. All bring up the true realities of what is sometimes a less than glamorous business and job fraught with low pay, long hours and little recognition for the effort.

As is also noted, there are exceptions to the rule but for the most part being a cook, Sous Chef or Chef, prep cook, dishwasher, etc. are not going to make you rich in the sense of monetary gains. The only gains to be had are those of a personal nature. Knowing that at the end of the evening that you have given your all to each and every dish that went out the window to the floor for a customer to enjoy.

On another front, I would like to address the Front of House or FOH as it is called in the business.

Like the BOH it too has its unique set of quirks and headaches. Movies like 'Waiting' and others either do not help the perceptions or otherwise make a situation worse. This does not mean that these types of things do not happen but again as Sous Chef Luster, I believe said they are the exception and not the rule. Most people who are serving you or making your food take no small amount of pride in giving you the best they can with what they have.

In the FOH there are several positions that I want to cover that can make or break a business or the staff and finally I will cover why you may or may not want to consider opening your own restaurant.

Host/Hostess
This position is generally the first person inside the door you meet and can make or break the day both for the customer/guest as well as the staff. Unfortunately, in many cases the Hostess is young/female and either in High School or freshly out of it. These are not necessarily bad things except that the reality then becomes the simple fact that many have never worked at a customer service position before and all too often receive little if any training.

Again this not to say that there are not exceptions as I have been in many places where the Hostess has been very cordial.

On another note this person can be the best or worst person for the rest of the FOH staff because it is up to them to make sure that the table seating's are planned out such that everyone gets an equal chance and amount of tables and people to serve during the course of an evening. They also can begin the process of setting the timing of the meal.

This can be flawless or it can be fraught with bumps. Now there are many great servers out there who can flit from one table to another and literally get slammed in the real sense of having two, three or even four tables back to back to back and never miss a beat. But here is another reality, whether the customer/guest realizes it or not, this is a problem. It always works best if you have a minimum of 5 or 10 minutes between seating's in your section to properly service the needs of the tables.

Yes caca happens and sometimes there is a lack of staff or you are popular and everyone wants to be waited on by you. A professional deals with it and moves on.

Servers
We've all had the best and the worst of the servers in the world over the course of our lives and it truly amazes me that some of these people still have jobs.

But on the other hand, the pay is not there for these people. For the most part most businesses pay servers half the going rate for minimum wage and it's up to the server to make it up in tips. Herein is the rub because many people do not tip what is proper because the reality is that service on their part is 'Subjective'.

On a good night a server can make a good chunk of change that is unequalled in many other businesses. On a bad night, they make 'bupkis' .

Let me give you an example from one of my forays some years ago as a server in a formal dining establishment where the base plate was $25 for the Entrée.

We were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and open the rest of the week. In the restaurant business in almost everything but a McDonalds the best business days are Wednesday thru Sunday.

I had nights, generally Wednesdays and Thursdays when making enough tips to say I made minimum wage was a norm. On the other hand, I was able to make up for it on Fridays and Saturdays easily making anywhere from an average of a low of $15 up to $30 per hour of work. Not to shabby for a nights let alone a weeks worth of work but believe me I had to hustle my butt to get those kinds of tips and most of all it was doing it with a smile, knowing the menu and tastes of each dish so that when it came to suggesting an accompanying wine or beer I had a generally good idea of the flavor profiles to match.

It was never foolproof as my taste/palate is not everyone else's but more often than not I was spot on for the Guest.

Then there is the fact that if you do not as a server get along with the BOH staff you wont get you dishes on time or the way you want them. It's all a very delicate dance that goes on each and every day and depends on whether Johnny got lucky with his wife or girlfriend, Jane got along well with her parents or husband/boyfriend, well you get the idea. External forces that should not come to work but do anyway still do.

Oh and don't get me started on the Guests/Customers who can be cantankerous though for the most part 85-90% of Guest are only interested in getting a good plate of great food in a timely manner and with a smile there are those who feel it is their god given right to complain about the fact that there's too much oil, or they ordered Medium and got Rare, etc. Part of this is the servers fault as it is their responsibility to know the dishes and how they are prepared so they can make sure it is what the guest wants. After a while of coming in most servers know who you are and remember that when you order a Medium-Rare you really mean a Rare or is some cases a Medium.

More follows after the jump...

Owners and Ownership
Yes I am skipping over the managers but in reality they do very little for the business other than making sure that it is opened and closed on time, payroll is maintained and costs are controlled, schedule employees, etc. Oh yeah, they mitigate the occasional problem whatever it may be. The chef has the responsibility to make sure that the Kitchen has its compliment of staff and that hours and scheduling are in line with service for that day.

It may be a little known or greatly known fact but only 1 in 10 restaurants makes it past two years of being open for service.

Yes that's right only 10% make it past that 2 year anniversary. There are many reasons for that happening.

The business is poorly placed, the menu doesn't fit the clientele, prices are out of line for what is being offered on the menu and the expectations of the clientele.

Then there are the internal problems. The managers have to make sure that the staff is adequate for the days service without going over budget for the day/week or month. The chefs have to make sure that every morsel of food is accounted for and used based on portion size and costs. This is a game of pennies in many cases and most especially now with the economy in the shape its in.

Those, the previous talked about items, are what are called Variable costs and need to be watched and managed with care.

The other costs in a restaurant are what are called Fixed Costs and are such things as salaries (not hourly wages though, these are a variable cost), rent/lease costs, heat, water, gas, electric, etc. Basically costs that each month are a fixed known cost and for the most part do not fluctuate by more than a few dollars at most throughout the year.

In a perfect world the same amount as goes out of the business to make and purchase goods comes back in as revenue from the sale of food. Rarely does this happen daily. But a balance is hopefully maintained or else you won't soon be open for business. Ideally the concept is to make a profit.
Restaurateurs' have this broken down into several ways of looking at it. Profit /Loss per seat in the FOH, P/L of each individual dish, how many times they have to turn the tables in the dining room over to break-even based on the current menu, etc.

And so you have it!
While this is a simplification of the actual processes that go into making a profitable restaurant business, it is in many cases the reality that is the business.

Can you make money and be happy in this business? Most assuredly but it is hard work and not easy to begin. Yes some business make a great opening and show a profit within the first couple of weeks of opening. But here again the reality is that you have to continually work at making sure that you give the service expected by the guests, offer the food they want while giving them something new occasionally to keep it fresh and the list goes on and on.

Want to learn more?
So if you want to learn more I would suggest beginning to work for someone else to see what they do right and what they do wrong and what you can and cannot do using their money instead of your own. Then and only then if you feel comfortable try and make a go of it yourself. But remember there are no guarantees that you will be successful. You can even attend one of many schools around that have a course in Hospitality and Restaurant Management for more in depth learning of what it takes to be slightly more than 10% successful.

Personally, while I do not advocate gambling and abstain most of the time myself, the real reality numbers wise is that you can possibly make better money gambling when you consider the odds of just walking in the door of a casino are 3 to 1 against as opposed to the 10 to 1 against of opening a restaurant.

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