How can you tell if the boss is the main problem in a restaurant?

It is hard to accept, but sometimes the main problem in a restaurant can be the boss or owner himself. In this article we share important details on the subject.

As human beings we are not perfect by nature, and we do not have the ability to learn everything or know everything. When we are new to the restaurant business, this becomes painfully clear, and it turns into a real problem when decisions rest in the hands of one single person: the boss, who at the beginning is usually the owner himself.

When we are just starting out, whether we are opening a brand-new restaurant or we bought one that was already operating, it is normal not to know many things, but we “figure it out along the way,” and every day brings new knowledge and experience that lets us keep improving our business.

This approach works very well. I lived it firsthand when I opened my first restaurant. The problem is that it takes too much discipline to stay consistent, and as new restaurant owners it is normal to go through two moments that are extremely hard to handle.

Difficult moments to handle:

• 1 – A moment of doubt. We tend to have doubts and feel desperate when we see that not enough customers are coming in, when we notice that revenue has dropped, or when we realize that a restaurant is more complicated than we expected. This usually causes stress, and stress ends up clouding our mind, so we lose focus, and that makes it harder to solve problems and implement changes.
• 2 – A moment of comfort. We tend to have these moments when we see that things are going well. We feel we are in a calm place, and when we fall into this, we tend to be much slower when it comes to making changes. That makes us slow down on the adjustments we know are necessary, but we do not make them because we are comfortable.

In short, it is quite normal that, as bosses, and because of everything mentioned above, we make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes cause much of the trouble that keeps a restaurant from moving forward.

Paradoxically, the person who wants to move the restaurant forward ends up sinking it because of the mistakes they make without knowing it.

This is almost like shooting yourself in the foot.

The situation gets even more complicated if, as a boss, you are someone who does not listen to employees, or if you are explosive and your employees are afraid of you. People will avoid telling you about the problems you are causing, and that is the beginning of a disaster.

How can you tell if the boss is the main problem in a restaurant?

Below I list a series of points that help identify whether a boss is the biggest problem in a restaurant. If, as a boss, one or several of these points sound familiar, it is time to change if you do not want your restaurant to go downhill.

• 1 – You prefer to use canned products because it is easier. It is an order you gave, and the cooks have to use them so the restaurant can “save money.”
• 2 – You do not give the cooks the freedom to use their knowledge and recommend changes to the restaurant’s recipes. The mere idea of a “little cook” coming to tell you how to make the food in your restaurant bothers you.
• 3 – Your restaurant is just starting out, and you do not usually get involved in the daily problems that come up with dishes, customer complaints, and so on. You are more worried about the money than about these “operational details.”
• 4 – You speak badly about a customer who complained, and you do it in front of employees. Without knowing it, you are causing employees to take complaints less seriously and to lose the respect customers deserve.
• 5 – You do not have standardized recipes for the restaurant; a good part of the dishes is prepared “by estimating.”
• 6 – You have not bothered to create job manuals that spell out all the duties.
• 7 – You are the one who does the emergency shopping. Sometimes you have to leave the restaurant to go buy something, and you miss the small details that happened while you were gone.
• 8 – You are hard on employees who make mistakes, and you do not care if the rest of the staff hears. You think “that will set an example,” when in reality all you achieve is making them feel less important and losing their motivation.
• 9 – You are lazy. You know you need to do some tasks related to changes in the restaurant, but you do not do them. “I’ll start next week” is the battle cry of lazy bosses.
• 10 – You believe the problems are not your fault. You always have someone to blame for everything.

Did you recognize yourself in any of those points?

Probably not, because the worst part is that the idea that we might be the main problem in the restaurant does not even cross our minds. If you show this list to your employees, you will see that they will notice that at least one of the points describes you to a T. Or better yet, if you ask your employees what mistakes they think you make, they can give you other points to add to the list.

You have to avoid being the main problem in the restaurant. Avoid at least the 10 points mentioned here, and you will see how, little by little, you stop being the biggest problem.

If, honestly, you did not recognize yourself in this list, congratulations! That is a good sign that you are doing things right. But if deep down you DID recognize yourself… it is time to work on changing that.