Now that you’re using Ameego for scheduling (RIGHT?!) you have a lot more time on your hands to focus on the other things that go into making a restaurant successful, like marketing! A strong knowledge of how to promote your business is key to making sure your restaurant stays full, but where do you start?

Are you glued to your phone? It’s okay to admit that you are, and you’re not the only one. We all know that mobile devices are here to stay, but did you know that they’re actually replacing desktop devices when it comes to accessing the web? According to Entrepreneur Magazine Online, in December 2017, 56.74 percent of internet traffic came from mobile devices (including tablets). That’s huge! While mobile responsive websites were once a nice to have now they’re a requirement, and companies are adding app versions of their sites alongside them as a clean and efficient way to access their content.

Most of the time, when we talk about time theft, we’re hearing it from the point of view of owners: Employees are skirting the rules to show they’ve worked more hours than they really have, and that’s costing me money.

What we don’t always think about is the other kind of time theft, the kind where staff are being stolen from.

The best Christmas party Ameego ever had.

Sounds like the title of the kind of story you write on the first day back at school after Christmas holidays. Except I’m sure I would have spelled Ameego wrong.  

And when I was nine a ‘party’ still involved everyone bringing cookies from home, and maybe a mix tape with Madonna and Hall and Oates. Classic.

Sous chefs and expeditors, resos and high tops.

The safe internal temperature of chicken.

Squirrel (the POS system).

Restaurants are a world of their own, with a language and safety standards you just won’t find anywhere else. Given all that, it’s hard enough for people born here to find their place in the kitchen or front of house, never mind for those who speak English as a second language.

With some estimating that more than a third of kitchen and fast food workers are non-natives, the restaurant industry enjoys incredible diversity, but also challenges when it comes to training.

How can your restaurant break through language barriers to successfully train and develop team members who aren’t native English speakers?

They’re coming!  We're talking about:

1. American Thanksgiving
2. Christmas
3. New Year’s

And this year, your restaurant is going to sail through the holiday season so gracefully you could do it with your eyes closed and one mittened hand behind your back.

Here’s how.

When it comes to finding and keeping great kitchen staff—a challenge that’s reached near crisis levels in some areas in recent years—the restaurant industry faces a hard and simple truth: Wages are too low and the hours are too long.

Or is that the reason kitchens can’t keep staff? 

They told you that Gen X-ers wanted experiences over stuff.

They said Gen X-ers believed in working to live.

They said Gen X had a short attention span and they wanted everything, now, on their phones.

Well, forget all that, because it’s nearly Gen Z’s turn, and they’re an entirely different bunch.

The practice of tipping has been around for hundreds of years, and it has always rewarded front of house staff much more than their counterparts in the kitchen.

As restaurant operators work toward decreasing the disparity in pay for the first time, however, some eateries are experimenting with alternatives to tipping.

Whether you oversee 2 locations or 15, there are a few common problems that every multi-unit or regional restaurant manager faces.

We asked a few Ameego clients to share what they think are the worst challenges and to pass along their tips and tricks for dealing with them.

Here’s some of what they had to say.

This is how it starts: Your eyes dart back and forth from the blank schedule on your screen to the notebook filled with handwritten time-off requests from everyone, it seems.

Cheryl has an exam. Jeff’s grandma died. Erica’s sister is getting married in Mexico.

There are certain things you expect to see on every job description you encounter.

Must-have traits or qualities, characteristics the successful applicant needs to possess.

There’s a misbelief that seems to run rampant in many industries these days, and the hospitality industry is no exception.

It’s the belief that by working more hours, you’ll get more done.

This week I read an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled “Culture is not the Culprit.”  The gist of its argument is that – contrary to what many corporate leaders and consultants are preaching – when a company is struggling, fixing its culture is not the magic solution to all its troubles.

Now, to a certain degree, I agree with the idea that culture is an outcome and not a solution. But I think this particular article is missing the point a little bit.

Time-off requests come in all forms.

Misspelled text messages, on cocktail napkins passed across the bar at happy hour, or to your face while running food out to a table during the dinner rush.