Running a successful restaurant means staying on top of various aspects of your food business. Many business owners working in the restaurant industry focus on ensuring that their front-of-house (FOH) operations run smoothly since it’s where customers interact with staff. However, this can often mean that back-of-house (BOH) processes are left by the wayside.
Whether you have a quick-service restaurant or a fine-dining establishment, you probably want to improve productivity and create a better dining experience for your customers. To do this, you’ve got to focus on your BOH restaurant activities just as much as your FOH processes.
This article will give you a thorough guide to BOH staff, processes, and operations. It will also give valuable tips for optimizing your BOH and suggest digital tools to help you improve your restaurant processes and ensure you’re providing quality customer service.
The back of house in a restaurant, also known as the back of the house or just BOH, is the behind-the-scenes area of an eatery. It’s where chefs prepare and cook food, dishwashers clean pots, pans, plates, and cutlery, and other BOH team members carry out essential administrative or organizational tasks.
The front of house in a restaurant (also known as the front of the house or simply FOH) is the opposite. It’s the customer-facing aspect of a restaurant. The phrase refers to any area of your restaurant where customers interact with staff and eat their food.
BOH restaurant staff includes all team members working behind the scenes in your eatery. All kitchen staff members are part of the BOH team, including:
Head chef and/or executive chef
Sous chef
Line cooks
Dishwashers
Kitchen managers
Food runners and bussers
On the other hand, the front of house includes any and all staffers who interact with customers. Your wait staff, hosting staff, greeters, and bartenders are all front-of-house staff. General managers also fall under this category.
Now that you clearly understand what BOH means, you can start brainstorming ways to improve your BOH restaurant processes.
Ensuring your BOH operations run smoothly is an integral part of restaurant management. Whether you’re a general manager or a restaurant owner, it’s essential that everyone in your back-of-house team is happy with their work environment and knows precisely how they need to be working.
Here are a few tips to help you optimize your BOH processes, improve your FOH-BOH communications, and foster a more productive work environment.
Ensuring each member of your staff (in both FOH and BOH teams) knows precisely what they’re supposed to do, when, and where is critical for running a successful restaurant.
Write clear, detailed job descriptions for every BOH and FOH staffer, even if they’ve worked there for a while. Doing this can help your team stay organized because everyone will know what tasks fall to them. When everyone knows their responsibilities, they can more easily provide fast, efficient service to customers.
Designing a commercial kitchen is no easy feat, and mistakes can be made. If you have the budget or scope for a redesign, ask your executive chef and BOH team for their input. They’ll help you arrange your kitchen storage in a way that makes it quick and easy for them to find items during a busy service.
BOH staff often feel like a separate entity from the FOH team, and this can lead to workplace tension. To counter this, organize all-staff socials and encourage FOH and BOH workers to communicate with each other. People who talk to each other as friends are more likely to employ better teamwork at the restaurant.
No staffer is beyond additional training, from bar backs and pot washers to executive chefs. Organizing bi-annual training sessions for all employees will help your team stay sharp, allowing them to provide top-quality customer service.
If your FOH team is unfamiliar with menu items, they might provide the wrong information to customers ordering food. If they take incorrect orders to the BOH, your chefs will prepare food that might be wasted if the customer sends it back. In addition to being wasteful, this can foster a negative working relationship between FOH and BOH staffers.
By ensuring all staff members have tasted everything on the menu, you can ensure that your FOH team provides customers with accurate information. This will reduce wrong orders and help prevent your FOH and BOH teams from resenting each other.
An expeditor is someone who facilitates communication between the back of house and front of house. They’re like a project manager who’ll ensure every other employee knows what they need to do and where.
FOH-BOH communication is critical for a well-organized restaurant, so hiring an expeditor to oversee this aspect of your business could be greatly beneficial.
The right restaurant order system can make all the difference between a good and a bad customer experience. If it’s too complicated for customers to place orders or there are frequent mistakes, you’re unlikely to get loyal customers returning for repeat visits.
But with an easy-to-use ordering system, you can improve order accuracy and make life easier for your BOH team.
Communication between your front-of-house team and back-of-house staff is vital in every restaurant service. Luckily, digital tools can help simplify your FOH-BOH communications and ensure orders are processed quickly and efficiently.
Kitchen display system (KDS): Installing a KDS in an accessible part of your kitchen means that chefs and BOH staff can see orders that need preparing as soon as the customer has placed them. It can simplify FOH-BOH communication and help ensure that no orders are forgotten.
Self-service devices: Self-ordering kiosks, like KioskBuddy, provide customers with an easy way to place and pay for their own orders. They’re instrumental in quick-service or fast-casual restaurants, but they can also be great in other counter-service restaurants to speed up service.
Inventory management software: There are various methods for inventory management, but using dedicated software can help your BOH restaurant team stay on top of what’s in stock, what’s expired, and what needs ordering.
Scheduling software: Software that automatically organizes your staffing is a great way to ensure every employee knows when they’re working. It can also prevent arguments about schedules and simplify shift swapping.
Two-way radios: If communication between your BOH and FOH teams is a problem, but you can’t afford to hire an expeditor, consider giving each staff member a two-way radio. They provide a simple and affordable way for staff to stay in contact with each other during a shift.
A good point-of-sale (POS) system can simplify many BOH tasks by combining several of these digital tools into one. The right POS software can streamline your communications by automatically displaying orders on a KDS. Certain POS options include inventory management and scheduling functionality, simple marketing tools, and sales reporting.
Plus, a good POS will integrate with third-party apps, like KioskBuddy, so you can easily integrate self-service kiosks.
Improving the organization of your BOH restaurant processes and operations doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right management system and digital tools, you can ensure excellent cooperation between your FOH and BOH teams, letting the customers in your dining room enjoy fantastic service on every visit.
KioskBuddy is an easy-to-use app that lets you turn your tablet into a self-service kiosk. Customers can place and pay for their orders with just a few simple taps, and your BOH restaurant staff will immediately see the order on your KDS.
Sign up for KioskBuddy today to simplify and streamline your restaurant processes.