Preparing Your Restaurant for a Big Event

Events like Mother’s Day Brunch, big wedding parties, and Super Bowl parties provide restaurants with a big boost in revenue.

However, ensuring that these events run as smooth as clockwork requires some advanced planning. If you have a big event coming up at your restaurant, here are a few tips to keep in mind as you prepare.

Making Sure There's Enough People

It’s imperative that you staff enough people for a big event. Otherwise, you’re going to have long ticket times and a lot of angry customers, customers who’ll leave negative reviews on sites like Yelp. If you’re not sure how many employees this needs to be, then look at your numbers from past rushes.

This will give you a pretty idea of the number of people you need to have on a shift. It’s also good to keep in mind that it’s better to have too many employees working a big event than not enough if you’re having trouble nailing down an exact number of employees.

Brush Up on Safety Measures

When people are busy, the likelihood of them making mistakes and having accidents goes up. Before your big event, make sure you review safety plans with the management staff and with the employees. Provide everyone with a go-to game plan just in case something goes awry.

This might look like going around and making sure everything has the correct GHS label on it. These visual aids give your employees an at-a-glance look at food safety guidelines and regulations. Putting these reminders where people can see them allows them to act more quickly should mishaps arise.

Do Extra Prep Work

The chances of you running out of stuff goes up exponentially when you have a big event in your restaurant. Any time you run out of supplies, your workflow suffers. The only way to lessen the chances of this happening is to over-prepare and overstock.

For example, if your restaurant uses rolled silverware, then make sure that your staff makes lots of extra silverware rolls. Additionally, set them up with extra napkins and utensils so that if you do run out of rolled silverware, they’ll have the raw materials they need to make more.

Big events at restaurants are often stressful. However, the amount of prep work you do ahead of time can lessen some of the stress that naturally occurs with these events.

Scheduling enough employees, reviewing safety plans, and doing extra food and restaurant prep helps to cut down on the mishaps that inevitably come with a big restaurant rush. Doing these things will help to make sure your customers have a great experience at your big event.

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