In a gist: Hiring a manager for your restaurant

If you haven’t noticed, you really can’t do everything. If you’re planning to put up a restaurant as a business then you should be able to recognize the great challenge of that undertaking and the fact that you need as much help as you can get.

Once you’ve got the place covered, the first item on your list should then be hiring a good general manager. You can’t possibly imagine yourself overseeing every little detail of operations, right? You need someone to be present all day to attend to your customers’ needs; someone to manage payroll, taxes, and insurance; someone to ensure the smooth flow of day-to-day work. You might as well hire someone trained and experienced to do those jobs unless you’re planning to start out small. Having a manager also frees up a significant amount of your time which you can now devote to planning, strategizing, or having a massage.

Hiring a restaurant manager is initially a daunting task. To simplify things, you should look for a person who can handle daily operations and who has a sense of providing a total customer experience.

Specifically, you need to find someone who’s organized, quick-witted, and capable of multi-tasking because managing food establishments is a high-pressure job. A good hire is someone who is neat, presentable, has excellent communication skills, and is friendly and tactful to customers. The customer is always right so you need someone who can attend to complaints well and who could get through sticky situations with them effortlessly. Since the manager would be dealing with the rest of the staff, he/she should have a natural knack for leadership and a high level of professionalism. Not the least important is his/her good health and stamina because a typical day in a restaurant is physically demanding.

Ideally, you should hire someone with experience working in a restaurant. Most restaurant managers are paid $28,000 to $40,000 annually and depending your budget, you may want to hire someone with formal training – preferably with a bachelor’s degree in restaurant or hospitality management. Perform background checks before finally hiring your selected manager. You should be able to trust that person not only with business decisions but also with handling your restaurant’s revolving cash. Yes, it’s true that you can always implement controls but ultimately, you should be able to trust your manager with all your heart.

Who you hire as your restaurant’s manager can either make or break your business. Put a lot of effort into it since you’ll be the one to reap its benefits in the future anyway. Remember that while you can’t do everything, you sure can hire someone good to do almost everything for you.