Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
and founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com.
Today, we're going to talk about checklist, prep lists,
the differences between them, why they're so important in your restaurant, and most of all,
how they can save you money and how they can increase
the quality and consistency in your restaurant
and create a much less stressful environment for you as the owner
or operator or general manager of a restaurant.
Okay, so let's get right into this.
So, checklist are a place for you to list
all of the items that need to be on a particular station for a particular period of service.
They can be used for bar, they could be used for
server stations in the kitchen,
anywhere you need in your restaurant, you should have checklists.
And then a prep list is the things that need to get done on that day now.
I've got a standard system for both. I'm going to share them with you right now.
I'm going to bring up on the screen the checklist that I like to use.
So as you can see on this particular checklist, it's got obviously the name.
Well, I blanked out for the name of the restaurant,
what station it's for, and what period of time.
So, this one is a breakfast checklist, but you should have checklist for every station.
AM sauté, PM sauté, AM grill, PM grill, etc., etc.,
whatever works for your restaurant.
The day, the date,
and then I listed in order. If you notice I label refrigerators, I label every door,
every cabinet, every refrigerator in a restaurant,
and then they coincide with what's on this prep list.
So then you list all the ingredients, like if you open up drawer one, you'll see
ham diced, ham sliced, sausage diced, etc.
And then as you move down, there's the bread that needs to be up on the countertop.
There's what's in drawer two, there's what goes on the countertop.
this is just one page of what is actually a three-page checklist
for this particular restaurant for their breakfast station.
And then what I want you to do is as your cooks come in,
the first thing they do is they pull out this checklist and they go through it.
If they don't need the item,
I want a straight line
through the blank box for the item in the day, a straight line. And you can see it on the screen.
If they need the item, I want a checkmark
and when they've completed the task, when they have it on their station after they've prepped it,
I want to line through the check mark going the other way to create an X.
The reason I do this is I don't ever like to skip spaces,
so when you come in and check up on your cooks,
you can instantly got it and know how much work they have to do
and know that they did a complete job. When they skip spaces,
it sometimes questions whether they're actually doing it or they're not doing it.
It just makes this a foolproof system.
Now, I'm bringing up on the screen here an example of a prep list
that I fill out…or that you should have your cooks…
I'm sorry, fill out yourself and train them to do it this way.
So if you notice at the top, it says items I need before service
and then it says, items I need today and then, it says
things I'd like to do.
And what I want you to do is, as they're going through the checklist,
I want this prep list, this thin sheet of paper
on the right side of their clipboard. The checklist is on a clipboard.
This is on the other side and I want them to fill out
as they go through. Oh, I'm missing diced ham, I need it before service.
Oh, I'm low on diced onions, but I've got enough for today
but I need to do diced onions today.
I've got a lot of egg problems… definitely enough to get through today,
probably enough for tomorrow, but if I have time I'm going to
get way ahead on it because we have a busy brunch coming up.
So, that goes on the third list, which is the things that
I'd like to get done today.
And the reason I like to provide this type of a three-part
checklist is so,
well let me give you some psychology here.
It takes the average human being 20 minutes to shift from one task
to another task.
So when your cooks are busy cooking,
it takes them 15 20 minutes to even think about
starting to do prep and that's why you probably notice your cooks running around
and walking around a lot, but not getting a lot done because they're not ready,
they're not thinking ahead of time of what needs to get done.
When you train them to set up this kind of prep list or if you work with them and set up
this prep list for them which is even better,
then the second those tickets stop coming in, the second their board is blank,
they just look at this list, they know exactly what they need to do.
They can go into the walk-in, if they need diced tomato and diced ham,
they don't need to go and get tomatoes, come up and dice them.
They can get the ham and the tomatoes, come up to their stations.
So, if the tickets come out and they can be doing three, four, five things
all at the same time waiting for tickets to come in.
You're going to notice a huge improvement in your efficiency,
your labor costs are going to drop.
Most of all, your customer complaints are going to go down because you're going to have
everything you need on your station when you need it on your station.
And this is just one more system for you as a manager manage.
You don't actually have to do this; your cooks do this.
You just have to come in before service… oh, sorry…
right when your cooks come in, make sure they're doing it and then maybe a half-hour before service.
Get a judge on how far along the list they're going,
so you know if you need to reallocate some resources
to make sure that everything is ready to go and up to your standards
when service comes around.
This has been Ryan Gromfin with The Restaurant Boss saying thank you so much.
Wherever you're watching this video, I'm honored that you took the time to watch it.
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Thanks again and have a wonderful day.