I absolutely hate digital checklists for restaurants.
Here's why.
Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here – author, speaker, chef, restaurateur,
founder of TheRestaurantBoss.com,
ScaleMyRestaurant.com,
and ClickBacon.com.
Now, I really, really, really hate digital checklist.
I think they suck for restaurants
and there's a couple of reasons why and we're going explain those in a second.
But I quickly want to show you a picture of one of the best-run brands
that I've ever eaten at. I eat at this restaurant all the time. I grew up on it.
It's called In-N-Out. And they are a big corporation.
They have about 350-370 locations depending on when you are watching this,
and they still use paper checklist.
Another one of my favorite restaurants is called Rudy's Country Store & BBQ
here in Central Texas.
Every time I walk in, I see their managers
walking around with clipboards using paper checklist.
Now the technology for digital checklist is phenomenal
and if you choose to go that route,
there are some brands out there that do a great, great job.
And I'd be happy to recommend a few to you, but in general,
I don't like digital checklist.
And the reason I don't like digital checklist is first and foremost,
the path of least resistance. Your staff is already
opposed to checklist.
Unless you've been watching my videos for a couple of years and unless you do everything I teac
you how to do, there's a really good chance your staff does not want to follow checklist.
Now today is not about should you be using checklist or not,
or how to get your staff to follow them, but it's just about the fact that your staff
wants as little accountability, they don't want to be documented
they don't like checklist.
And now when we're making it digital and providing even more accountability
which we're going to talk about here in a second,
I don't like the accountability that checklist provide,
but when we start doing that, your staff gets even more nervous and more afraid
and they don't really embrace it. It's also the path of least resistance
from a standpoint of, it's just so easy to pick up a
piece of paper and check stuff off as you go.
Everyone's got a pen on them, everyone knows how to check things off.
When we start getting tablets involved, things change dramatically.
So for me, the first step is just the path of least resistance.
Most of you still write your to-do lists every day on a piece of paper.
Most of you are still keep taking notes when you're at seminars or on the phone or
on a piece of paper.
It's just easier sometimes.
Second reason I don't like digital checklist -
you need a tablet for every single station,
because if you're executing checklist properly,
you should not have a back of the house checklist or
a front of the house or opening checklist at five different stations are
supposed to use, you're supposed to have a checklist for every single station.
Usually, one person per station. So, a checklist for Grill,
checklist for Fryer, checklist for pantry, checklist for sauté,
checklist for expo,
checklist for cashier 1, checklist for cashier 2, server 1, server 2, host.
So now, we're talking about 5-10-15
tablets in your restaurant.
Do you really want to invest in that much technology?
So that a lot of times what we do is, we put one tablet on the front, one in the back
or we ask them to use their own phones.
Guys, you're trying to get your staff off of their phones
and now you're asking them to use their personal phones. So for the second reason.
I really hate and think that digital check
lists sucks is because of the amount of tablets you need.
The third reason is, do you really want your staff
walking around a restaurant with tablets?
Greasy hands, oily fingers, water everywhere, hot sharp;
it's a mess, it's not conducive to digital tablets.
So after you go ahead and spend all this money on 10-
15 digital tablets, do you really want your staff
walking around and getting those things dirty and dropping them?
Another reason, I think the fourth here is that they are less likely to complete…
I'm sorry! They're less likely to complete their digital checklist on time.
What I mean by that is whenever I audit a restaurant,
go out to a restaurant and audit their systems and they're using digital checklist,
one of the things I find is,
someone will wait until it's time to open their station
like at 11 o'clock when they're ready for lunch,
then they'll pull up on the tablet,
their opening checklist and they'll check it all off.
That doesn't do anyone any good.
The whole point of a checklist is to operate in real-time.
When I used to come in as the chef in the restaurant,
if I got there at 9 o'clock or 9:15 in the morning,
first thing I did is walk to each station and pick up their clipboard with
their checklist on it and I could see in real-time
where are they at? Are they on pace? Are they behind?
Are they moving quick enough? Are they moving too slow?
Are they not going to get all their work done? Are they ahead and can help someone else?
But if we wait in our office until 11 o'clock
and then a reminder comes up on our phone that says oh, by the way,
Grill hasn't finished their checklist, well, what good does it do you?
There are customers walking in the front door,
that's not the information I need now. That's the information I need two hours ago.
So to me, it's about real-time and you just don't get that
real-time effectiveness with digital.
A couple more quick points here -
I think it's harder to keep your checklist updated when they're digital, it's more intimidating.
There's more work to do. Some people will argue that that's just my personal
opinion, and then I think we're on number six here, I'm not even sure, but I think
the last reason is accountability like I talked about before.
I don't like the type of accountability that a digital checklist provides.
I don't like the type of accountability where it's about getting someone in trouble,
where it's about you to do this by a certain time
and now I'd be notified and now I'm going to call your manager
or call you and have them make sure you do it.
What I would prefer is having checklist be issued as a
tool to help you get your job done.
Here's a list I put together some of the things that you need to make sure that your
fryer station is always set up and always perfect for service.
This is really going to help you get set up. This is going to make sure you don't forget anything.
This is going to make sure that we have a successful shift,
isn't that what you want? Your staff wants to have a smooth shift,
they want to be prepared, they want to have a successful shift.
You may think they don't, but trust me, they do.
And when we start making it about a time and accountability
and all this other stuff, they freak out. I don't blame them.
What I would prefer is, here's a little tool. Here's a non-intimidating
piece of paper little tool
that you can use to help you get set up that I can just check in on you and see how you're doing.
And at the end of the week, we're going to crumble them up and throw them out because we don't need to keep on.
This isn't about accountability for six weeks ago to fire someone,
this is about - are you ready for service now?
Is your station set up and are you ready for service now?
Which brings up two reasons why I do like Digital checklist.
This isn't just going to be harping on digital checklists are terrible.
I joked earlier. I said they suck; they actually don't suck.
They're great. I just don't like to use them, except for two cases.
The first is legal compliance, temperature logs.
For me, I used to use paper checklists for temperature
logs and I would keep them on record for six months in case anything ever happens,
but that's a little harder for some people to do.
So maybe for you, now that they have Bluetooth thermometers
and they incorporate into certain software's,
maybe your temperature logs, your twice a day, your three times a day temperature logs
should be done digitally by a manager, records are capped, etc.
Another thing is for maintenance purposes. There's a lot of great maintenance programs out there,
not necessarily checklist partners with maintenance programs where you can put bar codes on equipment.
Every time someone services it, you can scan it, you can fill in service records.
If certain pieces of equipment need to be serviced at certain intervals
once every three months or once every six months, reminders can pop up.
You can either service them themselves and then scan that barcode,
or you can bring someone out to service them,
but those are the two major exceptions to the rule.
Whenever again, when I audit restaurants.
I just did this about a month ago with a local restaurant here in town,
we beat them up. We got rid of their digital checklist,
they started using paper, they're so much happier.
They fought me and fought me and fought me,
but now that they're using paper, they're happier,
but they're still using digital for temperature logs and for maintenance records.
I hope today was helpful for you. Today was a little longer video than I normally do,
but I felt this is a really important topic.
I get asked this question all the time and I hope today was really helpful for you. I hope you found it valuable
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