Do you own a restaurant or oversee a restaurant group that involves a lot of employees, equipment, and maintenance daily?
You may have found yourself wondering, What is the key to a smoothly running operation?
There are many factors to consider, but a straightforward solution for improving daily operations is to use a printed restaurant logbook.
Find out everything you need to know about the restaurant managers’ logbook in this article!
What Does Using a Restaurant Managers’ Logbook Accomplish?
1. Provides a Visual Record
Logbooks provide a visual record of operations successes and failures. They can help your manager make sure maintenance and personnel issues are appropriately addressed. Logbooks are an excellent way to monitor performance for multi-restaurant chains. Regional managers can quickly assess how well franchise or company standards are being adhered to.
2. Ensures Issues are Addressed Right
Logbooks give the management a way to make sure customer issues are adequately addressed. At the end of the day, your patrons are your business, and you want to make sure they are happy and come back.
3. Monitors Trends
Logbooks are a great way to monitor trends in the business, tracking factors that are important to the restaurant’s success.
The weather, day of the week and time of day make a big difference in how a restaurant performs. In addition, the manager can track trends with employees to make sure the restaurant is staffed correctly, and all team members perform well.
4. Provides an Organized Place for Contacts, Procedures, and Food Safety
Logbooks provide one centralized place to list vendors, maintenance suppliers, and emergency contacts. Emergency procedures can also be listed there.
Logbooks are also a great place to have a list of items that must be checked regularly. They help management be sure everyone is prepared for the daily rush! They may even help create a standard procedure for restaurant technology, allowing everyone to be on the same page.
Moreover, restaurant logbooks are vital in preparing and serving food safely. The manager can track food safety factors like cleanliness and temperature in food production areas.
Basic Structure of a Printed Logbook
Although there are probably hundreds of ways to design a printed restaurant managers’ logbook, the basics are relatively straightforward. Here’s how to organize your book:
- The logbook should cover a specific time. For example, the book may cover the next month, quarter, or year. Generally speaking, though, a quarter is a reasonable period so that the book will not be too massive, nor is it too expensive to replace if it’s lost.
There should then be a sheet or two to cover each day with space for managers to make notes related to maintenance issues, personnel challenges, customer complaints, and safety issues. Be sure to provide specific spaces for things that are important for business success.
- Index tabs or other dividers are a good idea to separate smaller periods, such as a week or a month. This will help keep the book organized and make the logbook easier to use.
- You may want an area where vendors, maintenance call numbers, or other important information are printed. It is best to have this information either at the front or the back of the book.
- Attractive covers make the book easy to spot and harder to lose. You may even want to change the covers periodically when the book is updated.
Above all else, make sure the logbook is used. Logbooks are worthless if they sit under a pile of paper or are discarded in the trash. Keep the book out in the open where employees can easily locate and reference when needed.
Additionally, it’s always a good idea to get input from managers on how to make the logbook more effective.
Get High-Quality Logbooks at the Best Price with The Print Authority!
If you are looking for an easy way to get started with logbooks, the experts at The Print Authority can help. We print thousands of logbooks each year and distribute them to locations nationwide. Send us an email or give us a call!
