Most restaurant owners would agree that running a restaurant takes a lot of work. Whether you run a fine-dining restaurant or a quick-service eatery, the restaurant business involves juggling various tasks at once — and that’s impossible without a solid front-of-house team.

Your front-of-house (FOH) team is made up of the customer-facing staffers, from servers and food runners to bar backs and your host/hostess. These are the people your diners see and interact with, meaning FOH optimization significantly impacts the customer experience and your overall restaurant operations. Teamwork is essential.

The ultimate goal of any FOH setup should be to satisfy your diners, but this is about a lot more than table settings and decor. Proper front-of-house management includes employee training — for both the front- and back-of-house teams — and your overall customer service processes.

There are plenty of factors to consider for your front of house, but if you need to boost revenue, try these eight improvements to revamp your FOH.

1. Clarify Front-of-the-House Roles
Employees are 23% more likely to stay if their manager defines their role. Your restaurant staff wants to feel competent at work, but without clear responsibilities, it’s easy for the team to drop the ball.

Who is in charge of what at your restaurant during each shift? Instead of telling front-of-house staff that “everyone” needs to set tables between diners, assign that task specifically to one busser for each section.

It’s a good idea to delineate responsibilities by job title so you can ensure that FOH and back-of-house staff know what they’re doing. For example:

Your general manager is responsible for checking on guests and keeping the front and back of house (BOH) on the same page. They should communicate clearly with dining room and kitchen staff. You might also have a dedicated FOH manager and BOH manager.

Bartenders are responsible for making drinks and serving food to bar patrons.

Head waiters educate new employees and keep the dining area running smoothly.

Servers take food and drink orders, provide refills, and process payments. They should ensure water glasses are full and customers are happy.

Hosts greet and seat diners and give menus to customers on their arrival. They also answer phones and take bookings.

Sommeliers educate diners and upsell bottles of wine. They may also be responsible for drawing up the wine list.

Bussers clean tables and place silverware.

By clarifying roles for your FOH staff, you’re adding accountability that makes it much harder to point fingers. Plus, it ensures that no essential tasks fall through the cracks, giving customers a better dining experience overall.

2. Make Waiting Enjoyable
Diners visiting busy or successful restaurants often have to wait for a table. As a restaurant owner or manager, you’ll want to aim to reduce wait times — but that’s not always possible. If you have a dinner rush and customers have to hang around until a table is available, it’s worth making the downtime enjoyable to improve the dining experience.

Make it as comfortable as possible for diners to wait. That might mean:

Making seats available at the bar

Offering TV, music, or even a game room for kids

Building a shaded patio area or outdoor seating

Using an SMS waitlist so diners can peruse nearby shops while they wait

3. Regularly Train Front-of-House Staff Members
Training front-of-house workers regularly means you can give diners the best experience possible and improve worker satisfaction. Studies show that 70% of restaurant employees want hands-on training from their front-of-house managers. By providing training sessions, you’ll have happier employees who are more likely to stay in their positions longer.

If possible, meet with front-of-house staff before every shift. This goes for new staff as well as tenured employees. Regular gatherings allow you to answer questions, inform wait staff of menu changes, and have line cooks or sous chefs explain the daily specials.

By meeting with your front-of-house team regularly, you can coach them on the best ways to serve diners and boost sales in the process.

Aside from these regular meetings, it’s a good idea to do all-hands training, too. Schedule paid weekly or monthly training with your front-of-house staff. Educate them on how the back of the house works, how to handle unruly customers, and when to escalate issues to the restaurant manager.

The purpose of training is to equip front-of-house employees with the knowledge they need to navigate serving your unique dishes and handle the human side of the business. It might be a little more work upfront, but employee training is vital when optimizing your front of house.

4. Track FOH metrics
Another easy way to improve your front of house is by tracking various metrics and data points. By keeping an eye on your sales data, for example, you can get a clearer idea of which dishes are performing well and which need to be reworked by your kitchen team.

A comprehensive point-of-sale (POS) system can help with this. You can use it to process cash or cashless payments. The software automatically tracks your data and lets you see how dishes perform.

Sound POS systems can also let you see the following:

Sales by employee

Labor versus sales costs

Discounts and comps

Taxes

Regularly check over this data to find out how your FOH staffers are performing and what additional training you might need to provide. Instead of trying new restaurant initiatives and hoping they work, you can make data-driven decisions that can help you boost profits more easily.

5. Encourage Online Reservations
If you’re trying to optimize your restaurant’s front of house, taking tasks off your staff’s plate is a good idea. One way of doing this is by taking online or telephone reservations.

While you can still accept walk-ins, reservations make it much easier to plan your staffing needs and food orders ahead of time. Some POS systems can automate this, meaning your host or FOH staff don’t need to spend as much time finding a spot for your diners.

For example, if you already use Square as your POS system, you can easily set up online reservations with Square Appointments.

6. Offer Contactless Ordering Options
Implementing contactless ordering can also benefit your FOH team. Online ordering or self-service kiosks are a great way to give diners more choices and free up your FOH staffers to work in other areas of the restaurant. Contactless ordering options also help your restaurant run with fewer front-of-house team members when you’re short-staffed.

It’s easy to set up a kiosk in your restaurant using a tablet, Square Stand Mount, and kiosk software from KioskBuddy. Plus, kiosks are a cost-effective solution for your business.

7. Lay Out Your Dining Room Carefully
It might sound like a good idea to fit as many tables as possible into your restaurant, but diners rarely enjoy being crammed together like sardines. Tables are just one part of the equation. Restaurants have to fit walking space to the restrooms, waiting areas, and server stations into their layout, too.

Communicate with your front-of-house staff to see if they have suggestions about your restaurant layout. If it’s too cluttered, it could be a safety hazard for bussers balancing trays of hot food. Speaking with them lets you get their input before you make any significant changes.

8. Visit as a Diner
It’s easy to overlook problems in your restaurant if you don’t frequently dine there. Be sure to eat in your own restaurant so you can spot points of friction in the guest experience.

Ask staff to treat you like a regular customer. You might not get a 100% unbiased experience, but chances are good that you’ll see what your restaurant is doing well and where you can improve.

Source kioskbuddy.app