Pocket Trainer

Restaurant Standard Operating Procedures

Enhancing Restaurant Standard Operating Procedures with Pocket Trainer

It happens all the time, everywhere.

Chances are, you might wonder what we are talking about.

Well, we are talking about our choice to not visit (or revisit) a restaurant because of its unsatisfactory services or the bad reviews. Have you ever decided against visiting a restaurant, particularly because of the poor standards of restaurant services?

As astounding as it sounds, the fact of the fact is that with the technologies leading us towards fastidiousness, over 80% of the people check online reviews about your business before visiting. And when we say business, we mean every business including the F&B establishments. So, if you own a restaurant, food court, or a hotel, you might want to read this. 

The Pocket Trainer App 

From the looks of it, it might seem that innovative dishes made using quality ingredients sourced from the best places alongside the well-trained staff are all that you need to run a restaurant successfully. But this might be more of a myth than reality.

Because the bad reviews about your F&B business count just as much. You need to work on and avoid poor-quality dishes, appalling customer services, and disordered dining areas. Because the bad reviews do not happen on their own.

There has to be something lacking on your side as a restaurant owner, manager, or hotelier to invite negative reviews on your tab. It could be a result of multiple missteps in your restaurant standard operating procedures too. 

And you might not know but to prevent such missteps, you do not need to spend fortunes. Resorting to not-so-glamorous but simple methods could be a lot more helpful. If you are seeking an all-in-one solution to improve your SOPs in general, get in touch with the Pocket Trainer team. Read on to know why Pocket Trainer is your ally in need. 

Who Are We?

Pocket Trainer is a pioneer of digital communication. Our aim is to help F&B outlets, restaurants, and hotels with training, communication, and task management on millennials’ standard. Pocket Trainer was designed to address the everyday pain points of managers within the Food and Beverage industry, allowing them to create, curate and share up-to-date information on food, beverage, service standards, and SOPs.

Why should you waste time on the same pain points every day when from the palm of your hand you and your employees can stay connected, exchange information, and monitor performance simply? Rest assured, our platform is user-friendly and can be efficiently managed via mobile phones.

Our Aim

Our vision and mission centers around your needs. A platform which can be your choice for inhouse training solutions—keeping you connected to your employees, saving you time, and increasing your sales, through our user-friendly interface, with the latest technology. Helping you keep things simple.

Problems our users face:

Keeping Up with the Constant Changes

Change is the one thing constant within the food and beverage industry. Changes in recipes, adjustments, and changes to training standards and information, and the ever-changing menu items and personnel. Keeping up with all of these changes effectively and efficiently can be costly and time consuming.

Lack of time, skills, and resources to train employees in-house

Within the hospitality industry, managers cannot afford to be sitting in an office, wasting away on tasks such as graphic design, content creation and archaic methods of keeping information. Nor did they sign up for this.

Time is money

Based on published research, the average time it takes for a single new hire to be fully trained and up and running is 8-26weeks. Therefore, the initial training time of a new employee costs more than their allocated overhead costs, which means your restaurant is losing money during this period.

Restaurant standard operating procedures & your F&B establishment!

For as long as the foundation of the F&B industry, we’ve known about the significance of serving dishes that are just as much about the mouth-watering taste as the looks. And if you practice the same belief, you aren’t wrong. But what if we say that you aren’t entirely right, either?

It might come as a surprise but the standard operating procedures for restaurants and loyal customer base go hand-in-hand. If you are aiming to establish a customer base that would be paving way for lots of repeated business, you need to take your restaurant’s SOPs seriously. 

In an F&B business, revisits matter as much as the new customers. So, before we get ahead and discuss the ways to optimize SOPs in restaurant service, let’s take a look at why restaurant standard operating procedures are crucial for your establishments. 

The restaurateurs are spending time and fortune to create aesthetic and visually appealing premises/backdrops, acquire professionally trained staff (servers, cooks, and ground staff), and develop mouth-watering dishes. 

Little do they miss is the proper O&M management and well-structured SOPs!

The key to running a restaurant business successfully is to follow standard operating procedures. While the purpose of following the SOPs of restaurant services is to provide consistent and positive dining and take-out services, you need to be mindful of both documenting and following the SOPs in your restaurants. 

Why Document the restaurant standard operating procedures? 

The restaurant standard operating procedures (better known as the SOPs) refer to the document that lists rules, norms, and standards that delineate how the tasks are to be done within an establishment. In a food and beverage business, the well-structured SOPs ensure that both front-of-house and back-of-house workers know about their job roles. They guarantee that the staff knows how to complete the task at hand safely, efficiently, and professionally. 

Now imagine the right-hand manager of your establishment decides to quit. He is the one responsible for training your employees from time to time while managing and supervising the:

  • Restaurant standards and operation, from preparing the restaurant to serving guests
  • Preparation of kitchen and back-of-house department
  • Food deliveries
  • Food preparation
  • Just as everything else

What would you do to keep the things running as smoothly as before without the documented SOPs for a restaurant? 

Probably, hire a new manager!

But the concern is, will the new manager be as familiar with your restaurant’s standard operating procedures? Will he be as much aware of how things should be done at your establishment as the previous manager?

That’s where the documentation and sharing of SOPs of your restaurant comes to your aid. Let’s discuss the benefits of documenting the standard operating procedures for restaurants.  

Benefits of (Documenting and sharing) Standard Operating Procedures for Restaurants

Exploring the benefits of documenting and following the SOPs in your establishment might help you realize where you lag. Read on to know more. 

  • Documenting and following the standard operating procedure facilitates the self-audit process. It eases the alignment with the local food and health laws while complying with the regulatory requirements. It covers:
  • Kitchen Standard: mise en place, hygiene, food safety, health and safety, cooking methods, temperature checklists, cleaning procedures, equipment handling, allergy procedure
  • Food preparation and table service
  • Food delivery service
  • Food and Beverage SOPs in detail
  • Restaurant standards for cleanliness, opening and closing duties, department standards
  • Customer services, etiquette, sales techniques, complaint handling 
  • Well-structured SOPs cover employee training programs and make them easier, more accessible, and convenient.
  • Real-time communication channels have become the need of the hour. Gone are the days when the staff would walk distances across the dining area and kitchen to communicate. You can count on training, communication and task-management applications for all your needs because pen-and-paper is too boring (and outdated, of course). An ideal choice could be Pocket Trainer. 

Pocket Trainer is a training, communication, and task management platform where management can share information fast and easy from mobile, without any computer skills required.

  • Irrespective of how big your business is, your concern should be to deliver the best, always. Enforcing well-thought, thoroughly documented and shared SOPs will assist in positive predictability. It ensures repeat business.  
  • When documented, the SOPs can be the reminders of the recurring operation responsibilities and duties. These could be a standard ensuring that the duties are fulfilled in the same manner every time. The recurring operational responsibilities can include anything from: 
  • Ordering supplies
  • Scheduling preventive maintenance
  • Conducting safety audits, etc.

It reminds your staff to practice cleanliness and maintain personal hygiene

Key SOPs

When you, as a restaurant owner or manager prepare the SOPs for your establishment, be mindful to document well-structured SOPs that are readable and can be understood by anyone easily. It is recommended to document the instructions in a stepwise manner. The following are the restaurant SOP procedures that you should not miss. 

  • Facility and Equipment SOPs – Covers the guideline to properly handle the restaurant’s physical assets.
  • Staff and Personal Hygiene SOPs – Ensures that the staff in the business practice good personal hygiene and follows food safety.
  • Food Flow SOPs – Includes food preparation and handling, serving standards, dish announcement with food presentation, order-taking and serving, food allergy knowledge, basic food and hygiene, storage, take-out & delivery services, purchasing, receiving, recycling, and composting of food waste.
  • Communication SOPs – Nothing would work just fine without a smooth dialogue between the management, staff, and customers. So, communication SOPs are equally important. They include:
  • Customer service standards
  • Greetings offered
  • Billing and payment procedure
  • Staff orientation and trainings
  • Response to complaints and reports

How Pocket Trainer Can help Your Business?

Pocket Trainer is lots more than just an ordinary application documenting the precious SOPs of your restaurant. It does so much to ease out the day-to-day operational troubles faced by the employees within the F&B industry. Here’s what Pocket Trainer does:

  • Save time for what matters; your staff, guests and yourself

The aim of Pocket Trainer is to provide Food and Beverage managers of all levels the support they deserve. Equipping them with everything they need for their teams daily training and information needs. Focus on what matters, by letting our app streamline all of the information you need.

  • Save Staff Training and Operational Cost

By enabling you to share real-time data in a fast, easy, and user-friendly interface, Pocket Trainer accelerates all your daily communication needs from onboarding processes to daily trainings and task management. It significantly reduces the staff training cost and increases sales. 

  • Streamline all the Information at One Place

Gone are the days when an F&B manager had to struggle to gather all the information in one place and train their subordinates. Pocket Trainer shall help and equip managers with every support they deserve. 

@ Pocket Trainer, you can streamline all the information and conduct staff training sessions easily, follow up on attendances, and completed tasks.

  • We are keeping things simple

We give you the freedom to manage all your daily errands from your mobile within seconds, without any computer skills required.

  • Using technology as Your Ally

Moving beyond older methods, and benefiting from the latest technology to streamline all communication standards will help you and your team leap forward towards better team communication, connection, and efficiency, a greater return on investments and human resources, as well as an organic improvement of your restaurant’s image.

Our Core Modules

The easy-to-navigate features of Pocket Trainer ensure that everyone in the company can use it efficiently. Various modules stand at your resort to assist you and your staff members. You can document the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of your establishment, upload and share the required information with relevant departments. Explore our core modules:

  • Food and Beverage Guide

Allow for all your detailed food, cocktail and wine descriptions to be shared with your entire staff in real time!

  • Calendar

With Pocket Trainer, you can easily consolidate any and all training events coming up, tasks and duties to be assigned. Describe and share visibility with anyone of your staff members.

  • News

Be aware of the upcoming and recent inhouse news—whether a colleague celebrating a working anniversary, upcoming appraisals, birthdays and/or upcoming staff events.

  • Quizzes 

Evaluate how each employee of your team performs via interactive quizzes. Keep your new and current staff feeling confident by allowing them to take quizzes and complete knowledge checks on Pocket Trainer. A well-trained team is priceless. Evaluate and keep your team sharp.

  • Manager Dashboard

Monitor employee performance, scores, attendance reports, task completions from the palm of your hand.

  • In-House Training Materials

Share your SOP’s, standards and work techniques, wasting no paper. With a click of a button, you can upload any training document, moreover you can set who can access it. Need help with creation of training materials? Pocket Trainer here we come! Our designated team can help you with that also.

  • Video Store

Share not just the texts, notes, and SOPs but also the videos relevant to your business with your entire team. 

There’s more to discover!

Get in touch to find out more at talktous@pockettrainer.app