Restaurant Management and Operations

Occasionally, a faculty colleague from another discipline (usually arts and sciences) says that he or she is thinking of opening up a restaurant and do I have any advice. My reply is: “Let me bring a few of my friends over to your house for dinner for the next month, and then after that we’ll talk about it.” So far, no takers. Joking apart, doing all it takes to prepare 100 meals or more night in and night out is very different from having a few friends over for dinner because, for one thing, there are multiple choices on the menu.

Would-be restaurant operators may have already worked in their family’s restaurant, perhaps starting at an early age. Hundreds of thousands of aspiring restaurant operators have tasted the restaurant business as employees of quick- service restaurants. For others, their first food business experience was in one of the 740 cooking school programs offered in vocational school or community college programs or at cooking institutes. Yet the industry still does not have nearly enough employees, and the turnover rate is high. The tens of thousands of young people who work in restaurants know that, but also welcome the experience and enjoy working with other young people who never consider the job as a career. One message comes through loud and clear: The restaurant business is highly competitive and requires inordinate energy, the ability to work long hours, and the willingness to accept a low salary. According to the National Restaurant
Association, the restaurant industry is expected to add 1.8 million jobs by 2019, for total employment of 14.4 million in 2019.

Starting from Scratch

The cost of attending culinary training programs varies from none, at the many public high school programs offered around the country, to the $29,950 charged by New York City’s French Culinary Institute for a six-month course (this includes uniforms, tools, and books). The Culinary Institute of America offers a two-year associate degree program at approximately $14,700 for fresh-man/sophomore and $13,800 for junior/senior years; uniforms, tools, and books are extra.

A number of strong apprenticeship programs are offered by the American Culinary Federation and local community colleges, as well as by area chefs in restaurants, hotels, and clubs.
Following the European tradition, students who wish to become known as master chefs often seek jobs at the name restaurants in big cities, such as New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Orlando, Las Vegas, Houston, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Many go abroad for the same reason, building their skills and rounding out personal resumes.