Opening and closing procedures to save labor costs

As restaurant operators look to tighten labor costs, they are adjusting opening and closing procedures. While pizzeria owners and efficiency experts agree there are no shortcuts for certain tasks related to cleaning and food safety, some items on the To Do list can be checked off during other times of the day, or the next day. The key is to figure out how many people are needed to perform certain functions, and to set goals for using the time efficiently.

Take a close look at the specific tasks the staff perform before service begins and after the last pie goes out. “The most important thing is understanding how much time it really takes to open and close,” says Juan Pablo Lopez, consulting director for Profitality. When the Miami, Florida-based industrial engineering consulting service performs operational studies with its clients, the experts collect data on how many hours and how many crew members it takes to do every activity in the restaurant, from making pizza to cleaning to opening and closing.

The equipment plays a role in the time it takes to perform tasks. The morning crew typically turns on the oven, Lopez says, and some deck ovens can take up to two hours to reach the proper temperature. For safety, at least two people work together, so use that time to do as much prep work as possible. The rest of the work can be done later, after the lunch rush.

One task that can be postponed is ingredient prep. “If you need to slice and pan tomatoes, all those things happen before the guests show up, but it doesn’t have to happen that morning,” Lopez says. “You can do it at two p.m., and the tomatoes could be used the next morning.”

At Mattenga’s Pizza, with six locations in the San Antonio, Texas area, the evening crew had a long list of closing tasks. That changed when workers started calling in sick, and a checklist designed for multiple people had to be completed by one person. So the closing procedures were reduced to five or six important tasks, and everything else scheduled for various times the next day. “I am more pro keeping the team productive the whole shift and not dumping it all on the evening shift,” says co-founder Hengam Stanfield. “We always want to even out the load.”

Otherwise, Stanfield says, workers try to avoid being scheduled for busy night shifts. By limiting the closing tasks to sweeping, restocking the line and other important tasks, workers can be out in an hour. If there are five workers, the manager will release one or two early. “We’ll say, ‘Why don’t you help out the closing team and put two loads of dishes in the dishwasher and then I’m sending you home,’” she says. “Everybody wants to help out.”

Mattenga’s has standards and expectations for each task, and team members are trained on these. Stanfield keeps track of labor costs through the restaurants’ scheduling software, and messages managers if they are running up high labor costs and suggests they send someone home. During Monday meetings, managers review all the clock in/clock out times and discuss what to do when a location takes an hour and half instead of an hour to close.

Technology can help streamline the opening and closing procedures. At Nina + Rafi in Atlanta, workers download an app, Jolt Checklist, onto their phones, and management puts the opening and closing checklist on the app. “Employees will take pictures, check off or give typed responses to checklists that are programmed to only be live during certain times of the day,” says Jeremy Gatto, director of operations at Nina + Rafi. “This not only keeps them on task but allows us to run restaurants remotely as e-mails of completed checklists get sent to my phone.”

Also, Gatto says, the schedule staggers employees’ in and out times, and kitchen employees are cross trained on all tasks so everyone can help when needed.

Some restaurants have shortened their workday, and that helps alleviate the labor shortages. Bird Pizzeria in Charlotte, N.C. is open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and stops serving pizza when the kitchen runs out of dough. “We started that way because we didn’t have any employees,” says Nkem Thompson, who opened the eatery with her husband Kerrel in December 2021. “We can’t be here all day. We just sort of did what we could do.”

The short days work well for the five-member crew, which includes the owners. “We are being mindful of what is going to work to create the best work environment for staff,” Thompson says. “We make pizza, but we are in the business of managing people. We can’t do anything if the staff doesn’t feel well or their knees hurt.”

The first thing they do in the morning is make boxes, and only a few of those because the small kitchen has limited space. The last thing they do at closing is mop the floor. Tuesdays and Thursdays are dough making days. “Every week is the same,” Thompson says.

In pizzerias where the owners are not working alongside the crew, management must communicate the opening and closing procedures. Videos and other online tools can help, especially since workers have varying schedules. “People have one or two jobs, they’re going to school, and they’re driving for Uber at the same time,” says William H. Bender, whose W.H. Bender & Associates consultancy is based in San Jose, California. “Have something cloud based or digital based so they can watch at one o’clock in the morning.”

In-person meetings are also helpful. “Have a pre-shift briefing five to 10 minutes before the shift to psyche up the team,” Bender says. “Talk about what’s going on that day, whether you have some big orders, and give one on one time.” The goal is for the whole restaurant to be ready 10 minutes before the place opens.

At the end of the day, do a final walkthrough to verify everything is clean and food is safely stored. “You want to leave a restaurant the way you want to find it when you come in the morning,” Bender says, “not a jumbled mess.”

Nora Caley is a freelance writer who covers small business, finance and lifestyle topics.

The post Pizzeria Owners can Save Labor Costs by Revamping Opening and Closing Checklists appeared first on Pizza Today.

Preventing Pest Problems in your Restaurant

When it comes to pest control in your pizzeria, your best offense is a good defense.

Think prevention. It’s much easier to avert an infestation than to get rid of one.

Prevent insects and rodents from getting into your restaurant, and deprive them of the food, shelter and warmth they need to survive and reproduce.

According to Jim Fredericks, chief entomologist and vice president of public affairs at the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), “a single female cockroach is capable of producing 400 eggs in her lifetime, and each egg will hatch and grow into a reproducing adult in as little as 90 days, so populations can really explode.”

“Under ideal conditions, house flies can develop from egg to adult in as little as a week,” says Patricia Hottel, board certified entomologist and technical manager at Rentokil Terminix.

Plus, once you’ve got an infestation it puts your business at risk. Customers have very low tolerance for seeing rodents or bugs where they eat. According to the NPMA, 59 percent of customers say that they won’t return to an establishment where they saw a pest on the premises.

We talked to some experts in the field about how to discourage unwelcome critters from coming into your restaurant and setting up housekeeping.

Sanitation

“My first tip is having a specific sanitation plan for who does what,” says Ian Williams, entomologist and technical services manager at Orkin. “Make sure that the dishes are done at the end of the night and instead of sitting in a sink overnight. Make sure that the floors are cleaned regularly, that there’s product rotation for stored ingredients. Sanitation by itself is a huge step in proactively and reactively dealing with pest problems.”

Matt Lentine, a commercial branch manager at Truly Nolen, agrees. “If you keep a clean establishment, even when pests make it into the building, it’s easier to eliminate them. Pests are all looking for harbor, food and water, and especially at a pizzeria, you’re not going to be able to take their harbor away entirely because of all the pizza boxes, but you can definitely control the food and water portion of it.”

Roaches in particular “are looking for moisture. So dripping pipes, or not wiping down a dish area well or leaving water in it overnight, that encourages them,” says Lentine. “We advise our customers to caulk or seal as many cracks and crevices as possible.” Not only do these spots offer harbor and possibly access to vermin, but they also collect materials like flour and food waste that provide food for your unwelcome animal guests.

“Deep cleaning is really important on any cracks or crevices where flour might start to build up. Those places are a feast waiting to happen for a stored grain beetle,” advises Fredericks.

“Some areas, because they are not food contact surfaces, can be forgotten and not addressed in cleaning programs,” warns Hottel. “This includes things like floor drains, beverage fountain drip trays, grease traps, suspended ceilings and dumpsters.”

Prevent Access

“Probably the one thing that’s most important is making sure that pest entry points are sealed up,” says Fredericks. “That means keeping doors closed in warmer months, and sealing any gaps, especially in older buildings.” He points out that a mouse can squeeze through a quarter-inch gap under a door, which is about the width of a pencil. If you’ve got gaps under the doors, install floor sweeps to close them up. Mice can also slip through a hole the size of a dime, which may exist around unsealed utility penetrations.

Look Out for Seasonal Trends

Know your local vermin and their seasonal habits. For example, rodents will seek shelter when the weather gets cold, and they won’t leave when it warms up. Ants march indoors during warm rainy weather. Flies tend to be a warm-weather problem, while cockroaches and flour beetles are problems year-round, according to Fredericks.

Hottel advises that “insects and related arthropods are cold-blooded and so their ability to survive and reproduce will be tied to temperature.  The time for an insect to develop from egg to adult will be faster during ideal temperatures.”

Inspect Deliveries

“Some pests are good hitch-hikers and can be carried in on ingredients and employee belongings,” such as the German cockroach, says Hottel. “Check incoming product deliveries to make sure there are no pests being delivered. Have a designated area for employees to store their personal belongings and monitor those areas for pests like cockroaches.”

Fredericks also urges operators to inspect all incoming goods for signs of insect or rodent activity. Corrugated cardboard is a favorite place for roaches to lodge. “Often you’ll just see little antenna sticking out.” In addition to looking for the actual animals, “damaged packaging is an indicator that you need to take a closer look.” Cockroach feces “might just look like little specks that are almost pasted around the edges of gaps.”

Inspect Your Premises

Keep an eagle eye out for signs of unwelcome creatures so you can address the problem before it gets out of hand. Williams suggests employing “a passive monitor like a paper-based glue board that’s placed in areas where German cockroaches, for example, are likely to travel, so you can detect them early.” This helps indicate the level of population and where the animals are coming from.

Take a close look for rodent and roach fecal matter in crevices and inside corners and around outlets and other potential access points. Drop ceilings are notorious for harboring pests. The insulation around coolers is also an attractive nesting area because the refrigeration mechanism keeps it warm and cozy.

Rotate Your Product

First in, first out is not just about keeping your ingredients fresh — it also discourages infestations. It’s extremely important to rotate your pizza boxes. Cardboard makes a very inviting roach motel and you can’t treat pizza boxes with pesticides, so don’t keep too many boxes on hand at a time and rotate through them.

Seek Professional Support

Partnering with a pest professional experienced in the restaurant industry will help you keep on top of any problems. Professional exterminators know the local vermin and their seasonal habits. They’re experienced at detecting subtle signs of bugs and rodents, and they have extensive knowledge about safe pesticide application, especially in terms of what products can be applied where, and how frequently. “In some states, it would be a violation of law for someone to apply pesticides without the proper certification and credentials,” according to Hottel.

Lentine points out that using an enzyme-based floor cleaner will help in the battle against drain flies. “The enzyme will eat away the bacteria and things that drain flies live off, and it works hand in hand with our products whereas bleach deteriorates our products rapidly.”

The pros also have sophisticated tools in their arsenal. For example, Williams explains that they can place monitors specifically for Indianmeal moths and other flour-eating moths “that have female sex attractant on them. If male moths show up, we can know about it immediately and react very quickly with a management plan already in place.”

Fredericks points out that a pro won’t “just react to an infestation, but will develop a comprehensive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program that will consist of preventative measures such as identifying potential points of entry and ways to modify the facility to discourage entry, along with monitoring and early detection for proactive instead of reactive pest control.”

You want to be proud of every nook and cranny of your restaurant, not just your amazing pizza. Stay on top of pest presence in your place, or else you risk getting negative health inspections, offending and losing customers, and actually putting the health of your guests and employees at risk.

Annelise Kelly is a Portland, Oregon-based freelance writer.

The post 7 Steps to Prevent Pests from Taking Over your Restaurant appeared first on Pizza Today.

What you need to know before your restaurant’s next health inspection

It’s coming, though few pizzerias know when.

The health inspection is a regular event on every restaurant’s calendar and while some of the nation’s restaurant operators have the advantageous ability to schedule their health inspection, most do not. An inspector shows up, randomly, with a checklist in hand to ensure compliance with safety and sanitation guidelines.

For pizzerias, the inspector’s arrival can be a pulse-raising experience, as health inspection reports are, in many municipalities, easily found matters of public record that can affect a brand’s reputation and sway dining decisions. (Last March, it’s worth noting, Yelp announced a partnership with Hazel Analytics to post publicly available health department data on its review platform, a move simplifying heath inspection data discovery for millions of Americans.)

“While a health inspection is a ‘snapshot’ of the day and time of the inspection, the inspection results leave a lasting impression on the establishment,” says Francine L. Shaw, who regularly consults and trains foodservice establishments on food safety as the CEO of Savvy Food Safety and TracSavvy.

To be certain, a 100 percent health inspection mark is tough to achieve since various minor infractions, such as leaving a cloth or tongs on a table, are often little more than harmless, honest blunders. Nevertheless, acing the health inspection remains a worthy pursuit given the potential consequences of a lackluster inspection and the expectations the public holds for safe and properly run foodservice establishments.

The path to a healthier health inspection

Lars Johnson, the head of FoodSafetyGuy, a Minnesota-based consultancy specializing in food safety training, says the pursuit of an improved health inspection score “begins the day of your last inspection.” He urges operators to note every violation, immediately fix the error and create a plan to prevent the same violation from occurring again.

To wit: a pizzeria on Chicago’s North Side went from having 10 violations in March 2020 to seven violations in April 2021, addressing issues such as allergen training and proper date marking by the time its 2021 inspection rolled around. In its April 2022 inspection, the pizzeria improved further and passed without any violations.

Remediation often includes a mix of instituting new practices and policies as well as staff training. For instance, management might begin supplying gloves at the cut table to eliminate barehand contact with ready-to-eat foods, issue a policy to change out scoops and ladles every four hours to reduce the risk of bacteria growth or alter how it stores pizza boxes and to-go containers, which are food contact surfaces that should be treated like plates.

In addition, Johnson suggests every restaurant has a certified food protection manager on staff. Though such certifications require an investment from ownership, Johnson says the risk of food illness issues falls with personnel on staff who have received next-level training on food protection measures.

Focus on the big ones

Health inspectors often center their attention on a few key areas posing an imminent danger to the public, namely food from unsafe sources, inadequate cooking, improper holding temperatures, contaminated equipment and poor personal hygiene. As such, these should be particularly high-priority areas for restaurants as well.

Shaw recommends using checklists, opening checklists, temperature logs, calibration logs, closing lists, cleaning charts and compliance certification apps to institutionalize safety around these important issues. As opposed to verbal instructions given during the first days of training, formal, concrete and consistent practices help create a culture of safety and compliance.

“The more organized and proactive an organization can be, the better its chance of success,” Shaw says.

Resist viewing inspectors as enemies

Quite often, Shaw says, restaurants view their health inspector as an adversary, someone who takes pride in finding errors and slapping violations on an establishment. In her experience, which includes 26 years as a restaurant operating partner, Shaw finds most health inspectors want successful operators. In fact, the best inspectors educate as they inspect, which allows operators a chance to better understand food safety measures and, in some cases, immediately rectify issues to receive a higher updated score.

“Many people get so nervous during an inspection that they forget they can correct the violations as they walk through the assessment,” Shaw says. “If a product doesn’t have a label on it, label it. If a [temperature] is too low, either throw the product away or heat it to the correct temp.”

In addition, Johnson urges pizzerias to run a clean and organized facility that makes it easy for inspectors to evaluate what they need to evaluate and get out.

“Don’t waste the inspector’s time,” Johnson says.

Challenge accepted

As a restaurant operating partner, Shaw looked forward to visits from the health inspector, seeing them as a challenge to prove she was leading an organized, credible establishment.

“Validation, I suppose,” she says.

Unfortunately, she finds too many operators do not feel the same. They view health inspectors as devilish souls intent on stirring trouble, not as individuals who safeguard public health and actually protect the pizzeria’s business. Exposing a potential food safety risk, after all, can help a restaurant avoid a temporary closure and significant brand damage.

“Health inspections can help identify areas where a restaurant can improve, decreasing food safety risks to their employees, guests and communities,” Shaw says.

Each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 48 million people in the U.S. get sick from foodborne diseases. Of those, some 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.

“These numbers are staggering and 100 percent preventable,” Shaw says. “No one should be getting sick or dying from eating food.”

So, for as much as a health inspection is about self-preservation for a pizzeria, it’s ultimately about human safety and respect for others. It offers every establishment an opportunity to improve its craft, better serve its customers and drive sustainable operations.

And of the quest to earn a perfect health inspection score, Johnson surmises: “It has to do with pride, determination and management expectations.”

Daniel P. Smith  Chicago-based writer has covered business issues and best practices for a variety of trade publications, newspapers, and magazines.

The post How to ace your next health inspection appeared first on Pizza Today.