The heart of a successful restaurant often lies in its back-of-house (BOH) operations, where countless processes work seamlessly behind the scenes.
Efficient management of these operations can drastically impact service quality and overall customer satisfaction, making it vital for restaurant owners and managers to understand this crucial aspect of their business.
BOH operations encompass everything from food preparation to staff coordination, ensuring the kitchen runs smoothly while supporting the front-of-house (FOH) staff. The relationship between the BOH and FOH is akin to a carefully choreographed dance, requiring precise timing and communication to create a delightful dining experience for patrons.
In this post, we will explore the intricacies of BOH operations, important facilities, key roles, and practical tips for enhancing efficiency.
By understanding and optimizing these components, restaurant operators can pave the way for sustained success in an ever-competitive industry.
What BOH Means in a Restaurant
In the restaurant industry, “BOH” stands for “back of house,” the foundational area where the core culinary activities occur.
This section of a restaurant is typically unseen by customers but plays a pivotal role in a restaurant’s success.
Effective BOH operations are key for high customer satisfaction, ensuring guests receive tasty food promptly and are eager to return.
A restaurant owner or manager supervises the entire house operations, including the back and front of the house, facilitating smooth and efficient service to cultivate a successful restaurant business.
Front of House vs. Back of House
In the bustling atmosphere of a restaurant, two key areas work in tandem to ensure a seamless customer experience: the front of house (FOH) and the back of house (BOH).
Most interaction with customers takes place in the FOH. The FOH is where guests are greeted and served. At this first touchpoint, customer service is paramount.
Here, employees including servers, food runners, and the manager, play crucial roles in greeting guests, managing special requests, and ensuring smooth operations within dining areas, bars, and outdoor patios.
Conversely, the BOH is the restaurant’s engine room. Though seldom seen by patrons and having little direct interaction with them, it is vital for providing them with an exceptional dining experience.
This is where employees, diligently prepare menu items. Prep cooks and the head chef work meticulously to manage food inventory, adhere to food safety regulations, and avoid cross-contamination. The house team ensures that dishes come out correctly and that dirty dishes are promptly cleaned, all while following strict health protocols.
Effective coordination and a sense of unity between front-of-house and back-of-house employees is vital for offering excellent service and a seamless dining experience
While the FOH centers on fast, friendly service, the BOH focuses on food preparation’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Aligning these objectives is crucial for delivering a superior customer experience and maintaining high-quality service standards, all in pursuit of satisfied customers and a successful restaurant business.
Back of House Operations
Back-of-house (BOH) operations are the lifeblood of the restaurant industry.
Under brand guidelines, the BOH team takes on vital responsibilities that ensure the restaurant’s success.
At the core of BOH activities is the meticulous process of purchasing and storing ingredients, all adhering strictly to food safety regulations.
We cannot emphasize the importance of this enough! Compliance with food safety laws isn’t just about adhering to the law, it extends to a restaurant’s reputation and beyond that its sales. Nobody wants to patronize a restaurant with a history of making people sick because food safety laws were not followed. Most of this considerable responsibility lies with the back of house staff so it’s important to make sure that your staff understands and adheres to these laws and regulations.
With the back of house in order the stage is set for the main event: food preparation and cooking.
The kitchen staff, the beating heart of a successful restaurant, work tirelessly to turn raw ingredients into mouth-watering dishes. Prep cooks chop, marinate, and organize, ensuring menu items are prepped to brand standards.
The BOH isn’t just about what happens on the stove—it extends to administrative tasks crucial for smooth operations, like scheduling and payroll. Collaboration between the BOH and Front of House (FOH) is essential for successful restaurants. This synergy allows insights from greeting guests and customer experience to flow back to the prep areas, enabling the restaurant team to refine their hospitality art and ultimately elevate customer satisfaction.
Important BOH Facilities
The back of house (BOH) is responsible for critical functions such as sourcing, storing ingredients, preparing food, cooking, and the serving of menu items, which are pivotal to a restaurant’s triumph.
Kitchen
At the center of the BOH is the restaurant kitchen, where culinary creativity meets rigorous standards.
Under the sharp supervision of the kitchen manager or executive chef, the kitchen staff engages in food preparation, cooking, and management. Every aspect of the kitchen’s functionality—from the adherence to sanitation guidelines to food production to inventory management—is crucial.
The kitchen manager ensures that every staff member is responsible for food safety and is well-versed in strict food handling protocols in alignment with the health department’s standards. The result is an operatively efficient kitchen that not only meets sustainability practices but also significantly contributes to the gastronomic delight of every patron.
Employee Facilities
Adjacent to the bustle of the kitchen, employee facilities are generally located in the BOH. It varies by restaurant, but most will include a few key things.
The manager’s office is the command center from which scheduling, payroll, and other crucial administrative tasks are handled.
Restaurant staff often receive access to special lockers, break rooms, and restrooms, allowing staff members to recharge and safeguard their personal items.
Furthermore, the receiving area is the gatekeeper of goods, ensuring that inventory is scrupulously checked and stored upon arrival.
Storage Areas
BOH storage areas are an intricate web of temperature and inventory control.
Cold storage facilities, such as refrigerators and freezers, are indispensable for keeping perishable items fresh and safe for consumption.
In contrast, dry storage houses non-perishables, from canned goods to bulk grains, all organized for efficient utilization.
Properly managed storage is key to the efficacy of food preparation and contributes to the rapid execution of front-of-house orders. Beyond storing food, these areas encompass spaces dedicated to the cleaning and maintenance of kitchen equipment, which is fundamental to maintaining impeccable hygiene standards in food service.
Each element within the BOH facilities plays a crucial role in the establishment’s fabric, ensuring the smooth operations of a restaurant’s day-to-day life. Through these meticulous processes and dedicated spaces, restaurants can deliver consistent quality and customer experiences that breed a loyal and satisfied clientele.
Technology
We don’t just mean a room where you keep a server or work PC.
We’re talking about a suite of software applications that ties together all of the various back of house and front of house staff, facilities, and functions into a cohesive restaurant tech stack. This is important because it enables the whole restaurant to be monitored, for data to be gathered, for compliance with food and labor laws to be verified and it enables communication between different staff members and shifts.
This is especially important at the enterprise level. If you have multiple restaurants, it’s important that accurate and timely data from all of them can be gathered and recorded so important details don’t fall through the cracks.
Mobility, especially if you have multiple locations, is crucial! Look for a software platform that has a robust mobile application so you can monitor performance in real-time no matter where you are.
Keeping the BOH Running Smoothly
The back of house (BOH) plays a pivotal role in the restaurant industry, ensuring every customer experiences satisfaction with their dining experience.
Quick, quality service is a non-negotiable attribute of any fast, fast casual, or quick-serve restaurant and a smooth back of house operation is vital to delivering this. The entire team must collaborate seamlessly to prevent any hiccups in service or quality.
Technological aids that can track inventory in real-time, automate purchasing, and smooth out mundane but critical daily operations contribute significantly to BOH efficiency, streamlining the house operations from order reception to food preparation and inventory management.
Stitching Together BOH and FOH with Good Software
In the restaurant business, ensuring smooth operations between the back-of-house (BOH) and front-of-house (FOH) is vital for excellent customer service which is vital for customer satisfaction and overall success.
SynergySuite’s suite of award-winning software applications plays a crucial role by enabling you to manage your restaurants operations. From HR to staff scheduling, SynergySuite offers 8 custom modules to let you build the back of house solution your restaurants need.
By building a strong back of house, SynergySuite helps you maintain a synergy between the back of house and front of house that is essential for a successful restaurant tech stack.
Get in touch with us today! We’d love to schedule a personalized demo to show how we can help you achieve your business goals.
