What does a restaurant manager do?
A restaurant manager is responsible for handling the overall restaurant operations. These include monitoring revenues and daily restaurant sales, checking inventories and supplies, negotiating with third-party vendors, and managing customers' inquiries and complaints. Other duties include creating promotional offers, developing and improving sales strategies, organizing staff duties, maintaining the highest sanitary standards for everyone's strict compliance, and controlling operational expenses. A restaurant manager must have excellent communication and leadership skills and exceptional knowledge of food industry management.
Restaurant manager responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real restaurant manager resumes:
- Manage staff by teaching them the correct procedures along with making sure they are working up to Marriott standards.
- Manage associates while bartending and serving in a family-own restaurant.
- Coordinate, communicate and delegate FOH responsibilities to staff to ensure excellent operations are consistently achieve.
- Maintain corporate accounts on QuickBooks.
- Master QuickBooks to track company expenses and revenue.
- Supervise and train dining and in-room dining staff.
- Apply math skills to both day and nightly paperwork.
- Direct team to ensure compliance with food and safety procedures and quality control guidelines; HACCP.
- Assure temperatures of freezers, refrigerators, and heating equipment to ensure proper functioning in accordance with HACCP standards.
- Create par order guidelines for a variety of food and beverage items, and all beer, wine and liquor products.
- Ensure food is stored and cook at correct temperature by regulating temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, and roasters.
- Monitor Pinnacle/Value POS computer system.
- Complete administrative duties and assist with weekly payroll
- Install and update business software/inventory/pricing on POS system.
- Perform daily payroll operations and balanced/audite payroll reports.
Restaurant manager skills and personality traits
We calculated that 14% of Restaurant Managers are proficient in Customer Service, Guest Satisfaction, and Food Handling. They’re also known for soft skills such as Business skills, Customer-service skills, and Detail oriented.
We break down the percentage of Restaurant Managers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Service, 14%
Directed day-to-day operations involving financial management, revenue growth, and management of personnel in a top customer service atmosphere.
- Guest Satisfaction, 7%
Promoted guest satisfaction for steady repeat business through application of courtesy and problem solving skills to ensure optimal dining experience.
- Food Handling, 7%
Oversee daily operations while ensuring customer satisfaction by monitoring food handling requirements, and ensuring excellent customer relations.
- Cleanliness, 6%
Maintained building upkeep and cleanliness despite low maintenance budgets by continually shopping different parts vendors and maintenance providers.
- Restaurant Management, 5%
Qualified restaurant manager with 5+ years of professional experience in restaurant management and proven success in organizing tasks and managing services.
- Guest Service, 5%
Hold restaurant team accountable for consistently delivering excellent guest service and food quality in compliance with procedures and food safety requirements.
Common skills that a restaurant manager uses to do their job include "customer service," "guest satisfaction," and "food handling." You can find details on the most important restaurant manager responsibilities below.
Business skills. One of the key soft skills for a restaurant manager to have is business skills. You can see how this relates to what restaurant managers do because "food service managers must understand all aspects of the restaurant business, including how to budget for supplies, comply with regulations, and manage workers." Additionally, a restaurant manager resume shows how restaurant managers use business skills: "hired, trained, and scheduled employees to ensure adequate coverage based on peak business hours and provide quality guest experiences. "
Customer-service skills. Many restaurant manager duties rely on customer-service skills. "food service managers must be courteous and attentive when dealing with patrons.," so a restaurant manager will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways restaurant manager responsibilities rely on customer-service skills: "worked very close with proprietor of the company to ensure quality guest experience's. "
Organizational skills. restaurant manager responsibilities often require "organizational skills." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "managers have many different responsibilities, including scheduling and overseeing staff, budgeting, and maintaining financial records." This resume example shows what restaurant managers do with organizational skills on a typical day: "cash handling, training, labor control, customer service accomplishments giving great customer service skills used organizational skills, profit"
Physical stamina. A commonly-found skill in restaurant manager job descriptions, "physical stamina" is essential to what restaurant managers do. Restaurant manager responsibilities rely on this skill because "managers often work long shifts and sometimes spend entire evenings actively helping to serve customers." You can also see how restaurant manager duties rely on physical stamina in this resume example: "inventory control-verify and perform physical inspection of merchandise, produce, wine and beer orders. "
Communication skills. While "communication skills" is last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to restaurant manager responsibilities. Much of what a restaurant manager does relies on this skill, seeing as "food service managers must give clear orders to staff and be able to convey information effectively to employees and customers." Here is a resume example of how this skill is used in the everyday duties of restaurant managers: "maintained customer service ensured store organization and cleanliness oversaw shift operations and progress provide direction and planning abilities created effective communication techniques"
The three companies that hire the most restaurant managers are:
- Panda Express1,412 restaurant managers jobs
- Arby's1,038 restaurant managers jobs
- Goodwin Recruiting970 restaurant managers jobs
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Compare different restaurant managers
Restaurant manager vs. Food and beverage manager
A food and beverage manager is an individual responsible for ensuring that quality food and drinks are being served at a restaurant or hotel. Food and beverage managers are required to be excellent with customers and should have great management skills to meet the organization's labor and financial goals. They create food and drink menus and guarantee customers that they comply with their food and safety regulations. They are also required to negotiate with suppliers to arrange the delivery of food and beverage products.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, restaurant manager responsibilities require skills like "restaurant management," "safety standards," "develop team," and "basic math." Meanwhile a typical food and beverage manager has skills in areas such as "payroll," "excellent time management," "banquet events," and "professional work." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Food and beverage managers really shine in the government industry with an average salary of $56,929. Comparatively, restaurant managers tend to make the most money in the hospitality industry with an average salary of $51,432.food and beverage managers tend to reach similar levels of education than restaurant managers. In fact, food and beverage managers are 0.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.0% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Restaurant manager vs. Assistant manager/shift manager
An assistant manager/shift manager assists managers in maintaining an establishment's smooth workflow. Although the extent of their responsibilities depends on their company or industry of employment, it usually includes participating in setting goals and guidelines, establishing budgets and schedules, delegating tasks among staff, and monitoring operations, solving issues should there be any. They also perform administrative support tasks such as coordinating with internal and external parties, preparing and processing documents, handling calls and correspondence, organizing files, and implementing policies and regulations. In the absence of the manager, an assistant manager assumes their responsibilities to maintain efficient operations.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that restaurant manager responsibilities requires skills like "guest satisfaction," "food handling," "restaurant management," and "culinary." But an assistant manager/shift manager might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "food safety," "employee engagement," "payroll," and "casino floor."
In general, assistant manager/shift managers achieve similar levels of education than restaurant managers. They're 0.6% less likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 0.0% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for restaurant managers in the next 3-5 years?
L. Taylor Damonte
Professor/Director, Coastal Carolina University
Restaurant manager vs. Food manager
A food manager oversees the operations at various dining establishments, ensuring efficient food services and client satisfaction. Their responsibilities typically include managing the staff, setting schedules and guidelines, establishing objectives and budgets, liaising with vendors and suppliers, delegating tasks, and developing strategies to optimize overall operations. There are also instances where they may assist customers, arrange reservations, process payments, prepare and organize documents, hire and train new members of the workforce, and resolve issues and concerns. Moreover, as a food manager, they must lead and encourage the staff to reach goals, all while implementing the company's policies and regulations.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, restaurant managers are more likely to have skills like "guest satisfaction," "restaurant management," "guest service," and "culinary." But a food manager is more likely to have skills like "non," "sales floor," "servsafe," and "payroll."
Food managers make a very good living in the manufacturing industry with an average annual salary of $38,631. On the other hand, restaurant managers are paid the highest salary in the hospitality industry, with average annual pay of $51,432.food managers typically earn similar educational levels compared to restaurant managers. Specifically, they're 0.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Restaurant manager vs. Shift lead manager
A shift lead manager is an employee who is responsible for supervising the daily activities of a store, particularly in creating schedules and assigning them to staff members. Shift lead managers are required to monitor the team's performance and manage the requests of employees. They must open registers and close them by the end of the day and prepare cash to be deposited. Shift lead managers are also required to handle customer issues and report them to the management during the shift.
Types of restaurant manager
Updated January 8, 2025
