Restaurant Manager Interview Questions

I review the P&L weekly rather than waiting for the monthly close, because by the time the month-end report lands, it is too late to act on a problem that emerged in week two. The three lines I focus on most closely are food cost, labour cost, and covers, because those three numbers tell me most of what I need to know about how the business is running. If food cost is creeping up, I sit with the head chef and look at ordering discipline and waste. If labour is running high, I review the rota against the actual covers we did and find where we over-staffed. I also track average spend per head weekly and compare it against the prior year and prior month: a declining average spend is an early signal that something is wrong with the upselling process or the menu. I present a brief weekly summary to the owners or area manager so there are no surprises at month end.

My first response is always to listen fully before doing anything else. I do not interrupt, I do not become defensive, and I do not offer a solution before I understand exactly what the guest experienced. Once I understand the issue, I apologise sincerely for the experience, not for the policy. Then I decide what resolution is appropriate: for most service failures that is a complimentary item or a discount on the bill, for a significant issue it might be the full meal. I also make sure the guest sees that I have taken action: if a dish was wrong, I go back to the kitchen myself and tell them why. After the service I log the complaint and brief the team on what happened and what we will do differently. If the same complaint comes up twice in a fortnight, that is a process problem and I address it at the source.

Recruitment is the first lever: I look for people with genuine warmth and curiosity about hospitality, because service attitude is harder to teach than menu knowledge or technical skills. Induction matters enormously: a new team member who feels lost in their first two weeks will often leave in their first month, so I assign a buddy and make sure they have a clear 30-day plan. Ongoing development is about creating small wins: I run a weekly ten-minute team briefing where I recognise someone who went above and beyond the previous week. I also share trading data with the team: when they understand that upselling wine adds directly to the tips pot and the business's ability to pay bonuses, they engage with it differently. People stay in jobs where they feel seen, informed, and growing. I have had team members who joined as part-time servers and went on to become supervisors within eighteen months.

I treat supplier relationships as business partnerships rather than transactional arrangements. I meet face-to-face with key suppliers at least quarterly, and I am transparent with them about our volumes and plans so they can offer the best pricing and availability. I always pay on time: a restaurant that pays late creates goodwill problems that show up when you need a last-minute order or a credit in a tough week. I also negotiate proactively: I review pricing annually against market rates and will tender key categories when contracts come up for renewal. The flip side is that I give good suppliers loyalty: when someone has come through for us during a shortage or adjusted quickly to a menu change, I reward that with volume commitments. Transactional supplier relationships cost you in the moments that matter most.

I took over a venue where staff turnover had been running at over 80% annually and customer satisfaction scores were consistently below the group average. My first two weeks were purely diagnostic: I observed every shift, spoke to every team member individually, and reviewed the scheduling, the training records, and the complaint logs. The root cause was a combination of poor onboarding, no visible recognition, and a rota that was creating unsustainable split shifts. I redesigned the induction process, introduced a structured buddy system, and rebuilt the rota to eliminate three-day split shift patterns. Within three months, turnover had dropped to under 40% annualised and guest satisfaction scores had moved from 3.2 to 4.1 out of 5. The lesson I took was that team underperformance almost always has a structural cause: fixing the system produces faster results than trying to change individual attitudes.

On a Saturday evening with 140 covers booked, our POS system went down twenty minutes after service started. No orders could be placed electronically, no bills could be printed, and the kitchen was running blind. I called the team together immediately, assigned one experienced server to each section to take paper orders and run them to the kitchen manually, and had another team member handwrite bills. I personally stood at the pass to make sure the kitchen understood the order flow. I also went to every table in the first twenty minutes to explain the situation personally, offered a complimentary drink to any table that was affected by a delay, and kept the communication honest rather than making excuses. We got through the service with no walkouts and three compliments on how we handled it. The IT issue was logged and the provider had the system restored by 10 pm.

At my last restaurant I noticed that average spend per head had plateaued despite stable covers and a positive trading environment. I analysed the sales data by category and found that wine sales were running at 0.4 bottles per table: well below the industry average of around 0.7. I spent two weeks observing service and found that the team was offering wine reactively rather than proactively: they would open a table, take a drinks order if asked, and then move on. I redesigned the drinks step of the service sequence: the opening question became an active offer with a brief description of two wines by the glass at different price points. I trained the team on the approach and ran a four-week contest with prizes for the team members who improved their wine sales most. Average spend per head increased by £4.20 within two months, which translated to approximately £7,000 per month in additional revenue on our weekly covers.

I build the rota from the forecast, not from the team's preferences. I start with the projected covers by day and by service, then calculate the hours needed by role, then assign people. I review the rota against last week's actual covers and adjust: if we ran 20% under forecast last Tuesday, I plan tighter for this Tuesday. I use a target labour percentage: typically 28 to 32% of revenue depending on the style of the restaurant. If I am running above that, I find where the excess hours are sitting and either reduce or redeploy. I also look at the mix of full-time and part-time staff: a team with more flexible part-time hours gives me more ability to adjust to demand without overstaffing. I share the rota at least a week in advance because team members who cannot plan their lives become team members who leave.

Compliance is not a periodic event: it is a daily practice. Every shift starts with a brief visual walkthrough covering temperature checks on the fridge and food storage, cleanliness standards, and any team members who need allergen or hygiene reminders. I keep a compliance folder with signed records for every temperature log, cleaning schedule, and training completion. I run a monthly internal audit against the local authority inspection criteria and score the venue honestly so we are never surprised. I also make sure every new team member completes Level 2 Food Hygiene certification before working in any food-handling role. When an issue comes up, I address it on the spot and log it: a pattern of the same issue recurring is the signal that the system needs fixing, not just the individual.

I use three data layers on a daily basis. First, the trading summary: covers, revenue, average spend per head, and any category breakdown that is relevant to current focus areas. Second, the operational data: food waste logs, temperature records, complaint log. Third, the team data: attendance, time to competence for new starters, turnover rate. I review the trading summary every morning and compare it to the same day last year and last week. I also track the conversion rate from reservations to actual covers, because a high no-show rate is an early signal of a booking process problem. On a monthly basis I present a trading review to the owners that includes the P&L, the key operational metrics, and my assessment of what is working and what needs to change. The goal is that decisions are made on evidence rather than instinct.