Sample result
Operational Checklist Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I have two locations and 24 people. My head chef and my floor manager sign their checklists every day, but I end up putting out fires and cannot say what I decided. I need the manager's checklist for Tuesday lunch."
① The four phases of Tuesday
Tuesday 26 August · Laureles location · Manager on duty: you · Day target: 3,900,000 COP
Tuesday-to-Friday lunch is the slot that holds this house up, so the checklist clock hangs from the 12:00 to 14:30 peak and not from opening time. The four phases fit into 70 minutes of your working day; the rest of the day you direct, you do not fill in paper.
| Phase | Hour | What you do | What does NOT belong here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before service | 11:15 (45 minutes ahead) | Read Monday's signed checklists, count the shift's hands against the 9 people Tuesday asks for and confirm the day's target | Temperatures, portion weight and portioning: the head chef signs those |
| During the peak | 12:00 to 14:30 | Watch from the door, log turned-away tables with the hour and the exact hour each dish sold out | Do not step onto the grill or the pass, and do not answer the delivery phone |
| After the peak | 14:30 to 15:00 (30 minutes) | Take partial sales, covers served, average check and voided dockets while memory is fresh | Do not wait for close to write it: by 21:30 nobody remembers the hour |
| Close | 21:30 (15 minutes) | Sign the day's three decisions with owner, date and closing figure | Do not leave a single row on "to be reviewed" |
The second location runs the same form with the clock moved 30 minutes, because its peak starts at 12:30. Operating figures built from the data you gave, illustrative until you check them against your POS.
② Cross-check of other people's checklists
Three other people's checklists come into this board. None of them is the manager's: somebody else signs all three, and your job is to read what was done with each NO, not to repeat the inspection.
| Checklist | Who signs | Arrived | NO finding | Action, owner and hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen opening | Head chef | Yes, 10:40 | Garlic trout prepped at 22 portions and last Tuesday 26 were sold | Raise to 30 portions from next Tuesday · Head chef · logged 11:20 |
| Floor opening | Floor manager | Yes, 11:05 | Two terrace tables unset for lack of clean linen | Linen to the laundry today 16:00 · Floor manager · closed 16:20 |
| Monday till count | Shift cashier | Did not arrive | — | Asked at 11:30, arrived 15:40 with a 12,000 COP shortfall · Cashier · signature pending |
Two of three closed inside 24 hours. The till count that came in late is the one that matters: it is not a late piece of paper, it is a till left unreconciled through four hours of service, and the shortfall only surfaced once the shift had already gone home. House rule applied here: a signature with no facts is worse than a blank box, because it reassures. The kitchen opening checklist arrived signed at 100 % and the star dish still sold out at 13:10, so the signature held and the production count was wrong: that is exactly the finding a manager sees and a station does not. Neither of those two lines is a kitchen failure; both are a planning failure that only the manager's desk can fix.
③ The numbers against last Tuesday
Every row is read against the same Tuesday last week. A number on its own sends nobody to do anything.
| Indicator | Today | Last Tuesday | Deviation | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day sales | 3,650,400 COP | 3,912,300 COP | −261,900 COP (−6.7 %) | Under the 3,900,000 COP target |
| Covers served | 78 | 81 | −3 | Three chairs, not a demand drop |
| Average check | 46,800 COP | 48,300 COP | −1,500 COP (−3.1 %) | Below the house's 48,000 COP |
| Sold-out dishes | 2 (13:10 and 13:40) | 0 | +2 | Garlic trout and three-meat sancocho |
| Turned-away tables | 4 (12:40 to 13:20) | 1 | +3 | About 9 covers unserved: 421,200 COP |
| Cancelled orders | 3 on the delivery platform | 1 | +2 | Waits over 45 minutes: 156,000 COP |
Visible leak for the day: 577,200 COP, more than the 261,900 COP missing against last Tuesday. Sales did not fall for lack of guests: they fell because the house could not serve the guests who came, and that is a capacity problem, not a demand problem. The check dropped because the two sold-out dishes were the highest priced on the menu and whoever arrived late ate the 34,000 COP option. Menu note: garlic trout sells at 42,000 COP with a 14,700 COP cost, a 35 % food cost, above the 34 % menu average and above the 32 % ceiling for promoting it; there the problem is not the offer, it is the menu price. Illustrative figures from the data you supplied, to be checked against your own POS.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.