The Case for Doing Monthly Inventories

Monthly inventories are absolutely the norm in any free-standing or hotel restaurant, whether big or small, corporate or mom & pop, yet many senior living communities do not make use of this simple tool to help control food costs. In this article Joe Abuso discusses the how any why of using inventories to control food costs, reduce labor costs and improve customer satisfaction.

Frying and Braising Basics

There are many skillsets that any good chef has, and that any aspiring chef must master. These include knife skills, good sanitation practices, building flavors, menu and recipe development, labor and food cost control, management skills and the application of heat....

Developing your Kitchen Staff

Keeping our kitchens well-staffed is one of our biggest challenges. While steady work and early evenings – relative to a typical restaurant or hotel – are practical advantages to working in a senior-living kitchen, it’s often not enough to lure the best workers to our...

Living on a Budget – Simple Ways to Lower your Food Costs

Proven techniques to lower those critical numbers We live in a time when the standards and quality of meals expected from kitchens at senior-living communities are clearly on the rise. More experienced managers, better-trained staff, made-from-scratch recipes, more...

Five Points of Proper Portion Control

Although portion control probably doesn’t top many chefs’ lists of the most fun or creative parts of their job, it is still an important task for which they are responsible. Without it, both sides of any restaurant’s basic equation – customer satisfaction &...

10 Critical Points of Kitchen Sanitation

I don’t think I am going out on a limb to say that most of us don’t get into the restaurant business because of a visceral attraction to the field of sanitation. More likely, we chose this path because of a love of food and wine, a proclivity to hospitality, or the...