101 Ways to Deal with Food Cost  This article deals with "Back to Basics" restaurant food cost problem areas, part 2 of our current "Food Cost" series. The food is great, the service fabulous and the restaurant is busier than ever, but are you wondering why the bottom line isn't all it should be? Check your FOOD COST! Here are possible food cost problem areas: Organizational and structure component charts: Use organizational charts to know and understand who does what in your restaurants on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. How can this structure improve? Are jobs allocated in the most productive manner possible? Written job descriptions are good tools to use for this. You can find example of job descriptions and a questionnaire for writing job descriptions at www.hrnext .com. Use a Checklist for yourself: Create a checklist of items you perform every day and organize your time Of course, variations from this checklist will always occur, but you will cover the basics a lot faster with a guide in hand. This will save you and your staff time and confusion. Controlling large operations: The larger the distance between an owner or manager and the actual restaurant, the greater the need for effective cost-control records. This is how franchisers of restaurant chains keep their eyes on thousands of units across the world. | 
