When imagining a job in the restaurant industry one may think of preparing food, waiting tables, or working as a cashier if the establishment is a quick-service restaurant. The last thing on anyone’s mind, despite being one of the most necessary, is the number of tasks, or ‘side work’, needed to run a restaurant effectively. These tasks include things such as cleaning tables, mopping floors, restocking the makeline, etc. However, despite being detrimental to the store itself and its health score, side work is often overlooked in the grand scheme of a functioning restaurant. Several restaurants decide to simply write checklists on a large whiteboard and wipe it off when completed. This method, while a good start, implies there is no record of completed tasks once they’ve been erased and, more importantly, no accountability for those who completed them (that is if they completed them).
Now you may be asking, “How do I keep better track of tasks and those who complete them?” The answer is much more simple than you think! It’s a tool that has been used ever since man could write: a checklist, but, in the case of the restaurant industry, we’ll call it a task list.