Glossary of Restaurent Terms

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

ABCD AWARD - An award given by restaurants to employees who go above and beyond in their work to encourage them to excel in their work.

Arabica beans - a kind of coffee bean which produces superior quality coffees which possess the best flavor and aromatic characteristics.

BACKORDERED - A product that the vendor or warehouse ran out of that will ship at a later date.

Barista - Master expresso maker, an expert in coffees and brewing.

BOGO - Buy one, get one free.

BOUNCE BACK COUPON - A coupon given to the customer after the sale, enticing them to come back. It is usually has a seven to thirty day expiration date.

BREAK-EVEN POINT - A break even point is the minimum amount of sales that a restaurant must achieve in order to cover all costs before making a profit.

CASH-IN SHEET - A cash-in is a counting procedure used to account for all money during an employee's shift.

CASUAL DINING - A restaurant providing table service, relaxing environment, and a meal costing from $6.00 to $15.00.

COMPANY CULTURE - The environment, effecting every decision made in your restaurant concerning how problems are dealt with and staff management.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS - Detailed information about who your competition is, what they provide concerning products, services, customer benefits. It provides information on how well you can compete against them.

CORE MENU CONCEPT - The main product line of your menu. This concept could be a style of food such as Italian, Mexican, American or Japanese. It can also be a type of food (hamburgers, chicken or pizza, etc.) The rest of the menu (beverages, appetizers, deserts, etc) is secondary and added to the core menu concept.

Corrosion-resistant materials - materials maintaining their original surface with prolonged influence of food, cleaning compounds, and bactericidal solutions they are in contact with.

CORPORATION - A legal entity that exists separately from the owners. Legally, a corporation is like a person: It can be sued, own property, or acquire debts. Setting up a corporation is expensive initially, but is usually well worth it if you are going to be in business for a while. Corporations come in many forms and many times offer better tax advantages and liability reduction than other legal structures.

CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK - Giving the employee tips on how to improve their job performance.

COST OF GOODS - The weekly total dollar usage of all inventoried items in the restaurant.

CROSS CONTAMINATION - Cross contamination occurs when micro-organisms from one food product come into contact with another food product.

Cupping - professional coffee bean tasters use this process to determine quality, acidity and aroma of beans in the choice of their blends. It involves steeping the beans as with tea leaves and then smelling and tasting the brew at different temperatures as it cools.

CURB SIGN - A sign placed outside your business, allowing you to place specials, menus or artwork.

CUSTOMER CONTACT POINT - The point where the customer and the employee come in contact with each other from a service perspective.

DAY-PART - The time of day when a specific kind of meal is served. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all day-parts.

DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEYS - Surveys that determine and analyze characteristics such as age, gender, income levels, lifestyles, consumer habits, etc. A demographic survey helps pinpoint a given market that is appropriate for a given concept. It is helpful in determining locations, concept types, menu offerings, and prices.

Dramshop laws - statutes that impose a special liability on those in the business of producing, distributing and selling alcoholic beverages to the public.

DRINK COST - Weekly total dollar usage of all items inventoried in your restaurant.

Dual-Branding - when two or more brand name operations are located in the same retail space.

EGRESS - The ease of exit from the establishment.

FSI - Direct/free standing inserts are paper advertisements that are mailed directly to a person's home, usually in the form of a packet of coupons (from many businesses including yours.

FEASIBILITY STUDY - A study done testing the components of your business concept to see if it will work.

FIFO - First in, first out means use the products on the shelves before using the products that are newly arrived. All food products coming into your restaurant should be dated.

FIXED COSTS - Costs that do not vary with sales, instead they are necessary expenditures (rent, utilities, etc.)

Food contact surfaces - Surfaces of equipment and utensils that food comes in contact with and also the surfaces from which food may drain, drip or splash back onto surfaces that normally are in contact with food.

FRANCHISING - A system for expanding a business and distributing goods and services.

FRANCHISEE - Someone who owns a franchise.

Front of the house - The area of a restaurant that the customer visits, including the customer service area, bar and dining room.

FULL SERVICE - A type of restaurant emphasizing waiting on the customer hand and foot and providing high quality food and upscale ambience. The cost of a meal in a full-service restaurant is usually above $15.00.

GOODWILL - Defined by the Internal Revenue Service as any amount paid for a business that exceeds the fair market value of hard assets. The law allows goodwill to be apportioned to such items as trademarks, patents, copyrights, customer lists, name recognition, concept attributes, the community image, and public perception.

HACCP -( Hazard analysis control point system) It helps ensure food handling errors do not occur and that safe food is served to your customers.

HIGH-IMPRESSION AREA - A place in your restaurant that customers frequently see. In these areas, your customers get their impression about your restaurant's cleanliness.

HOLD TIME - The length of time you can hold a product before it must be discarded. If a product has a hold time of 10 minutes, then from the time it is cooked until it must stop being served is 10 minutes.

HQSC - Hospitality, quality, service, and cleanliness. These are the areas that all restaurant owners must strive to excel in regardless of the type of restaurant, sales volume, or size.

HVAC - Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

IMAGE ADVERTISING - Highlighting the good aspects of your system or products. An example would be "Great Food at a Great Price."

INGRESS - The ease of entrance into a restaurant.

Kitchenware -multi use utensils other than tableware.

LEARNING ORGANIZATION - An organization where learning, growing, teaching, mentoring, and continued improvement and education are valued.

LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (LLC) - A company that invests in a business but has no management responsibility and no liability for the business beyond the money the have invested.

LTO - A limited time offer. A new product or menu item, which is intended to bring in new customers or increase customer frequency.

MARGIN MARKUP - The markup above what the distributor paid for the item from the manufacturer. This number is important to know when selecting a distributor.

MARKET PENETRATION - Opening a new restaurant in an area where your restaurant concept and name have little to no recognition.

MARKET SATURATION - Building your restaurants in closer proximity to each other so that you gain customer recognition of your concept.

Meat Jobber - A distributor that specializes in portion-controlled meat supplies for restaurants.

MENU MIX - The percentage of sales volume each item in your restaurant represents in a given week. This number is calculated by determining the number of each menu item sold in a typical week and then multiplying that number by the menu price and then dividing that number by the total sales. For example, if you sold 868 sandwiches at $3.99 each, then sandwiches would account for $3,463.32 in sales. If you did $15,000 in sales that week, the sandwiches would account for 23.1% of your menu mix.

MYSTERY SHOPPER - Someone who is asked to visit a restaurant and evaluate its performance

NET SALES - This is the actual dollar amount of all items sold, excluding sales tax.

OPEN-DOOR POLICY - Refers to the boss' door always being open to employees to talk about any problems, concerns, suggestions, or questions that they may have.

OUTSOURCING - Paying someone who is not an employed by your restaurant to do a project.

PAID-OUTS - Money taken from the register to purchase items with cash for the restaurant.

PARTNERSHIP - A business relationship between two or more people who agree to share their resources, profits, and losses in specific portions.

PASS STATION - The area where food is passed from the back of the restaurant to the front of the restaurant. Often it includes a hot hold on one shelf and a cold hold on another shelf. This station provides a place for the kitchen staff to set prepared food until the wait staff picks it up.

Peel - A long-handled, shovel like implement used by bakers in moving bread, pizza, etc. , about an oven.

PERCEIVED VALUE - A fair price as determined by the customers, based on a mixture of what they received in the way of products, services, and environment and what they paid for that overall feeling. If the customer is satisfied with the overall experience, then the perceived value is good.

PLATE SETUP - The design of how the product is served.

POINT OF DISTINCTION - What makes you different from your competitors (menu, decor, prices, etc.). Your restaurant should have something to make you stand out.

POINT OF PURCHASE - Marketing that is done right at the point where the customer purchases, I.e., in the drive through, at the register, etc. It is intended to persuade the customer to buy the items you're offering at the moment they intend to purchase.

POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE (PMA) RALLY - A quick floor meeting to improve your hospitality lasting two to three minutes. It should be held at the beginning of every peak revenue period.

PRESS RELEASE - The primary tool used to tell your story. It is a brief, concise story that is submitted to the media for possible publication. It should include the five W's -who, what, where, when and why.

PRIME INTEREST RATE - The interest rate charged to customers of a bank who have the best credit, and is a reference point for other loan rates given by the bank.

PRODUCTIVITY - A measure of scheduling efficiency.

QUICK SERVICE - A restaurant serving low-cost meals (under $7.00) through counter service. The emphasis is on speed of service and convenience.

REPRIMAND - A disciplinary discussion held in private, dealing with a performance issue.

Robusta beans - Supermarket-grade coffee beans that can be grown in any tropical or subtropical climate and are cultivated for their ease as opposed to their taste.

Safe materials - articles manufactured from or composed of materials that may not reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly in their becoming a component or affecting the characteristics of food.

SANITIZING - The process of removing bacteria and conditions conducive to infection and disease.

SEGMENT - The industry is broken into many segments. Fine dining, casual dining, fast food, etc. A segment is any business concepts that have like and comparable attributes.

Single Service Articles - Tableware, carry out utensils designed for one-time or one person use.

SLIDE DEPLOYMENT - A maneuver when staff move from their main responsibilities to help with a bottleneck. This maneuver shows the power of teamwork and training in helping a customer and a fellow employee in need.

SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP - A business owned and run by one person. This business structure is a common form for small businesses. This structure is the simplest and least expensive legal structure, but can have high costs in lost tax advantages and increased personal liability.

STAIR-STEPPING - Bringing people into and out of the shift at different intervals to ensure a smoother transition, higher productivity, and improved labor cost.

STREETFIGHTING - Marketing your store in your actual neighborhood (distributing flyers on car windshields, donating food to businesses, working with community based organizations, etc.

TABLE TURNS - The number of times a given table is occupied per hour. This number determines the average stay and is highly dependent upon your concept, your speed of service, and your service staff's ability to bus, clean, and reset a table. A fast-food establishment may average four table turns per hour, while a fine-dining restaurant may average less than one table turn per hour.

Tableware - eating, drinking and serving utensils for the table.

TARGET MARKET ANALYSIS - Profiling your main projected customers to determine their age, income level, and lifestyle. This information greatly affects site selection, the marketing plan and execution, menu design, and virtually every other aspect of your restaurant.

THEORETICAL FOOD COST - The food cost you should run based on your menu mix and item cost. It does not take into account waste, theft, or spoilage and is an ideal number that gives you an overall food cost in dollars and percentage points that you should achieve.

TRADE AREA - The area surrounding your business, which provides your major customer base.

TRAFFIC COUNTS - Figures that indicate the average daily number of cars or pedestrians passing a particular location within a 12 - 24 hour period. These numbers can be obtained from a traffic survey that has been conducted by any real estate firm, demographic firm, planning commission, highway department.

TRIPLE-NET LEASE - A lease in which the leasee pays expenses such as property taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

Utensil - tableware and kitchenware used in the storage, preparation, conveying or serving of food.

VIP PARTY - A private party often held the night before a restaurant opening. You invite community leaders, business associates, neighborhood business employees, family (yours and the employees), friends (yours and the employees), the mayor, and the local media to your restaurant. This builds momentum and a word-of-mouth buzz about your business. Fancy invitations, festive decorations, music, and trinkets with your restaurant's name are staples of this kind of party.

VAIABLE COSTS - Costs that do vary in response to sales - as sales go up, so do your costs.

WASTE FACTOR - A percentage added to food cost percentages to account for small amount's of necessary waste. Some products exceed hold time need to be thrown away, and a small amount of spoilage and mistakes always occur.

YIELD - The amount of usable product a given item delivers. For example, a 16-ounce cut of meat may produce only 13 ounces of usable product after the fat has been trimmed.