The Problem
A group of successful restauranteurs saw great potential for growth with their popular restaurant, Tavern in the Square. At the time, the company was experiencing flaws in its operating systems and food handling practices. They wanted to incorporate best practices for standardized recipes, facility upgrades, new menu offerings, purchasing systems, and more. Tavern in the Square turned to Chef Services Group to conduct an operational assessment to identify operational flaws to establish an improvement plan with actionable items.
The Solution
CSG worked closely with Tavern in the Square to evaluate operational practices, purchase and inventory practices, food handling practices and provide a complete executive summary of our findings with recommendations for measurable improvements. To perform this job properly, CSG needed to understand the clientele of Tavern in the Square and their core culinary competencies in the kitchen.
CSG was also tasked with delivering menu strategy planning and a comprehensive recipe manual for the entire menu, including documentation on preparation, yield, ingredient procurement, storage, and more.
Other duties included:
- Coordinate recipe validation with Tavern culinary team for each food menu item and plate-build recipe
- Review existing recipe format of recipes with procedures and yields
- Work with the Tavern suppliers to capture inventory and raw food changes to support improved recipe costing and development
- Work with chefs and suppliers to capture costing data to calculate food costs for all recipes to be submitted
- Create with culinary staff new menu items offerings
- Choose new China and improve all plate presentations
The Results
After working closely with the Tavern team, CSG provided them with a 70-page operations assessment and action plan. We also updated their menu offerings by costing all menu items and recipes and completed a global inventory purchasing guide. Additionally, we created a thorough standardized recipe protocol to deliver solid operational practices and prepared a kitchen operations manual with new recipe prep and plate build formats.
With the help of CSG, Tavern improved its systems and culinary operations infrastructure, which has supported its extraordinary growth from 3 restaurant locations to 12.
