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49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good book.. but lets be honest., September 22, 2010
After reading nearly all of this book I can tell you that this text is in fact helpful, however its the information quality that worries me. The 1000+ pages in this book provide the reader with a great breath of info, but with that said the depth of that information is about as deep as a shower. It has vision but lacks insight; has quantity but the discussion lacks quality.
While the book covers every relevant topic regarding restaurants, if fails to offer any insight into how a restauranteur thought process actually goes and lacks the critical thinking I was hoping for. In the end it is basically a series of lists. It can be summed up as a series of things a restauranteur can do for his business... with no thought really given as to whether or not a restauranteur should do them. Also this textbook is more boring than most you've probably read as it lacks: Q & A, relevant stories or examples, graphical data, and other common textbook features that make reading more interesting.
This post is not meant to come across as negative because this book is overall very helpful. However you should know before you purchase this book that: much of the information is obvious and common sensical, Atlantic-pub treats this book as an infomercial for a myriad of products it sells, it also tries to sell other company's products on page after page, and finally if you incorporated every one of the million suggestions in this book I suspect you'd end up either broke and or just plain annoyed with all the unnecessary additions to your business.
Summary: Helpful in that it covers all the topics that you need to know, but frustrating in that 90% of the time it is overly simplistic. Pros include: Quantity of topics covered, helpful forms, and case studies. Cons include: uninsightful, tons of advertisements, and more dry than any textbook I've read.
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49 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hospitality News November 2002, November 20, 2002
By A Customer
This comprehensive and massive 600 page new book will show you step-by-step how to set up, operate, and manage a financially successful foodservice operation. The author has left no stone unturned in explaining the risky business of running a restaurant. Operators in the non-commercial segment as well as caterers, and really anyone in the food service industry will find this book very useful.The books nineteen chapters cover the entire process of a restaurant start-up and ongoing management in an easy to understand way, pointing out methods to increase your chances of success, and showing how to avoid the many common mistakes that can doom a start-up. The new companion CD rom contains all the forms demonstrated in the book for easy use in a PDF format.There are literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your restaurant business. Learn new ways to make the kitchen, bars, dining room, and front office run smoother and increase performance. Shut down waste, reduce costs, and increase profits.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An All-Inclusive Easy to Use Handbook, July 21, 2008
The title may be a bit of an understatement - The Restaurant Manager's Handbook goes well beyond the basics of restaurant management, ultimately encompassing the entire scope of owning and running a full-service restaurant. In an industry where, as this book points out, a large percentage of ventures fail, a comprehensive resource like this can prove an invaluable tool for restaurant owners and managers, one that you'll return to again and again.
The Restaurant Manager's Handbook runs a full 1,057 pages, making it a reference tome that covers all the bases - from "pre-owing" business planning and research to active operation and management practices . The guide offers hard-line business advice, but presents it in a way that's easy to read and eminently accessible to the novice restaurateur .
Never written a business plan? It's in there. Don't know the first thing about effective public relations? It's in there. Need the lowdown on menu planning? Yep, that's in there too. Linen service. Music licensing. Kitchen layout. Food preparation safety. Employee relations. Planning to open a bar, not a restaurant? Don't let the title fool you - it's covered.
The guide also includes numerous valuable resources - from reproducible forms (for everything from food facility compliance checklists to acquisition and inventory to cook's lists, and more) to detailed lists of suppliers for everything from flatware to point of sale systems. And if you still need a little encouragement, check out the case studies of successful restaurant ventures with practical advice from those who've been there . . .
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