How to become Food Service Manager in 2024

Food Service Manager Plan, direct, or coordinate activities of an organization or department that serves food and beverages.

Food Service Manager is Also Know as

In different settings, Food Service Manager is titled as

  • Banquet Manager
  • Catering Manager
  • Food and Beverage Director
  • Food and Beverage Manager
  • Food Service Director
  • Food Service Manager
  • Food Service Supervisor
  • Kitchen Manager
  • Restaurant General Manager
  • Restaurant Manager

Education and Training of Food Service Manager

Food Service Manager is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Food Service Manager

Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.

Education Required for Food Service Manager

These occupations usually require a high school diploma.

Degrees Related to Food Service Manager

Training Required for Food Service Manager

Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Food Service Manager in different industries are

What Do Food Service Manager do?

  • Test cooked food by tasting and smelling it to ensure palatability and flavor conformity.
  • Investigate and resolve complaints regarding food quality, service, or accommodations.
  • Schedule and receive food and beverage deliveries, checking delivery contents to verify product quality and quantity.
  • Monitor food preparation methods, portion sizes, and garnishing and presentation of food to ensure that food is prepared and presented in an acceptable manner.
  • Monitor budgets and payroll records, and review financial transactions to ensure that expenditures are authorized and budgeted.
  • Schedule staff hours and assign duties.
  • Monitor compliance with health and fire regulations regarding food preparation and serving, and building maintenance in lodging and dining facilities.
  • Coordinate assignments of cooking personnel to ensure economical use of food and timely preparation.
  • Keep records required by government agencies regarding sanitation or food subsidies.
  • Establish standards for personnel performance and customer service.
  • Estimate food, liquor, wine, and other beverage consumption to anticipate amounts to be purchased or requisitioned.
  • Review work procedures and operational problems to determine ways to improve service, performance, or safety.
  • Perform some food preparation or service tasks, such as cooking, clearing tables, and serving food and drinks when necessary.
  • Maintain food and equipment inventories, and keep inventory records.
  • Organize and direct worker training programs, resolve personnel problems, hire new staff, and evaluate employee performance in dining and lodging facilities.
  • Order and purchase equipment and supplies.
  • Review menus and analyze recipes to determine labor and overhead costs, and assign prices to menu items.
  • Record the number, type, and cost of items sold to determine which items may be unpopular or less profitable.
  • Assess staffing needs and recruit staff, using methods such as newspaper advertisements or attendance at job fairs.
  • Arrange for equipment maintenance and repairs, and coordinate a variety of services, such as waste removal and pest control.
  • Monitor employee and patron activities to ensure liquor regulations are obeyed.
  • Greet guests, escort them to their seats, and present them with menus and wine lists.
  • Establish and enforce nutritional standards for dining establishments, based on accepted industry standards.
  • Plan menus and food utilization, based on anticipated number of guests, nutritional value, palatability, popularity, and costs.
  • Create specialty dishes and develop recipes to be used in dining facilities.
  • Take dining reservations.
  • Schedule use of facilities or catering services for events such as banquets or receptions, and negotiate details of arrangements with clients.
  • Count money and make bank deposits.

Qualities of Good Food Service Manager

  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.

Tools Used by Food Service Manager

  • Computerized cash registers
  • Laser printers
  • Notebook computers
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA

Technology Skills required for Food Service Manager

  • Aestiva Employee Time Clock
  • Apache Groovy
  • Army Food Management Information System
  • Aurora FoodPro
  • ChefDesk Chef's Calculators
  • ClubSoft Food & Beverage Point of Sale
  • Culinary Software Services ChefTec
  • Database software
  • DataTeam Lunch Express
  • Delphi Technology
  • Dinerware Intuitive Restaurant
  • espSoftware Employee Schedule Partner
  • Evernote
  • Facebook
  • Food Service Solutions FoodCo
  • Food Service Solutions POSitive ID System
  • Food Services Solutions DayCap
  • Gift Certificates Plus Giftworks
  • Google Docs
  • Google Drive
  • IBM Domino
  • iMagic Restaurant Reservation
  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • Inventory management software
  • IPro Restaurant Inventory, Recipe & Menu Software
  • Microsoft Dynamics
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Project
  • Microsoft Word
  • Oracle Taleo
  • ReServe Interactive
  • Restaurant Manager
  • SoftCafe MenuPro
  • SweetWARE nutraCoster
  • ValuSoft MasterCook
  • Word processing software