Organisation of F & B Department : Department Organisation and Staffing

Defined duties and responsibilities for every profile in the industry helps people to understand their role and provides clarity about the aims and expectations of the industry and how to reach them. It is important to run the industry properly and systematically as each person can’t do everything. It also helps in the growth of the industry.

Duties and Responsibilities of Various F & B staff are as under:

Restaurant Manager

Reports To: Food and Beverage Manager / General Manager

Job Summary: To recommend and meet budgets and goals by leading a service “I” with personalised guest attention.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Recommend and monitor a budget and plan for the year.
• Lead, train and motivate a service team.
• Conduct daily briefings ensuring two-way communication, training and policy information
• Check mise-en-scène and mise-en-place done by the team.
• Control expenses of the restaurant.
• Develop innovative ways to create sales of the restaurant by up-selling menu items, food promotion merchandising, etc.
• Meet and greet guests and develop a personal guest database to ensure continued patronage.
• Schedule staff rotations and duties and organise extra hands when required.
• Ensure the safety and hygiene of the restaurant.
• Maintain discipline and conduct staff appraisals
• Coordinate with the chef for menu offers and operational coordination.
• Coordinate with other departments for the smooth supply of operational supplies.
• Responsible for proper billing and cash recovery for services rendered.
• Resolve guest and staff complaints and grievances
• Represent the restaurant in Food and Beverage meetings.
• Conduct periodic competition analysis

Coordinates with

• Kitchen: on food preparation matters.
• Kitchen Stewarding: for the supply of clean service-ware.
• Housekeeping: for cleanliness and supply of linen and flowers.
• Accounts: for budgets and depositing daily sales.
• Engineering: on matters of maintenance and safety.
• Security: on matters of security and safety.
• Marketing: on matters of sales and promotions.
• Stores: for the supply of alcoholic beverages, operational supplies.

Supervises:-  Senior captain, captain, hostess, Servers, and apprentices

Senior Captain (Restaurant Supervisor)

Reports To: Restaurant Manager/ Food and Beverage Manager

Job Summary: To organize, supervise and train all service personnel in the restaurant with a view to providing quick and personalized food and beverage service to guests.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Deputise in the absence of the Restaurant Manager and ensure the smooth functioning of the restaurant.
• Schedule weekly/fortnightly staff duty shifts with the approval of the Restaurant Manager ensuring that work exigencies are met and the staff is rotated fairly.
• Allot daily duties to subordinate staff to meet work exigencies ensuring equity of work.
• Conduct daily briefing using it as a vehicle for two-way communication, training and corrective action.
• Attend to guest complaints and ensure guest satisfaction through immediate action.
• Inspect the mise-en-scene and mise-en-place to ensure the smooth flow of operations.
• Ensure the maintenance and aesthetic upkeep of the restaurant in close coordination with engineering and housekeeping.
• Organize the training of staff for meeting the standards of service.
• Develop restaurant sales through upselling, guest contacts and ensuring good service.
• Ensure that the restaurant is free from work hazards.
• Supervise food service with a view to ensuring speed, quality of service and personalization
• Appraise staff performance and recommend rewards to the restaurant
• Control costs by applying food control principles.
• Serve wines and beverages according to international practice.
• Motivate staff through fair leadership.
• Prepare flambe items, if applicable to the restaurant, with showmanship and authenticity.
• Maintain and control the par stocks of cutlery, crockery, linen, supplies, and equipment.
• Assist the accounts department in stocktaking.
• Hand over lost and found properties to the Housekeeping as per rules.

Supervises: Restaurant Captains, Hostess, Servers and Apprentices.

Captain (Head Waiter)

Reports To:-  Senior Captain/ Restaurant Manager

Job Summary:- To organise and supervise an assigned restaurant station with a view to providing fast and efficient food and beverage service.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Train and supervise restaurant servers to give high standards of service in terms of time, quality and personalisation.
• Supervises the mise-en-place of the assigned station to ensure a smooth service during operation.
• Inspect table layouts in the station ensuring that they meet the standards set.
• Check and ensure the serviceability of equipment and furniture.
• Sell food and beverage so as to meet restaurant budgets.
• Take food and beverage orders correctly.
• Give wine service according to international practices.
• Prepare flambe items, if offered by the restaurant, with showmanship and authenticity in preparation
• Control the inventory of cutlery and service equipment allotted to the station.
• Assign duties ensuring equity of work.
• Ensure that staff meets hygiene and discipline standards.
• Ensure that the station is free from dust.

Steward (Waiter)

Reports to: Captain/Senior Captain

Job Summary: To provide quick and personalised food and beverage service to guests at allotted tables as per standards service laid down and according to guest satisfaction.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Attend briefings prior to the restaurant opening, well-groomed and equipped with the basic aids of operations
• such as bottle openers, pens, pads, and matches.
• Learn the du jour items, not-available items, menu preparations, and their presentation.
• Complete mise en scène and mise-en-place before the restaurant opens.
• Check all the equipment and furniture at the station for their serviceability and maintenance requirements.
• Clean and polish allotted silverware, cutlery, glassware, and chinaware.
• Stock the sideboard with proprietary sauces, jams, salt and pepper shakers, butter dishes, linen, and other service ware.
• Lay table covers as per standards set.
• Fold napkins as per prescribed attractive styles.
• Requisition fresh linen and flowers from housekeeping.
• Air the restaurant and ensure that the station is clean.
• Receive, greet, and seat guests.
• Present wine-lists and menu cards and take orders.
• Serve food and beverage by the standards of the restaurant.
• Up-sell food and beverages.
• Present the bills and receive payment correctly.

Supervises:- Assistant Waiters, Busboys and Trainees

Restaurant Hostess

Reports To: Senior Captain/ Restaurant Manager

Job Summary: To receive and record table reservations requested for the restaurant. To extend warm and courteous welcome and hospitality to guests visiting the restaurant and allot them a table.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Collect the restaurant reservation register from the overnight caretaker and mail from Food and Beverage Office.
• Receive and post table reservations in the register ensuring equity of load between stations.
• Clean and arrange the hostess desk and menus cards.
• Attend briefings before the restaurant opening.
• Attend to all telephone calls of the restaurant in the shift.
• Receive guests and lead them to their reserved tables.
• Handout Wine Lists/Menu Cards to the guests.
• Take orders from guests if required.
• Provide guests with hotel information.
• Go to the guest and enquire whether the food and service are up to their satisfaction. Handle any complaints
• Wish greetings to every guest when leaving and invite them to come again.
• Record the names of guests in the daily cover register.
• Page guests if phone calls or messages come for them.
• Maintain guest history

Wine Butler (Sommelier)

Reports To: Senior Captain / Restaurant Manager

Job Summary: To present and serve wine and spirits to guests as per the standards of the establishment

Duties and Responsibilities

• Requisition of the wines and spirits from the bar.
• Display wines and spirits on the trolley.
• Stock the trolley with the accessories
• Present trolley to the seated guests and up-sell the wines and
• Prepare and serve ordered beverages as per international
• Replenish orders and remember guest preferences.
• Raise Order Tickets for the cashier

Structure of the Catering Industry: A Brief Description

The structure of the catering industry includes both commercial and non-commercial catering establishments. Some of the more popular and common ones are as under:

Five Star Hotels

These usually have several restaurants, grill rooms, ethnic (Indian, Chinese, Italian, etc. among the most popular), European and coffee shops are included. Service in these hotels is usually attentive and entertainment is nearly always available. Prices in these establishments tend to be high.

Medium Class Hotels

Similar to the five-star hotels, though surroundings are less luxurious and prices are reflected in this.

Free Standing Restaurants

Often quite high class, offering good Ala Ca rte menus- service is usually of a high standard.

Snacks Bar

It is popular with the working public offering everyday fare, at very reasonable prices.

Fast Food Centres

The “eating out” of 80’s growing in popularity in India especially with the young, these restaurants offer fast, clean service at popular prices. Service is minimal and turnover is high.

Night Clubs

It usually situated only in larger cities and offering high-class entertainment with food.

Industrial Canteens

Industrial canteens are operated as a facility to staff in large factories or similar. Food of a high standard but managements working to tight budgets. Food cost is usually subsidised consequently staff pay minimal prices.

Institutional Catering

Usually, hospitals are serving high nutritional standards of food.

Airline Catering

A big business operation, serving good quality food in difficult and limited service areas. Competition is tough in this sector to maintain high standards.

Railway Catering

It is similar to airlines, and although this was a prestigious area of catering. The fifties to the seventies saw a gradual decline which fortunately is being rectified as the 80’s progress.

Outdoor catering

It is a growing industry within the industry. Many Service staff involved in these sometimes complicated operations.

Types/ Classification of F & B Operations : The Hotel and Catering Industry

Role of Catering establishments in Travel/Tourism Industry : The Hotel and Catering Industry

Catering dates back in the 4th millennium BC in China. The culture of grand eating and drinking was also present in old Egypt at that time. Most of the services were provided by slaves. The ancients Greeks are credited with making catering a trade by offering free services at their inns and hostels which continued into the Roman Empire, primarily to serve soldiers. In the Middle Ages catering centred on monasteries and the Christian pilgrimages in Europe. The trade spread during the reign of Charlemagne. By late Middle Ages the new bourgeoisie (people of the city) and a monetary economy helped the popularity of catering to flourish. When the industry drew the attention of German legislators in the 14th and 15th century, food and beer regulations began to take form. But much of the industry was still primarily seen in feasts and celebrations for kings and other noblemen. After the French revolution in the 18th century and the lack of an aristocracy, catering guilds were forced to find new ways to sell their talents and the first French restaurants were started.

The food sector or catering industry is one of the most important elements in the travel and tourism industry. This includes restaurants and take-away outlets, but it can also include catering providers to hotels and airlines.

Catering and food service industry plays an important role in the promotion of local food features and culture of tourism destination through providing catering products and services for tourists.

Many countries have designed and developed catering and food brand with own features and style, such as the Beer Festival of Munich in German, Pickled Cabbage Festival in South Korea, series unique meal of cactus and corn in Mexico, Samba Carnival and characteristic barbecue in Brazil and so on.

As an important part of tourism industry, catering and food service industry is the important carrier of the brand and culture for a country or region with the characteristics of wide market, extensive influence and more employment opportunities.

In recent years, the development of global catering and food service industry maintains a rapid and healthy momentum of tourism development. A wide variety of catering products and different styles of food culture has been shaped in the background of different regions and cultures.

These food service groups provide a fast catering and food service for the consumers all over the world. It can be seen that the gradual development of catering market has helped with the rapid development of economy and society.

In many countries, catering establishments are regarded as a means of developing wealth and creating employment, especially when traditional activities are on the decline. It is expected to contribute significantly to increasing GDP and providing jobs in the tourism sector.

The core activity in tourism is the hotel and catering industry, which includes business and leisure tourism, as well as the everyday business and leisure activities of local inhabitants.

Catering is still perceived as an opportunity available to people of all ages which do not require much capital investment or many qualifications. Anyone can open a restaurant, and only some of those working in the trade to take a basic training course in manufacturing and processing. Thus, in a way the development of hotel and restaurant chains is gradually increasing the amount of wage-earning jobs available, which may come to further increase the economic development of Tourism/ Travel industry.

Introduction to the Hotel Industry and Growth of Hotel Industry in India : The Hotel & Catering Industry

Hotels & the Catering Industry as we know started in the 19th century with the development of major cities, easier sea travel & coming up of railways. During Mogul rule, the forts & their surroundings would cater to the needs of the traveller often in exchange for no more than the story of their adventures during their travel or any news from other towns and villages they passed by. In India, resting houses called serais/sarais and dharamshallas were established on high ways by kings and emperors of ancient and medieval periods. Movement of people both political and pilgrimage stressed the need for better and improved facilities to cater to the varied needs of the various classes of the society.

In India, development of catering can also be attributed also to the legacy left by people belonging to different cultures and ethnic groups who have ruled her. Development of catering in India as we see it today is chiefly due to the British, who had introduced hotels and restaurants similar to those found in Europe.

Most of modern hotels that sprouted were managed by European families. The Bombay hotel was opened in 1799. The British brought modern hotels to Kolkata. The Oldest was John Spence’s Hotel. Spence’s, the first ever hotel in Asia was opened to the public in 1830. The credit for opening the first Western style hotel under the name of British Hotel in Bombay in 1840, goes to Pallonjee Pestonjee was the first hotel to give a la carte and table de hôte menu. Then came the Auckland hotel by David Wilson in Calcutta in the year 1840-41 (now – The Great Eastern Hotel – officially Lalit Great Eastern Hotel) is a colonial era hotel in the Indian city of Kolkata – formerly Calcutta) and Connemara hotel in madras in the year 1870 by E. A. Oakshroff. But now this property belongs to Taj group.

Today, ITDC provides a complete range of tourism services, including accommodation, catering, and entertainment and shopping, hotel consultancy, duty free shops, and an in-house travel agency. The India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) was set up in 1966 as a corporation under the Indian Companies Act of 1956, with the merger of Janpath Hotel India Ltd.

In 1971-72, a beautiful palace of Rajasthan was linked up to the Taj, the lake palace in Udaipur, a marble dream, afloat lake pichola and the Rambagh palace, originally created at the height of Rajput splendour in Jaipur. In 1903 he raised finance invested his own money, hired the best architects and craftsmen and build the exquisitely beautiful Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay with 220 rooms. Mohan Singh Oberoi took Carlton hotel in Shimla on lease in 1927, renamed as Clarks hotel. He took a building in 1933 and built grand hotel in Calcutta.

Three Welcome Group Hotels were commissioned between 1975 and 1977; these were non-franchised hotels, inspired by the slogan “Be Indian, Buy Indian” and using Indian expertise. Ultimately, however, these hotels adopted the Sheraton system in 1978 and used the services of expatriates for the purposes of upgrading staff training and installing Sheraton operating systems-all without a management contract. This gave the Welcome Group a good start.

When India agreed to host the 1982 Asian Games, the GoI granted licenses for building hotels to the Taj Palace, Asian Hotels Hyatt Regency, India Tourism Development Corporation – Lodhi Hotel, Samrat Hotel, Kanishka, Le Meridien, and Surya Sofitel, with the stipulation that their new hotels had to be completed in time for the games. India hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010, at Delhi. It was India’s most successful Commonwealth Games to date with Indian athletes winning 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals. This also added to growth of hotel industry in India.

Tourism & Hospitality Industry in India contributed Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) during the month of December 2014 were Rs 12,875 crore (US$ 2.03 billion) as compared to Rs 11,994 crore (US$1.9 billion) in December 2013. Foreign Tourist Arrivals, in India, during 2014 was 7.46 million, which translates to a 7.1% growth over the previous year.

The Indian Rupee was relatively stable against the US Dollar and from 59/$ as at the beginning of the year, the exchange rate hovered around 61/$ levels on the average and closed at 62/$ at the year end for the year 2014-15.

GDP growth in India during the year is estimated at 7.4%. Inflation has decreased significantly from as high as 11.2% in November, 2013 to 5.2% in March, 2015. International tourist arrivals, worldwide, have grown to 1.14 billion in 2014, 4.7% above 2013 and are likely to grow 3% to 4% in 2015. Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) have grown by 6.6% at US$ 19.65 billion for the year.