Hi, I'm Jeremy Golan. I'm a certified SHRM-CP and CPHR HR manager with years of hands-on experience in restaurant operations and franchising. I've been around long enough to see what works and what falls apart. Right now, restaurants are dealing with serious pressure. From unstable food supply chains and tariffs, to a workforce that sees the industry as a stopover, not a career. That mindset leads to high turnover, low loyalty, and constant hiring headaches. One of the best ways to fight this is to cross-train staff and show them a clear growth path. When people know you promote from within and reward hard work, they stay longer and care more. Second, I recommend automating whatever doesn't need to be manual—things like health code checks, onboarding, and training logs. It lowers the risk of audit issues and frees up your managers to focus on the floor. And finally, don't be afraid to use loss leaders. A cheap app or drink on a quiet night brings in traffic, gets people familiar with your brand, and often turns into full-price business on the weekends.
As someone who runs a catering staffing agency, the biggest challenge facing restaurants today is finding reliable team members, especially back-of-house staff. The pandemic fundamentally changed worker expectations, making staffing reliability more critical than ever. My Top Advice for First-Time Restaurant Owners: Start with Event Catering Before opening a restaurant, consider event catering first. You'll avoid massive overhead costs like rent and utilities while staying focused on perfecting your food quality. Catering teaches you to be incredibly organized and efficient - skills that translate directly to restaurant success. Plus, you can test your concept and build a customer base without the risk of a permanent location. The Staffing Solution At our agency, we've learned that traditional hiring doesn't work anymore. We've developed extensive screening and reliability verification processes because finding dependable team members requires systematic vetting, not just posting job ads. Restaurants that invest in proper screening, competitive compensation, and backup staffing plans will have a significant advantage. The key is treating staffing as a strategic priority, not an afterthought.
Working in the U.S. food markets for over a decade, one challenge I've seen consistently is the pressure to maintain profitability while operating with little to no margins. Post-pandemic, that pressure has intensified. Rising labor costs, supply chain instability, and shifting consumer expectations are forcing operators to rethink how they run their kitchens. For new restaurant owners, my biggest advice is to approach operations with discipline. Know your food costs down to the ingredient, track waste daily, and don't rely on instinct alone. Data should guide your decisions. Digital inventory, kitchen automation, and integrated POS systems can uncover inefficiencies you didn't know existed. Restaurants that embrace these tools gain clarity, speed, and control, which directly impacts their bottom line. We've successfully integrated technology into food brands across the U.S., and I've seen firsthand how the right tools can turn chaos into control. When a brand finally sees its inventory, labor, and sales synced in real time, it's like flipping on the lights in a dark room. No more guesswork, no more hidden losses, just clean, efficient operations that scale.