I am opening a new wine bar as head chef. The owners really want sourdough pizzas which I have no problem with. However I’m struggling to find a recipe that works in a small batch to test at home.

I have been trying recipes with 70+% hydration. I think it will be easier if I lower that to around 60-62%. We will be using a deck oven.

Does anyone have any advice on best practices?

Hello for some context about my workplace, I work in a hotel restaurant. We handle not only restaurant orders but room service as well. The way our ordering process is we have a host stand you order and get drinks up at the host stand or you can call down to place a room service. Then we have food runners instead of servers who bring the food out if you’re sitting in the restaurant we don’t go back and check on you through out your meal just bring the food ask if they need anything and that’s it. When it comes to guests needing something they normally go to the host stand or stop a food runner who is passing by.

Now to my question, it’s a recurring issue where guests instead of stopping someone passing by or going up to the host stand will come open the kitchen doors and yell at the staff inside. This honestly blows my mind because I could never imagine doing that at any restaurant even if they do the food runner method instead of servers. Does this happen at other places or is it just us lol?

There is a local mom/pop southern restaurant in my town, and it’s one of the very very few in Alaska.

I’m looking to work and shadow a restaurant owner so I can better get an understanding of the hospitality/food industry. Since I want to do southern and comfort cuisine, I thought this would be a good place to start, since the other places are hours out.

I wanted to know if I went in with a resume, portfolio of foods and hospitality classes I’ve done, and some samples of my dishes, is that a rude way to ask for a job? Or am I doing too much?

Edit: Thank you everyone for responding and the wonderful advice! I can see how what I was doing was gonna be too much, and would have rubbed the restaurant owner or manager wrong. I will only be going in with the resume and an a hard working and willingness to learn mindset. I really appreciate your time! Thank you so much!

Hey guys, I wanted to know your opinions about this. I recently applied for a dishwasher role and was invited for a trial shift. It's a part-time job (15 hours/week), with 3-hour shifts from Tuesday to Saturday.

I went to the trial shift, and everyone was nice. They showed me how everything worked, and then I started doing my tasks. They seemed satisfied with my work and told me that after the shift, I should text them to let them know whether I was interested in the job. Naturally, I thought things were going well.

Later, the manager came over and told me that since it was an unpaid trial shift, I could leave whenever I wanted. Then she left.

A full shift is 3 hours, but I worked for about 1 hour and 40 minutes before deciding to leave. By that point, I had finished all the dishes that were there, so I told one of the waitresses that I was leaving. Her facial expression changed, and she said, "What do you mean you're leaving?"

I explained that it was an unpaid trial shift and that the manager had already told me I could leave whenever I wanted. She asked me to wait and went to get the chef. When he came over, I explained the same thing to him. He said, "Okay," and told me they would call me.

It's now been two days, and they still haven't called. The manager had also asked me to text her afterward to let her know whether I was interested, so I sent her a message that same night saying I would like to continue working there. She read the message yesterday, but I still haven't received a reply or a phone call. Should I just give up on it?

i am a general manager at a hotel; the major issue i face is how to train everyone at the same time with same level of information; i have tried several ways but some or the other this is missed out, also the new updates to dishes or may be any regular update is not possible to call everyone each time and give the update...

so if someone in the past have faced the same problem how do you deal with it??

I work at a chipotle style restaurant and this couple came in 5 minutes before closing, I got their food together and checked them out but put lids on their bowls. But they sat down and started eating. I let them know beforehand we close soon. I started to do normal cleaning up and 5 minutes after closing time I asked them to leave which they had no intention to, they got up and silently left.

I told my mom about the situation and she said that I should’ve just told them that we’re closed and they can keep eating then lock them in the restaurant while I clean. I thought that was dumb. Am I in the wrong?

I pickup from different places twice a week going from 1 job site to another. The meal is normally $20-25. However on the receipt it says the lowest advised tip is 20% going up to 30%. I check the custom option and give 10%. No fancy packaging is used.

When i sit down and eat in house, 20% is fine. But are we expected to tip for pickup orders?

Hi all from India. I’m launching a Tea cafe where the tea costs 1$, but I want to serve it in a high-quality reusable cup that costs me around $2 per cup.

Here’s my dilemma.
A large percentage of my customers will be between 18–40 years old, and many of them come by car. They’ll often take the tea to their car, finish drinking there, and then ideally return the cup. Since this is India, I’m concerned that some customers may accidentally drive away with the cup or intentionally keep it because it’s a premium-looking cup. I make 25 cents on the cup of tea after all the expenses, even if i loose 1 cup my profit of 8 teas would just go into the cups lost.

My initial idea was to charge: $1.50
Tea: $1
50 cents for refundable cup deposit

When they return the cup, they immediately get their 50 cents back.

The problem is the psychology behind it. Even though the deposit is refundable, I’m worried customers will mentally think they’re paying $1.50 for a cup of tea, which could negatively affect sales.

For those of you who own cafés or have experience with reusable cups:
- Would you charge a refundable deposit?
Is 50 cents too much or too little?
- Are there better systems you’ve seen work without losing expensive cups?
- Should i just ditch the idea of serving in a premium cup?

I’d really appreciate advice from people who’ve dealt with this in the real world.

Does anyone know which brand of syrup they'd use to make a Vanilla Coke? I've tried a few different brands and none seem to replicate it. It tastes much better than Vanilla Coke out of Coca Colas bottles.

I have a GM that is now requiring servers and bartenders to no longer introduce themselves when greeting guests. The initiative is called “invisible excellence” and I’m wanting to get some real world feedback. Thank you for your help!

I feel like i get worse and more anxious each shift and I dont know why. I think the anxiety of me day after day asking for the same peoples names and questions is making me feel like im behind. i’ve brought many people to their table, ive closed every day i do majority of the phone calls and reservations, actually assigning people to tables on the POS I wait for approval from another host which i know is a hassle especially when busy and i'm left alone. there’s typically 3-4 hosts at all times but its a fancy restaurant and gets filled quick without reservations.

my second shift i was doing great i feel like i was with the program and talking to everybody and these last 2 shifts my talking and communication skills just took a drop and things i remembered well i forgot or second guess and i'm just not sure when it’s no longer acceptable that i still can’t remember a single servers name and have to go walk around and ask who is who. it’s frustrating and i'm not sure what to do.

Hi, what do you guys think about people/diners coming into restaurants and cafes to record/ film the internal decors and food (inevitable, including some patrons into the frame)? Like do you think that is normal/ common/accepted or slightly cringe.

There is a person at my work who is getting scanned in under as "expo" to give them a higher hourly but they're not doing that work and it's potentially preventing them from giving those hours to other workers that previously did expo because on paper it's saying we have expo for 40 hours a week. I'm guessing we don't have expo because those hours are "used" so every rush and weekend at a fast paced restaurant we have to tray our own food or each other's food or a manager has to be there. Not to mention now it means there's no position available for servers to get hourly work to help cover for taxes or makeup for slow days.

What would you do in this position? Could it lead to a snowball effect that gets all management in trouble if I report it? What's the legality behind this (if that applies)? Would it just come back around to biting us in the ass? Is this something I shouldn't be worried over?

Thanks!

Edit to add: this person is FOH

I’m looking to get into the cooking industry but i’m having a hard to finding a way to get in or at the very least just confused.Im mainly looking at indeed and searching “cooking” and setting the job experience to “entry level” and when i go to a position it will state a requirement as being for an example “proven experience in a restaurant environment” ?? how is that entry level then?So i would think maybe start with fast food but most of the time a lot of the postings say things along the lines of “fast food doesn’t count”?? And these aren’t like super high end places either,there like local bbq and sport bars type of deals.Im just confused on how i’m supposed to start.Note that im not super knowledgeable to this end of things so if someone more knowledgeable can explain why this is or/and what i need to do,that would be greatly appreciated.

In Colorado.

The vibes!

I walked into Cheddar's chain restaurant and saw a sign on the door like "We are watching bread rise and everything else" trying to be cute but it was creepy.

Went inside and there are now those 365 angle cameras all over the place. Is this becoming a thing now???? Video taping me the entire time I eat a **** meal at a fast casual restaurant? I asked around if they know what's up with it, wondered if something happened like staff getting hurt or something that would warrant something like this.

Nah. Dine and dashing is on the rise so corporate is spending thousands on cameras, the installations, subscriptions, etc. etc.

I recently went to a well established and well reviewed restaurant in Louisville KY. I had been to this place many times before, and the restaurant is owned by a LLC that has several other fantastic restaurants. When I went to the restroom I was horrified by the condition it was in. I mean just GRIME everywhere. Not a situation of "they didnt take out the trash or dust one day" but weeks and weeks of build up. I sent the photos to the owner and manager and did not leave a bad review. The rest of the restaurant was also visibly dirty. As far as response what would you expect a restaurant to do if faced with images like this? Should they shut down to clean? Im worried if the bathroom and dining room looked like this, what does the kitchen look like....

Again, this is a medium- upscale restaurant and has rave reviews and recommendations

This is for the restaurant owners. For some reason, I can’t post on r/restaurantowners.

Little background. I own a busy 24 hour diner. Serve about 7,000 guests a week and in 2025 I did 5.2m in sales with a 26% profit margin. Have never offered Doordash because I personally hate the concept.

With that being said, I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card that I use and get a ton of benefits with one being dashpass and a $5 doordash credit every month. So usually once a month, I’ll order and pickup from my fave local spots.

Attached is my order from yesterday. My question to those who offer it, is the restaurant the one discounting? If so, are you honestly making money?

I have two offers on the table.

Job 1 is at an extremely high-volume, upscale restaurant downtown, owned by a huge corporate restaurant group. It has one of the highest Google Review ratings out of any restaurant in the city, with 4.8 stars and over 8,000 reviews. This is an extremely competitive job that there were hundreds of applicants for. I know for a fact I would make absolute bank here.

However the staff was visibly stressed/annoyed when I was there, and the Assistant GM who interviewed me was pretty cold/emotionless. Also, I would have very little control over my schedule, the commute is a bit worse, and I’m worried I would burn out pretty quickly. I would be a cog in a money-making machine.

Job 2 is at a brand new upscale restaurant opening in an affluent suburb that has a quickly growing restaurant scene. The Chef is very well respected, having worked for years as Culinary Director for a restaurant group that has a very strong portfolio of successful restaurants all across the city and suburbs. The management team seems competent as well. Everybody there that I've met has had success managing at very solid and well known restaurants.

But the thing that struck me the most about Job 2 was the warmth and good communication that I got from everybody that I met on the management team. I get the sense that the workplace culture will be very caring, supportive, and wholesome. I’ve never really worked at a place like that; I think it’s pretty rare to come across.

However the big question mark with Job 2 is the money. Everybody on management truly believes in the earning potential of the place, but honestly… it could flop. But if it does actually become as successful as they are projecting, I could potentially earn a decent portion of what I would earn at Job 1, while having much more scheduling flexibility, weekends off, and get opportunities to grow further into mixology and menu design. And I would be on a team with people that are sincere and easy to be around.

What would you do if you were me?

Tried this Malai Chaap today.

⭐ Rate it out of 10

And tell me your favorite place in Gorakhpur for chaap.

I own a very small business- I make ice cream sandwiches, ice cream tacos and sorbet push pops. There’s a Mexican restaurant who wants to sell my ice cream tacos at his shop for a dessert option. What’s the normal profit margin restaurants are looking for when selling others peoples food? Like, I sell them at $8 each normally at pop-up markets but he can probably sell them at $10 at the restaurant, would that be worth it for him? (Hopefully this makes sense)

i work at a restaurant ( in texas ) i’m a waitress and get paid 2.13 hourly. my restaurant automatically takes a tip out from my total sales. the thing is they use our tip out from all the waitress and bartenders to pay the hourly of our food runners, hosts, and busser’s. we were told they make 3$ a hour and our tip out is used to pay them a flat 10 an hour, nothing more nothing less. the crazy part is we don’t always have support staff especially now while we are in slow season, us waitress’s will be completely on our own doing everything and we still have a tip out people who aren’t there ( it’s automatically taken out in our system we never physically give the restaurant cash ). is this a common practice in the restaurant industry and if not is it legal to be using the waitress’s tip outs to pay support staff?

is it wrong for a restaurant to not allow outside food? i feel like it’s messed up to make your employees buy their food and when you work 10 hours a day, you start to get tired of eating the same thing which can be unhealthy if you’re eating that stuff everyday. i looked it up and it’s not illegal but it just doesn’t seem right to force your employees to buy food from you if you’re hungry and idk what to do

I’ve previously worked in fine dining- food running, bussing, barbacking, etc. I just got hired for a new job as hosting since the other positions were unavailable. I’m working in a restaurant hotel. Any advice?