Billing and Cooking

While watching the program about the top chef, Gordon Ramsay, where he goes to other people’s restaurants and tells them how to get off their butts and start making real money, I’m struck by the fact that he doesn’t just talk about food and customers and service, but also about where the money’s going once it’s in the door. There was one restaurateur who was allowing her staff to drink at the restaurant’s own bar, after hours, and was losing a fortune because they got the drinks at "mate’s rates."
In the Boston Accounting firm of Murphy & Co (nicely designed site, guys, and I think the hanging banners are great fun) they have a section on restaurateurs and their accounting requirements, which often have to be done at the end of a 16-hour day…or else before the 16-hour day starts. As they say, family-run restaurants are often bleeding cash without even knowing it.
I can’t imagine how some of these people actually manage to keep their head around all the requirements of running a restaurant. Just dealing with the food alone would be a nightmare for me, let alone tackling accounts at the end of a long, long day. (Very long, if you’ve had Gordon Ramsay effing and blinding at you for most of it!)