2. Food and Beverage Operations: Full-Service Hotels
Chapter 11
Food and Beverage Operations:
Full-Service Hotels

3. Learning Objectives
To show the organizational structure used in smaller hotels’ food and beverage operations.
To show the organizational structure used in larger full-service hotels’ food and beverage operations.
To examine how hoteliers assess guest needs when planning food and beverage offerings.

4. Learning Objectives
To review important operating procedures related to purchasing, receiving, storing, issuing, and producing food and beverage products.
To present management concerns related to serving à la carte meals, room-service and banquets in a hotel.

5. Hotel Food and Beverage Offerings
Full service hotels typically offer guests one or more of the following F&B options:
A la carte dining
Banquets
Room service
Bars/ lounges

6. Organization of Hotel Food and Beverage Operations
In the U.S., the average full-service hotel can generate 25% or more of its total revenue from food and beverage sales.
Some properties, especially those with large-volume convention/meeting/ banquet business can generate food and beverage revenues approaching 50% of total hotel revenues.

7. Organization of Hotel Food and Beverage Operations
Smaller Hotels
General Manager
Food and Beverage Manager
Head Cook/Chef
Restaurant and Banquet Manager
Head Bartender

8. Organization of Hotel Food and Beverage Operations
Larger Hotels
Hotel General Manager
Food and Beverage Manager
Executive chef
Sous chef
Banquet chef
Catering Manager
Banquet Manager
Restaurant Manager
Room Service Manager
Beverage Manager
Head Bartender

9. Menu Planning
Managers must use marketing principles to learn what guests will buy and the prices guests will pay if they are to effectively differentiate their businesses from their competitors.

10. Menu Planning Guest Concerns Purpose of Visit
Guests want an experience in line with the purpose of their visit.
They may just be hungry (for example, when travelers on an interstate highway stop at a roadside hotel)
They may be discussing business
They may be a couple or a family visiting an upscale hotel restaurant to celebrate a special occasion.

11. Menu Planning Guest Concerns Value
Value (food service): The guest’s perception of the selling price of a menu item relative to the quality of the menu item, service, and dining experience received.

12. Menu Planning Guest Concerns Demographic Factors
Demographic Factors: Characteristics such as age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, and occupation that help to describe or classify a person as a member of a group.

13. Menu Planning Guest Concerns Other Factors
Social factors such as income, education, and wealth may influence what guests desire.
Other factors, including guests’ lifestyles and even their personalities (for example, the extent to which they like to try “new” foods) can be relevant to menu-planning decisions.

14. Menu Planning Operating Concerns
There are a variety of operating-related factors that must be considered when planning menus:
Product Purchases
Layout/Design Concerns
Equipment Availability
Production Volumes

15. Food Service Control Points
Procurement
After the menu is planned the ingredients needed to produce the items on it will be known.
All ingredients must be procured (obtained) using effective purchasing procedures.

16. Food Service Control Points
Procurement
Another purchasing factor relates to the quantity of items needed.
The price is right when the cost of a food item or ingredient provides a good value.

17. Food Service Control Points
Procurement
The right time for product delivery must also be considered.
The right supplier consistently delivers the right quality and quantities of product at the right price and at the right time.

18. Food Service Control Points
Receiving, Storing and Issuing
After products are purchased they must be received, stored, and issued to production areas.
Storing is the process of holding products in a secure space with proper temperature, humidity, and product rotation until they are needed.
Issuing involves moving products from the storage area to the place of production.

19. Food Service Control Points
Production
Production: All of the cooking and preparation processes used to ready products for consumption.

20. Food Service Control Points
Production
Standardized recipe: A written explanation about how a food or beverage item should be prepared. It lists the quantity of each ingredient, preparation techniques, portion size and other information production personnel need to ensure that the item is always prepared in the same way.

21. Food Service Control Points
Serving and Service
The process of moving products from production to service personnel is called serving.
Service personnel deliver food and beverage products to guests in a process called service.
Both serving and service procedures must be professionally planned and executed.

22. À la Carte Dining Serving and Service
Some of the most import of these activities include:
Getting ready for service
Service procedures

23. À la Carte Dining Getting Ready for Service
When food is prepared it can be served in a variety of styles including:
American (Plated) Service
Traditional French Service
Russian (Platter) Service 
English (Family) Service
Buffet (Self-Service)
Counter (Bar) Service

24. À la Carte Dining Service Procedures
Preparing to serve food properly requires staff to undertake a variety of activities including:
Ensuring tables, chairs, and booths are clean, safe, and steady
Checking to assure that tablecloths, if used, are correctly placed and are clean and free of burns, holes, and tears

25. À la Carte Dining Service Procedures
Ensuring place settings are positioned according to the hotel’s standards
Confirming there are no water spots or fingerprints on glassware, flatware or other service ware

26. À la Carte Dining Service Procedures
Preparing service staff is equally important. Items to discuss prior to service may include:
Specific server station assignments
Daily specials
New menu items
Estimates of business volume
Targeted Training sessions

27. Room Service Service Procedures
Room service is the hotel term that describes the entire process of delivering menu items to guests in their rooms.

28. Room Service Profitability
It is a service to guests and some guests may select a property based on its availability.
The offering of room service (especially on a 24/7 basis) can add significantly to guests’ perceptions of a hotel’s exclusiveness and attention toward guest needs.

29. Room Service Profitability
Some hotel rating services (for example: the American Automobile Association: (AAA) only assign their highest ratings to hotels that offer room service.

30. Room Service Menu Planning
Creative hoteliers know that room service menus can be used to sell other hotel products and services. For example:
An invitation on the room service breakfast menu to call about daily dinner specials in the dining room can also interest guests in thinking ahead about their evening dinner plans.

31. Room Service Menu Planning
Alternatives such as pictures and menu item descriptions written in the languages most used by the hotel’s international guests may be solutions.

32. Room Service Operating Issues
It is difficult to correct errors in any food service operation, but especially in the area of room service.
It is important to get room service orders right the first time to maintain high guest check averages.

33. Total Number of Guests Served
Room Service
Operating Issues
Total Revenue
Total Number of Guests Served
Guest Check Average

34. Room Service Operating Issues
Point of Sale (POS) system: A computer system that maintains a record of guests’ food and beverage purchases and payments.
When orders are placed, these systems provide information about whether guests are permitted to charge meals purchases to their room folios or if the meals must be paid for at the time of delivery.

35. Room Service In Room Service
Asking guests where the room service meal should be placed
Explaining procedures for retrieval of room service items
Presenting the guest check and securing signature or payment

36. Banquet Operations In Room Service
The availability of a wide variety of types and sizes of banquet events sold by a hotel’s catering sales staff is an important factor separating hotel food and beverage departments from many of their counterparts in other segments of the food service industry.

37. Banquet Operations Profitability
Banquets are frequently used to celebrate special events. This provides the opportunity to sell menu items that are more expensive and, therefore, higher in contribution margin.
The number of meals to be served is known in advance; in fact, there is a formal guarantee.

38. Banquet Operations Profitability
The event will have known starting and ending times making it easier to schedule production and service staff
There is less likelihood of overproduction of food and subsequent waste.

39. Banquet Operations Menu Planning These include concerns about:
guest preferences
the ability to consistently produce items of the desired quality
the availability of ingredients required to produce the menu items
production/service staff with appropriate skills

40. Banquet Operations Menu Planning
equipment, layout or facility design issues
nutritional issues
sanitation
peak volume production capabilities
the ability to generate required profit levels at the selling prices that are charged

41. Banquet Operations Banquet Event and Contracts
A banquet contract should detail:
Time of Guarantee
Cancellation policies
Guarantee-reduction policy
Billing

42. Banquet Operations Other Banquet Concerns
Special concerns banquet managers have about banquet rooms include:
Banquet Room Set-Up
Banquet Service Style
Control of Beverage Functions

43. Banquet Operations Other Banquet Concerns Banquet Room Set-Up
A hotel’s banquet rooms (also called function rooms) must be set up by the hotel’s staff to reflect the type and purpose of the event to be held.

44. Banquet Service Styles
Banquet Operations
Other Banquet Concerns
Banquet Service Styles
Banquet events can involve numerous ways to serve food and beverage products to guests, including Butler service.

45. Control of Beverage Functions
Banquet Operations
Other Banquet Concerns
Control of Beverage Functions
Many banquets include the offering of alcoholic beverages.
There are several common ways that beverages sold at banquet events can be charged for and priced.

46. Control of Beverage Functions
Banquet Operations
Other Banquet Concerns
Control of Beverage Functions
Additional labor charges for the following types of labor may be assessed.
bartenders and barbacks (bartender assistants)
beverage servers
cashiers
security personnel
valet (parking) staff
coat room employees