Manager routines: the first and last hour

Some services go wrong before the first guest arrives. The bookings were not checked, so nobody knew about the party of twelve. The new server was not briefed. The fish delivery was short and the kitchen found out at seven. The float was never counted. By the time the manager notices, the room is full and the problems are already reaching guests.

Others end badly after the last guest leaves. The till is left with open checks, a fridge door is propped open, the back door is unlocked, nobody wrote down that the dishwasher was making a noise, and the opening manager arrives the next morning to a list of surprises.

Most of this is avoided by two short routines: what the duty manager does in the hour before service and what they do in the hour after. This guide covers both, written as lists a manager can follow every shift, with the handover that joins one shift to the next. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A manager's job during service is to react: to guests, to the kitchen, to problems as they arise. That leaves little time to think. The hour before and the hour after are the only times a manager can plan, check and prepare without a room full of guests.

Manager routines make those hours count. A routine done the same way every shift catches the problems that would otherwise reach guests, and it means every manager runs the venue the same way, whoever is on.

The routines work best as two short lists, one for the first hour and one for the last, each with a dozen items or fewer. Long enough to cover what matters, short enough to finish in the time available.

Keep them on a card or a sheet in the office, and tick them off each shift. A routine that lives in the manager's head changes a little every day; one written down stays the same.

Start with the bookings. Check the day's covers, the times when the room will be busiest, the large parties, the guests with allergies or special occasions and any notes the team needs to see. Compare with yesterday's daily report and with a normal day of the same kind.

Look for the problems before they arrive: two large parties booked at the same time, a gap that walk-ins could fill, a regular who always asks for the same table. Five minutes with the diary saves an hour of firefighting later.

Check the team against the bookings. Who is in, who is late, who is new, who is sick? Is the kitchen staffed for the large party? Is there someone on the door at the busiest time?

Fill the gaps now, while there is time to call someone in or move a section around. A gap found at five o'clock can be solved; a gap found at eight can only be endured.

Talk to the chef before service. What is short from the deliveries, what is on special, what has run out, what is the kitchen worried about? Agree how to handle the large parties and anything that might slow the pass.

The floor and the kitchen should start service with the same picture. A manager who knows that the fish is short can tell the servers before they promise it to a table.

Walk the room. Are the tables set, the lights right, the music on, the temperature comfortable, the toilets clean and stocked? Is the entrance clear and welcoming? Are the menus clean and current?

Guests notice the room before they notice anything else. A walk round, ten minutes before the doors open, catches the broken bulb, the wobbly table and the empty soap dispenser.

Make sure the opening checklist has been done: fridges at temperature, the hand wash basins ready, the float counted, the tills working, the card terminals charged, the bar stocked. The team does most of these; the manager checks they are done.

Our guide to daily checklists that get ticked honestly covers how to keep the opening checklist truthful, so a tick means the job was really done.

End the first hour with a short briefing for the whole team: the covers, the large parties, the allergies to watch, the specials, anything that has run out, the one change from yesterday and who is on which section. Ten minutes, standing up, before the doors open.

Include the kitchen if you can. A briefing where the chef explains the specials and the floor hears about the bookings at the same time brings both sides into the service together.

A first-hour list might look like this:

Eight items, perhaps forty minutes, every shift. The rest of the first hour is for the unexpected.

Between the first and last hour, a few checks keep the service on track: a walk round the room every half hour or so, a look at the pass, a word with the host about the next hour's bookings and a glance at the bar.

Each takes a minute. Together, they catch the table that has waited too long, the section that is falling behind and the problem in the kitchen before it reaches the guests.

A busy night needs preparation the day before as well as in the first hour: extra prep agreed with the kitchen, an extra server or two on the rota, extra stock ordered, the large parties' menus confirmed and the room plan checked.

Add a short "the day before" step to the routine for the busiest nights of the week and for special occasions. The first hour then confirms the plan rather than discovering it.

The last hour starts as the last tables finish. Watch the room winding down: the last orders, the bills, the guests lingering over coffee. Make sure the last guests are looked after as well as the first, because they are the ones who remember how the evening ended.

Once guests have left, walk the room again: tables cleared, chairs up, floors swept, nothing left behind. Collect any lost property and note it.

Close the tills properly. Check for open checks before closing, settle or void anything left open with a reason, and reconcile the day's takings against what was collected: card, cash and anything else.

Open checks left overnight are a common source of confusion the next day. A check that should have been settled, or a table that was never closed, makes the day's figures wrong and the next manager's morning harder.

The end of night checks cover the building: fridges and freezers closed and at temperature, ovens and gas off, the dishwasher emptied, the bins out, the doors and windows locked, the alarm set. Each is quick, and each matters.

Do them in the same order every night, following a route through the building, so nothing is missed. A route that starts in the kitchen and ends at the front door, setting the alarm, is easy to follow even when tired.

Handle cash carefully: count it with a second person where possible, record the totals, put it in the safe and never leave it in the till overnight. Note any differences between what should be there and what is, and explain them if you can.

Safety matters too. Check that the team has a safe way home, that nobody is leaving alone at a late hour if it can be avoided, and that the building is secure before the last person leaves.

Write down what happened: covers, problems, anything that broke, anything the next manager needs to know. This becomes the handover note and feeds the service report and the daily report.

Write it before leaving, while it is fresh. A problem remembered the next morning is a problem half forgotten.

A last-hour list might look like this:

Eight items, perhaps thirty minutes after the last guest leaves. On busy nights it takes longer; the list makes sure nothing is skipped because everyone is tired.

Some nights are hard: a complaint that went badly, a kitchen that fell behind, a member of staff who was upset. The last hour after such a night should include a few minutes with the team, a thank you and, if needed, a quiet word with anyone who had a rough evening.

Write down what happened and what should change, while it is fresh. A difficult night handled well, with the lesson recorded, makes the next one less likely.

The routines matter most on the manager's day off, when a deputy or a shift leader runs the venue. If the routines are written down and followed every day, the deputy simply follows the same lists.

Make sure every person who might run a shift has been trained on the lists and has done them alongside the manager. A deputy who has never closed the tills before their first night in charge is set up to struggle.

The shift handover joins the last hour of one shift to the first hour of the next. A short written note, left in the same place every night, tells the next manager what they need to know: what happened, what broke, what was promised, what is short and what to watch for.

Shift handovers are a known weak point in shift work of every kind, from hospitals to factories, because information lives in one person's head and has to reach another's. A written note, read at the start of the next shift, is the simplest way to make sure it does.

A useful handover note covers a few things: covers and how the service went, any problems with guests, staff or equipment, anything promised to a guest, anything that ran out or needs ordering, any cash differences and anything the next manager must do.

Keep it short and factual. The note is for the next manager to act on, not a diary of the evening.

In venues with lunch and dinner, there is often a handover in the middle of the day as well: from the day manager to the night manager. The same principles apply: a short note, or a five-minute conversation, covering what happened at lunch and what the evening needs to know.

The middle-of-the-day handover is often the one that gets skipped, because both managers are busy. Make it part of the routine for both.

The handover note, the bookings and the day's figures together feed the daily report: yesterday in five lines and today in three. The routines make the daily report quick to prepare, because the information is already gathered.

Our guide to the daily report: five lines before you open covers what goes in it and how to read it in five minutes.

The last hour is also when the shift report is prepared, for the owner or the manager the next day: takings, tenders, voids and comps, staffing and anything unusual. It is the manager's record of the shift, alongside the team's service report.

Our guide to shift reports a manager reads in two minutes covers what to include.

Routines slip on busy nights, on the nights a manager is covering an unfamiliar shift and on the nights everyone is exhausted. Those are exactly the nights the routine matters most, because they are when things get missed.

Keep the lists where they cannot be ignored, and check them the next day. A routine that slips once can be caught; one that slips every busy night stops being a routine.

Every manager who runs a shift should follow the same routines, from the general manager to the supervisor covering a quiet Sunday. A venue where each manager has their own way of opening and closing runs differently every day, and the team never knows what to expect.

Train every manager on the lists, and review them together now and then. Managers often find better ways of doing things, which should become the new routine for everyone.

Some routines are weekly rather than daily: the stock order, the rota for next week, the review of the week's figures. Give each a set time in the manager's week, so they happen even when the days are busy.

A manager who does the rota every Monday morning and the stock order every Thursday afternoon rarely finds either one done in a rush at the last minute.

Routines grow, like checklists. A new item after each problem, a new check after each complaint, until the first hour takes ninety minutes. Review the lists every few months and remove what no longer matters.

The routine is only useful if it can be finished in the time available. A first-hour list that cannot be finished before the doors open will be cut short in a way nobody chose.

The best routines are written by the managers who use them. Ask each manager what they do in the first and last hour, compare the lists and agree one version that everyone follows.

Managers who helped write the routine follow it more readily, and their different habits often contain the best ideas for the shared list.

The first and last hour are the daily heartbeat of restaurant operations, alongside the weekly review, the monthly figures and the regular checks. Each part supports the others.

Our guide to restaurant operations: the week as a system covers how the daily routines fit into the week as a whole.

An invented bistro has three managers who each open and close differently. Problems surface during service: unknown large parties, short deliveries, open checks left overnight. The general manager writes two lists of eight items each, and a handover note template kept on the office desk.

Every manager follows the lists and writes the note before leaving. Within a month, the large parties are known at five o'clock, the kitchen and floor start each service with the same picture, open checks are settled before close and the opening manager reads the note before the morning starts. Service problems that used to reach guests are caught in the first hour.

servearound has no checklists or handover notes of its own, so the two lists stay on a card and the handover note goes in the venue's team chat or on the office desk. What it puts on a screen is the information the routines check. For the first hour, the reservations screen shows the day's bookings with each guest's party size, notes and allergies, and the dashboard's Right now panel shows today's covers and bookings, guests seated and waiting, tables in service and open orders.

For the last hour, Right now shows any orders still open before close, payment analytics set to Today show what was collected and how it was tendered, and bills for any dates can be downloaded as a spreadsheet for the cash up. servearound has no end-of-day close or cash drawer link, so the count itself is yours. See point of sale and kitchen.

Check the bookings and the team, talk to the chef, walk the room, check the opening checklist and brief the team.

Look after the last guests, close the tills, do the end of night checks, secure the cash and write the handover note.

About eight items, taking thirty to forty minutes.

A short written note from one manager to the next, covering what happened and what to watch for.

Yes, so the venue runs the same way whoever is on.

Covers, problems, promises to guests, shortages, cash differences and anything the next manager must do.

Because checks left open overnight make the day's figures wrong and confuse the next shift.

Check it the next day, because busy nights are when it matters most.

Manager routines for the first and last hour turn the only quiet parts of a shift into its most useful. In the first hour: the bookings, the team, the kitchen, the room, the opening checklist and a short briefing. In the last hour: the last guests, the tills and open checks, the end of night checks in the same order every night, the cash and a written note for the next shift.

Write each as a short list, follow it every shift whoever is managing and make the shift handover a habit, so the next manager starts knowing what the last one knew. The routines feed the daily report and the shift report, and they catch most of the problems that would otherwise reach guests.