What is back of house, and who runs it?

At seven in the morning, before any guest arrives, a restaurant is already working. A delivery is checked in at the back door, the prep cooks are portioning fish and making stocks, the pastry section is baking, the kitchen porter is running the dishwasher through last night's pans and the sous chef is writing the prep list for the day. By the time the first guest sits down at noon, five hours of work have gone into the meal they are about to order, and they will never see any of it.

What is back of house? In a restaurant, back of house is every part of the venue the guest does not see, and the people who work there: the kitchen, the prep areas, the stores, the cold rooms, the dish wash, the delivery entrance and, in many venues, the office. It is where the food is received, stored, prepared, cooked and plated, and where the plates and pans come back to be cleaned.

This guide covers what back of house includes, the roles within it, who runs it, how it is organised into stations, what it needs from front of house, how the two halves communicate and how to run back of house well. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

Back of house is the working heart of a restaurant that guests never see. It covers the spaces where food is handled, from the delivery door to the pass, and the people who work in them: chefs, cooks, prep staff, kitchen porters and the managers who run them.

Its job is to turn raw ingredients into the dishes on the menu, safely, consistently and on time, and to keep the kitchen clean, stocked and ready for the next service.

Front of house and back of house are two halves of one restaurant. Front of house is everything guest-facing: the entrance, the dining room, the bar and the team who serve. Back of house is everything behind the pass.

The two depend on each other completely. The best food fails if it arrives late, cold or at the wrong table; the warmest service fails if the food is wrong. Our guide to what front of house is in a restaurant covers the other half, and our guide to front of house and back of house on the same side covers how to make them one team.

The spaces include the delivery and receiving area, the dry store, the cold rooms and freezers, the prep areas, the cooking line, the pass, the dish wash, the waste and recycling area and, often, the staff changing room and the office.

Each space has its own job and its own rules: the temperature of the cold room, the order of the dry store, the flow of dirty plates away from clean food. A well-laid-out back of house moves food and people in one direction, from delivery to the pass, without crossing.

The head chef, or executive chef in a larger operation, runs back of house. They are responsible for the menu, the recipes, the quality of every plate, the kitchen team, the food cost, food safety and the kitchen's part of the budget.

In a smaller venue, the head chef may also be the main cook on the line. In a larger one, they spend more time planning, ordering, training and checking than cooking. Either way, back of house runs to their standards.

The sous chef is the head chef's deputy, running the kitchen when the head chef is away and often running the pass during service. They usually manage the rota, the prep lists and the day-to-day running of the line.

A strong sous chef is the difference between a kitchen that runs only when the head chef is present and one that runs every day. Many kitchens rely on the sous chef far more than the menu's author.

Many kitchens organise their cooks into a brigade, a system of sections, each with its own cook and its own dishes. The traditional brigade de cuisine has a cook for sauces, for fish, for roasts, for vegetables, for cold dishes and for pastry, each led by a chef de partie.

Most modern kitchens use a simpler version, sized to their menu: perhaps a grill, a hot section, a cold section and pastry. The principle is the same: each cook knows exactly which dishes are theirs.

Prep stations divide the kitchen's work by dish or by type of preparation: a station for vegetables, one for proteins, one for sauces, one for pastry. Each has its own equipment, its own space and its own share of the prep list.

Divide stations by what the menu needs, not by tradition or hierarchy. A station overloaded with the dishes that sell most slows the whole service; a well-balanced set of stations keeps every cook busy and none overwhelmed.

The prep list tells each station what to prepare before service: how much of each component, by when. It is written from the forecast and the stock on hand, usually by the sous chef or the head chef the day before or first thing in the morning.

A good prep list prevents both shortages and waste. Our guide to the prep list that ends the morning guesswork covers how to write one.

During service, the line is where the dishes are cooked and plated, each station working its tickets. The rhythm of the line, how quickly each station can work and how evenly the orders are spread, decides how fast the kitchen can serve.

Watch the line at its busiest. The station where tickets pile up is the one that sets the kitchen's pace, and the one where an extra pair of hands, or a simpler dish, makes the most difference.

The pass is where the kitchen hands the food to the floor. The person running it, often the head chef or sous chef, calls the orders to the stations, checks every plate before it leaves and makes sure each table's dishes go out together.

The pass is also where back of house and front of house meet face to face. A calm, clear pass makes the whole service calmer; a chaotic one spreads chaos both ways.

The kitchen porter washes the dishes, the pans and the equipment, keeps the floors and surfaces clean, takes out the rubbish and often helps with deliveries and basic prep. Without them, the kitchen runs out of clean plates and pans in the first hour.

The role is often undervalued, and often the hardest to keep filled. A kitchen porter who is treated as part of the team, trained and thanked, is worth far more than one treated as invisible.

Back of house holds the venue's stock: the dry goods, the chilled and frozen food, the drinks for the kitchen. Managing it means ordering the right amounts, storing it safely, using the oldest first and counting it regularly.

A disorganised store wastes money: food bought twice because nobody could find it, food spoiled because it was pushed to the back. Our guide to how to run a restaurant stock count properly covers the count.

Receiving is back of house's first line of control. Every delivery should be checked against the order and the invoice: the items, the quantities, the weights, the temperatures and the dates. Anything wrong is refused or noted, and the supplier told.

A delivery accepted without checking is the easiest way for a kitchen to pay for food it never received.

Food safety runs through everything back of house does: the temperatures of fridges and food, the separation of raw and cooked, allergen control, cleaning, personal hygiene and the records that prove it. The head chef is responsible, but every member of the team plays a part.

Our guide to HACCP without a folder nobody updates covers how to keep food safety records that are actually used.

Allergens are among back of house's most serious responsibilities. Every dish's allergens must be known and recorded, every allergy on an order must be seen and acted on, and every allergy-free dish must be prepared without cross-contact.

Make the allergy process the same every time: the allergy at the top of the ticket, the cook confirming it, separate equipment where needed and the pass checking the plate before it leaves.

Kitchen communication is how information moves within back of house and between the kitchen and the floor. Within the kitchen, short calls confirm orders, warn of hazards and coordinate the line. Between the kitchen and the floor, the orders, the changes, the allergies, the 86s and the timings must flow both ways.

Agree the words and the signals, and use them every time. Our guide to what 86 means in a kitchen, and why covers one of the most important calls.

Back of house needs clear information from the floor: orders entered correctly, with every change and allergy; a signal when each table is ready for its next course; an early warning of large parties and changes to the bookings; and honest feedback when a guest is unhappy with a dish.

A floor that gives the kitchen what it needs, when it needs it, lets the kitchen cook calmly. One that sends orders in bursts, without warnings, makes every service a fight.

The floor needs information from the kitchen too: what has run out, which dishes are delayed, when a course is ready to collect and what the specials are, with their ingredients and allergens.

Brief the floor before every service on the specials and anything running low, and call the 86s the moment they happen.

Orders reach the kitchen as tickets, printed or on a screen. Each ticket shows the table, the dishes, the changes, the allergies and the timing. A clear ticket, laid out the same way every time, is read correctly in a rush; a confusing one causes mistakes.

Our guide to what a KDS is, in plain kitchen language covers kitchen screens and how they differ from paper tickets.

Back of house has clear staff roles: head chef, sous chef, chefs de partie for each section, commis or junior cooks, prep cooks and kitchen porters. Each role has its own responsibilities and its own place in the chain of command.

Write the roles down, with what each person is responsible for. A kitchen where everyone knows their job, and who to ask, runs far more smoothly than one where roles are assumed.

Train every new member of the kitchen on the recipes, the plating, the food safety rules, the allergen process, the station they will work and how the kitchen communicates. Pair them with an experienced cook for their first shifts.

Train continually: new dishes before the menu changes, refreshers on food safety and allergens, and skills that help cooks move up. A kitchen that trains keeps its people longer.

Back of house has its own numbers: the food cost, the waste, the ticket times, the share of dishes sent back and the labour cost. The head chef should see them every week and act on them.

A kitchen that knows its numbers can see where its money and time go, and fix the problems before they grow. Our guide to ticket times: the only kitchen metric that moves covers one of the most useful.

Back of house has its own opening and closing routines. Opening: check the fridges and freezers, receive the deliveries, start the prep list, switch on the equipment in the right order. Closing: clean every station, store and label the food, record the temperatures, take out the rubbish and leave the kitchen ready for the morning.

Write both routines down, with a name for each task. A kitchen closed in a hurry leaves problems for the opener.

The kitchen's rota follows the work: prep cooks in the morning, the line in the hours before and during service, the kitchen porter through the busiest hours and the close. Staff the kitchen for the shape of the day, not for an average.

Plan the rota from the forecast and the prep list. A kitchen with too few hands at the peak falls behind; one with too many in the quiet afternoon costs money for nothing.

Back of house depends on its equipment: ovens, grills, fryers, fridges, dishwashers, extraction. A failure in the middle of service can stop a section, or the whole kitchen. Planned maintenance, cleaning and early repairs keep the equipment working.

Keep a list of every piece of equipment, its service dates and who to call when it fails. A kitchen that knows who fixes the dishwasher gets it fixed in hours, not days.

Kitchens have their own health and safety risks: knives, heat, hot oil, wet floors, heavy lifting and cleaning chemicals. Back of house must manage them as carefully as food safety.

Train every cook on the risks of their station, keep first aid within reach and record accidents and near misses. A kitchen where people are hurt is a kitchen that loses its team.

The culture of back of house shapes everything: how people speak to each other under pressure, how new cooks are treated, whether problems are raised or hidden. A kitchen where shouting is normal and mistakes are punished loses its people and hides its problems.

The head chef sets the culture. A kitchen that is demanding but respectful, where people are trained and thanked, keeps its cooks and cooks better.

In a small venue, back of house may be one chef and a kitchen porter, or one person doing everything. The roles are the same, but they are held by fewer people, and the routines matter even more.

A small kitchen with clear opening and closing routines, a prep list and a simple system for allergies runs as safely and smoothly as a large one, at its own scale.

Back of house manages the suppliers who keep it stocked: placing orders, checking deliveries, resolving problems and agreeing prices. A good relationship with suppliers means better deliveries, quicker answers and help when something is short.

Make one person responsible for each supplier relationship, and keep the contacts, delivery days and order cut-offs where the whole kitchen can see them.

An invented bistro's kitchen falls behind every Friday at eight. The head chef watches the line and finds the hot section carrying most of the best-selling dishes while the cold section stands idle after the starters, the kitchen porter overwhelmed by pans at the peak, and allergies written in notes the line sometimes misses.

The chef moves two dishes to the cold section, schedules a second kitchen porter from seven to ten on Fridays and moves allergies to the top of every ticket, confirmed aloud by the cook. Friday's longest ticket times fall by a third, and the floor stops apologising for late mains.

In servearound, back of house and front of house share one record: the booking, the order, the kitchen tickets and the bill. Each venue creates its own stations, each dish is assigned to the station that prepares it, and each station has its own kitchen screen, where tickets arrive oldest first with their age, the guest's allergies at the head, each dish's options and removals and any notes; held dishes are marked and fired with a tap, then bumped when ready.

The Kitchen role works the kitchen board, and "From the floor" brings compliments from the dining room to the kitchen. Kitchen analytics show ticket times, by station and by hour, and the remake rate. servearound keeps no stock, prep lists or food safety records. See point of sale and kitchen.

Every part of the restaurant guests do not see: the kitchen, prep, stores, dish wash and the people who work there.

The head chef, with the sous chef as deputy and the pass.

Areas of the kitchen, each with its own share of the dishes and the prep.

Clear orders with changes and allergies, table readiness, warnings and honest feedback.

What has run out, what is delayed, when food is ready and the specials.

Head chef, sous chef, chefs de partie, commis, prep cooks and kitchen porters.

At the top of every ticket, confirmed by the cook and checked at the pass.

Food cost, waste, ticket times, dishes sent back and labour cost.

What is back of house? It is every part of the restaurant guests never see: the kitchen, the prep areas, the stores, the dish wash and the team who work in them, run by the head chef. Front of house and back of house are two halves of one restaurant, and the service depends on both.

Organise the kitchen into prep stations sized to the menu, define the staff roles, write the prep list from the forecast and run the pass with one clear voice. Keep kitchen communication flowing both ways, put allergies at the top of every ticket and watch the kitchen's numbers every week.