3. Hotel F&B
Operating a profitable hotel F&B
department is typically more
complex than operating a
profitable restaurant, and some
hotel F&B departments are not
profitable.
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4. Hotel F&B
• Hotel F&B operations are complicated for many
reasons including the variety of offerings. A typical
restaurant offers one type of cuisine and service for
one or two meal periods per day. Most popular-
priced and fine-dining restaurants do not offer
breakfast and are not even open seven days per
week.
04
5. Hotel F&B
• Hotel F&B operations may offer multiple,
additional operations, 24-hour room
service, banquet meals, and other F&B
alternatives. These may include snack bar,
coffee break, and meal services as part of
convention/meeting operations, take-out
and off-site catering, vending, and
alcoholic beverage outlets in lounges, and
lobby “grab-and-go” areas.
• Grab-and-go area – a small counter area
with a limited variety of food and non-
alcoholic beverage items located in lobby
or other public areas
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6. The F&B Department
6
• F&B departments typically generate less revenue, more complaints, and fewer profits than
the rental of a hotel’s guest rooms. Most full-service hotels generate 60-80% or more of
their revenue from guest room rentals.
7. The F&B Department
7
• F&B products and services can be a significant factor in attracting guests to the hotel.
• Some guests, especially those planning conventions, conferences, and other group
meetings, select a hotel, by considering the quality and value of the F&B services.
• Other travelers and those within the community choose to spend discretionary dining
dollars in hotels with a reputation for providing quality F&B services and fair prices.
• F&B services can support the sale of other, more profitable hotel features
8. Similarities between Hotel and Restaurant Food
Services
8
• Basic principles for planning, managing financial resources, food safety and food
preparation, and for controlling costs, among numerous factors, are the same in
restaurant and hotel F&B operations.
9. 9
• Commercial Food-service Operation – food services offered in hotels, restaurants, and
other organizations whose primary purpose involves generation of profits from the sale of
food and beverage products.
• Noncommercial Food-service Operation – food services provided by healthcare
education, military, religious, and numerous other organizations whose primary purpose
is not to generate a profit from the sale of food/beverage products but rather is to
support another organizational purpose
10. Operational Similarities
10
• Planning Issues – the need to begin planning by considering a menu driven by wants,
needs, and/or preferences of those who will be served is critical. The menu impacts the
design, facility layout, and equipment needs of the operation and the labor required to
produce and serve the menu items to be offered.
• Financial concerns – economic issues are significant importance in hotel and restaurant
operations. Operating budgets are required to estimate revenues and plan for expenses.
• Emphasis on guests – when an F&B operation is well managed, guests will return. Repeat
business generated by a properly managed F&B department is important to overall
success.
• Cost-control procedures – food service operations of all types provide numerous cost-
control challenges when managing all available resources.
11. Operational Similarities
11
• Hotel F&B managers typically recruit the same type of individuals as their restaurant
counterparts.
• The number of F&B staff needed depends on the hotel’s size and volume and complexity
of its products and services.
• Hotels and restaurants must recruit, select and retain trained F&B professionals.
13. The F&B Director
13
• The F&B Director is responsible for the
effective operation of the F&B department
and normally reports to the GM.
14. F&B Staff
14
• Culinarians – these individuals are highly trained in food preparations and kitchen
management responsibilities and activities.
• Restaurant and Dining Room Managers – these individuals operate the “open to the
public” restaurant facilities within the hotel.
• Catering Managers – these individuals plan and supervise banquets, meetings, catering,
and special events held at the hotel.
• Beverage Managers and Bartenders – these individuals manage and operate the hotel’s
alcoholic beverage outlets
• Kitchen Stewarding Staff – these staff members maintain the kitchen spaces, wash
dishes, and assist the hotel’s food production personnel.
• Service staff – these individuals serve guests in the restaurant, bar, lounge, room service,
and banquet areas of the hotel.
15. Marketing
15
• Guest room revenues in a hotel are typically much higher than F&B revenues. For this
reason, many hotels emphasize guest room rentals – not restaurant operations, in their
marketing efforts.
• Location within the community – experienced restaurant operators know that location
is very significant factor in operating success. They place their restaurants in locations
that are easily accessible to potential guests. By contrast, hotels are placed in
locations that are most accessible to those guests desiring lodging accommodations.
• Location within the hotel – ideally, hotels catering to local (walk-in) guests typically
have outdoor signage and outdoor entrances to attract local diners.
• Menu – often a hotel’s restaurant is designed to cater to the traveling guests it desires
to attract. It may need to offer an upscale menu, or one in concert with a local theme.
• Marketing to hotel guests – guests in restaurants are there to enjoy the food,
beverage, service, and environment. By contrast, hotel guests may or may not be
interested in, or even knowing about, dining opportunities at the hotel, and it is the
job of hotel staff members to encourage the use of the property’s F&B facilities.
16. Marketing
16
• Signage throughout the property, a coupon or other discount for hotel guest diners, in-
room advertising, features on the hotel’s television channel, and an attractive display
including the menu and other food/wine-related items outside the restaurant’s lobby
entrance are all examples of ways to alert and encourage guests to dine within the hotel.
• Another suggestion is cross-selling. A menu for one meal can encourage guests to visit
at other convenient times. Cross-selling uses messages designed to advertise the
availability of other hotel services.
17. Contract-Out
17
• The “Contract-out” Option
• Restaurants exist to generate profits from F&B sales, and hoteliers want to sell guest
rooms. Some hotels contract F&B operations to a second party.
• Reasons why include a history of unprofitable experiences, or the owners have no F&B
experience.
• Other outsourcing factors are specific to a property. A hotel in a restaurant row, a term
used to describe an area with numerous competing restaurants in a very short (often
walking) distance from each other; may find more guests interested only in the breakfast.
19. Smaller Hotels
19
• Managerial functions are typically combined into just a few positions. The F&B manager
may be responsible for F&B purchasing, some accounting, and control activities, and the
management of banquet operations, among other duties.
20. Larger Hotels
20
• Note that in large hotel, the F&B manager’s position is now titled “Director of F&B
Operations.” the individual filling that position supervises that work of an executive chef
who, in turn, supervises a sous chef and a banquet chef.
21. Menu Planning
21
• Food-service managers know that their operation’s eventual success will be determined,
in significant part, by the menu offered to the guests.
• Menu planning is the process of determining which food which food and beverage items
will most please the guests while meeting established cost and profitability objectives.
• Many guest-related factors must be considered when planning menus:
• Purpose of visit – guests want an experience in line with the purpose of their visit
• Value – value relates to a guest’s perception of the selling price of an item relative to
the quality of the menu item, service, and dining experience.
• Demographic factors – characteristics such as age, marital status, gender, ethnicity,
and occupation impact menu item preferences
• Other factors – social factors such as income, education, and wealth influences guest’s
menu preferences.
22. Place Setting
22
• The arrangement of plates, glasses, knives,
forks, spoons, and other service items on
a dining table for one guest.
23. Terminologies
23
• Hosted Events – functions served by hotel employees which are complimentary to
invited guests because costs are borne by the event’s sponsor.
• Guest check average – the average amount spent by a guest in a room-service or dining
room order.
• Banquet – a food and/or beverage event held in a function room
• Catering – the process of selling and carrying out details of a banquet event.
• Contribution margin – the amount that remains after the (food) cost of a menu item or
banquet is subtracted from its selling price.
• Guarantee – a contractual agreement about the number of meals to be provided at a
banquet event.
• Hosted bar – a beverage-service alternative which the function host pays for beverages
during all or part of the banquet event.
• Cash bar - A beverage-service alternative where guests desiring beverages during the
banquet function pay for them personally
24. Terminologies
24
• Head table – special seating at a banquet reserved for guest of honor
• Corkage fee – a charge levied by a hotel when a guest brings food (or beverage) to the
hotel for consumption
• Service Charges – a mandatory amount added to a guest’s bill for services performed by
a hotel’s staff members.
25. Terminologies
25
• Call brand beverages – high priced and higher-quality alcoholic beverages that are sold
by name
• Premium brand beverages – the highest priced and highest quality beverages generally
available
• House brand beverages – alcoholic beverages sold by the type
26. Service Styles
26
• Butler service
• Buffet service
• Family style (English style)
• French service
• Platter service (Russian service)
• Plated service (American service)
