Q1) Functions and Responsibilities of F&B Operations

Food and Beverage Management

In every hotel, the food and beverage division is led by the director of food and beverage. He or she reports to the general manager and supervise the departments of kitchen/catering/banquet, restaurants/room service/minibars, and lounges/bars/stewarding.

The common skills needed by a F&B Director are as follow:

• Exceeding guests' expectations in F&B offerings and services, or creating moments of truth to them.
• Leadership for managing various F&B related departments and corresponding staff.
• Identifying trends, such as what types or origins of food are favored by the targeted customers, like Korean food/ food with high nutrition values. 
• Recognizing and retaining outstanding employees (retention).
• Training
• Motivation, such as bonus and promotion
• Budgeting, such as setting quotas for certain kinds of food
• Cost control, savings
• Finding profit from all outlets, where fine-dining restaurants are usually non-profitable, but are important for hotel's image.
• Having a detailed working knowledge of the front-of-the-house operations.

Moreover, making food and beverage sales profitable is the most critical issue whenever there are stagnant occupancies and decline in room sales. The acceptable profit margin from a hotel's F&B division would generally be 25 to 30 percent of the hotel's operating profit.

Kitchen (Food Production)

A hotel kitchen is supervised by the executive chef/ kitchen manager, who reports to the director of F&B, with the responsibility to maintain efficient and effective operation of kitchen food production. He is expected to exceed guests' expectations in the quality and quantity of food. Since the Kitchen is a cost center, he has to control the costs carefully, such as labor costs (variable costs) and over-head expenses.

There are some key indicators for the financial performance of the Kitchen, such as food cost percentage and labor cost percentage, generally expressed in ratios.

Food Operations (Food Service)

Hotel restaurants are run by restaurant managers. They are especially responsible for setting and maintaining quality standards, marketing/ promotion, coffee service, in-room dining, and presenting periodic forecasts and budgets to the F&B director.

The restaurant manager should also consider the number (house count) and type of hotel guest so as to estimate the number of expected restaurant customers for dining. For example, some hotel guests would stay in the hotel overnight but have separate dining arrangements outside the hotel. This is the capture rate, which is coupled with historic and banquet activity and hotel occupancy, for the restaurant to forecast the number of expected guests.

Bars

The profit percentage on beverages is much higher than it is on food items because food cost is usually more expensive than beverage cost. Also, beverages are not as perishable as food. Thus, it is an important revenue source for the hotel.

In large hotels, they may have service bar for room services, pool bars for providing drinks in swimming pool, sports bars, casino bars, etc.

The general beverage cycle would be Ordering, Receiving, Storing (warehouse storage), Issuing (from storage to bar), Bar Stocking (keep beverage stock at bar), Serving (serve guests), and Guest billing.

The main responsibilities of a bar manager are as follow:

• Supervising the ordering process and storage of wines
• Preparing wine lists
• Overseeing staff's behaviors
• Maintaining cost control
• Assisting guests with their wine selection, with the help of sommeliers
• Proper service of wine (Professionalism)
• Knowledge of beers and liquors and their service, such as how to consume the wine properly (e.g. combination of certain food & wine would be tasty)

For proper service of wine, training in related to alcoholic beverage service should be provided to beverage service staff.

For pilferage issue, Automatic dispensing system can prevent employees to steal wine. Also, guests' bills checking can prevent overcharging customers. Pouring on top of the bar can prevent underpouring. Bottle stamp can prevent employees to bring in their own bottle for selling their wine.

Stewarding Department

It is managed by Chief Steward, who is responsible for the cleanliness of back of house of dining areas, glassware, china and cutlery. He has to maintain strict inventory control (e.g. chemical stock) and monthly stock check as well. Maintenance of dishwashing machines, sanitation, pest control, and forecasting labor and cleaning supply needs are also main duties of the Chief Steward.

Catering Department

Catering includes a variety of occasions when people may eat at varying times; Banquets means groups of people would eat together at one time and in one place. For instance, occasions for celebrations like National days, Gala charity balls, Weddings, Fashion shows, etc. Generally, catering has a broader scope than banquets.

The director of catering is responsible for selling conventions, banquets, and functions, being creative and knowledgeable about food, wine, and service, and being well versed in the likes, dislikes, and dietary restrictions of numerous ethnic groups (e.g. vegetarian and people with religion).

Catering

There are various room setups for different client's needs, which are theater style, classroom style, horseshoe style, etc.

Theater style/ Auditorium is usually for seminar; classroom style is usually for corporate training; Horseshoe style is usually for press conferencing.

Catering Event Order (CEO)

A CEO / banquet event order (BEO) is prepared for each function to inform both clients and the hotel person-in-charged about essential information to ensure the success of events.

Catering Coordinator

He is responsible for double-checking last-minute details and operating web-enabled technology system, such as the Newmarket International's Delphi System (for booking rooms and equipment).

The Delphi System can keep inventory current in real time because of its ability to interface with the PMS. The suite of Delphi products allows function space to be clearly and concisely managed, which increases guest satisfaction and profitability.

Catering Services Managers (CSM)

This role is demanding because several functions could occur simultaneously. The CSM needs to be liked and respected by guests and be a superior organizer and supervisor. He have to schedule the staffing roster for all events, check with the room setup, food, beverages, and services are well-prepared, calculate and distribute the gratuity and service charges for the service personnel, etc.

Room Service/ In-Room Dining

The desired outcome is to bring the dining experience to the room with quality food and beverage service. The larger the hotel and the higher the room rate, the more likely the hotel would offer room service. 

However, there are some challenges in operating room service, the major one is delivering orders on time, especially for breakfast.

To deal with the late delivery of orders, some hotels have dedicated elevators to be used only by room service during peak hours. There are also Rapid action teams (RAT), who are designated food and beverage managers and staff who can be called on when room service orders are heavy.

Evaluation

What we have learnt from this lecture were the main roles and responsibilities of different positions under the Food and Beverage department, as well as bar operations. We also understood the room services / in-room dining would be more likely to be offered when the hotel is larger with higher room rate.

Reference

Walk, J.R. 2010. Introduction to hospitality management. Pearson Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 3rd ed.