5 Ways To Improve Your Restaurant Operations

14th October 2025

Every restaurant business is on the lookout for ways to streamline its operations, improve its efficiency, and ultimately serve more customers during peak periods.

Our productivity experts take a look at five ways to improve your restaurant operations.

How to improve restaurant efficiency

1. Review your kitchen layout

In any commercial kitchen, the layout is key. Benefits of optimising your set-up include:

• Items remain organised and in their rightful place
• Everything is within easy reach
• Unnecessary effort is minimised by analysing your team’s movement
• Wait time between workstations is reduced

When our productivity experts reviewed the operations in a quick-serve restaurant, we identified that the layout of their kitchen workstations was an immediate opportunity for improvement. As a result, our client was able to prepare each menu item 20% quicker, leading to an increase in their capacity during busy periods.

2. Refine your menu

To help reduce waste, simplify preparation and lessen congestion in the kitchen, why not consider reviewing your menu?  

Focus on which items are the most popular, and which are quicker to prepare. This will;

• Enable you to provide a more efficient service
• Lessen wait time
• Please more customers
• Increase the number of guests you serve throughout the day

3. Do you have the right number of colleagues to meet demand?

Ensuring you have the right number of colleagues to meet demand during busy periods is essential. But also, you don’t want too many colleagues on shift when things are quieter.

Too few colleagues result in a negative experience, both for them and for customers. 

Too many colleagues result in unnecessarily high labour costs.

A time and motion study is the best way to measure how long it takes to complete tasks, so you can make sure you have the right number of colleagues for your workload. It also enables you to spot process steps that can be sped up or eliminated.

For more advice on getting the right balance of efficiency and colleague time, take a look at our post; A balancing act – how to reduce colleague levels without making customers wait longer.

4. Review your inventory management

Do you find you have too much food than required, and you’re continually dealing with waste, too much stock and unnecessary expense?

Perhaps you don’t quite have enough food to meet demand, leading to disappointed customers who aren’t able to order their desired dish from the menu?

Reviewing the efficiency of your inventory management means you’re more likely to meet demand, use ingredients efficiently, optimise your inventory costs, and deliver a good customer experience.

5. Bring in the experts!

Being too close to something can mean we struggle to spot what’s holding us back from performing at our best. 

By taking a step back and contacting business improvement consultants, you’ll benefit from a team of experts who have an outsider’s perspective and know precisely what they’re looking for.

At ReThink, our productivity experts have been working with restaurants and pubs for years, and we know how to make your operation tick:

• Quantify efficiency opportunities – We apply our innovative use of work study, on-site observations and measurements to surface opportunities that improve how your restaurant operates
• Identify quick wins – We have years of experience working within the hospitality sector. Coupling this knowledge with our deep-dive analysis enables us to deliver business benefits fast 
• Bring additional context from benchmarking – Wondering how you stack up against your competitors? We have an anonymised benchmark database that answers this question and brings a new perspective on your performance

One example of how we have helped improve restaurant operations is when we worked with Center Parcs‘ food and beverage team. We provided practical advice and data-driven evidence that took their project from a desired outcome to reality, and continues to help them look after more guests during their busiest periods. 

Other hospitality businesses

As well as helping to improve restaurant efficiency, our expert analysts also have years of experience working with other hospitality businesses:

• Coffee shops – We can identify how you can free up time to serve more customers during busy periods, shave seconds off tasks you complete thousands of times a day, or highlight how to improve workstation layouts. Take a look at our case study for Costa and discover how we helped them find the perfect blend
• Hotels – Whether you want to achieve consistent and efficient housekeeping, smooth delivery of your food and beverage offer, or you need a review of your reception operations, we can help

Need some quick wins?

Maybe you’re looking to make immediate changes that can lead to significant improvements? 

Our expert analysts live and breathe business productivity, and a number of them have provided valuable insights into where companies can make small changes that add up to quick productivity wins. So why not take a look at our post, 5 Business Productivity Quick Wins From Our Expert Analysts?

Contact our team

We have a passionate and dedicated team ready and raring to help improve your restaurant’s efficiency. 

Give us a call today and let’s work together to boost your business productivity.