What it Takes to be a Good Restaurant Manager

publication date: Jul 23, 2025
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author/source: Jaime Oikle with Darren Denington & Alison Anne
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what-it-takes-be-good-restaurant-manager

 

Having a good restaurant manager is essential in securing success in the world of hospitality. What characteristics and leadership styles should they possess? Jaime Oikle explores the eight traits of an effective manager with Darren Denington and Alison Anne. They discuss how managers must do the inner work to elevate themselves as impactful leaders and the best ways to build thriving relationships with their team. Darren and Alison also talk about Restaurant Management 201 and 301, a series of in-depth workshops about building cohesive and effective restaurant managers and crews.

Find out more at https://restaurantmanagement201.com

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What it Takes to be a Good Restaurant Manager with Darren Denington and Alison Anne

Presenting Restaurant Management 201 And 301

Coming up on this episode of the Running Restaurants show, I get with Darren Denington and Alison Anne about their restaurant management workshop series. Our talk focused on eight quick keys for what it takes to be a good restaurant manager. Some great stuff in this one. Stay tuned.

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Welcome to the show, where we’re bringing you the tips, tools and techniques you need to make your restaurant more profitable and more successful. I’m your host Jaime Oikle. I’m excited for this episode. joining me are Darren Denington and Alison Anne from their restaurant management workshop series. This series has been just a hit. You folks are going to talk more about it at the trade shows in California, Florida, and New York. Now, what I like here is you're leveling up. You’re going to Restaurant Management 301. Tell me how it got here. Alison, what do you got?

We are so excited to be back with you. Thanks so much for having us. We realized, as we’ve been presenting Restaurant Management 201, it covers all of the foundational basics. If you need to put systems in place, if you want your daily operations humming along beautifully, then it is the workshop for you. We had people who were coming to us and talking to us about things like, “What if I want to grow my restaurant? Do you address opening up new locations? Do you address opening up catering businesses?”

All of those next growth steps that a lot of restauranters are looking for once they have those foundational pieces in place. We thought it was just the natural next step to be able to take people who already have that foundation in place or who have already gone through Restaurant Management 201 and put all of those elements in place. You’ve got a strong foundation. How do you want to grow from here?

Darren, I hinted at it but I was a little remiss. These are workshops inside of the restaurant trade shows coming up in California and Florida. Tell me more about that.

Correct, and also New York. You can select either workshop and they’re basically right on the show floor, private workshop rooms right off. Each workshop is three and a half hours in-depth. We’re hitting all the good topics.

I don’t have it written for me. I’m going to try to do it from my head. The California Restaurant Show is August 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Is that right?

Correct.

The Florida Restaurant Show in Orlando, down where I am, is November 11th, 12th, and 13th?

Correct.

The Spark for Hospitality

Coming up here in August and November, you get a chance to see these folks. We’ve had these guys on before and talked but in this episode, we’re going to wrap it around what it takes to be a good restaurant manager. I know you folks have a couple points and we’ll ping pong back and forth. Darren, do you want to start us off?

Thank you, Jaime. It’s a different look at the relationship with the owner, manager and how someone comes in and runs the restaurant. It’s taken a look at it from the manager’s perspective. What do they bring to the table? As owners and managers, you’re interviewing, recruiting and trying to onboard the right people but now let’s take a look at it from their side and what they need to bring to make sure that their career, their position, or their path is on a model of success. Let’s put some good effort in so that they can make it work well for the restaurant and also make it work for their career.

Where I always felt like it started was, you need some interest in the industry. You need a spark. You need a little bit of passion for hospitality and taking care of others or for the food. Something inside a great manager has to start with, “I like this industry. This is interesting. This is something I could see myself doing.” From there, that foundation takes place with any good manager I’ve ever worked with understands pretty much every position around the restaurant.

They’ve been a line cook, bartend on Friday nights, opened a couple restaurants, and learned the individual positions. They love running food, jumping on the line at any time and helping the team out. It’s a clear understanding of every position in the restaurant that if you’re going to be good, you’ve got to understand what your team is going through.

 

A restaurant manager must have a clear understanding of every position in their team and what they are going through.

 

Darren, a question for you...the people equation...What do you hear from folks at the workshops about finding of people these days? I’m curious.

It just continues to be challenging that there’s not a plethora of applicants every time you need an assistant kitchen manager or a front of house manager. What I continue to find is that they’re developing people that they’re working with. They’re picking those superstar hostesses and the good line cooks and putting more emphasis on developing from within.

The second part of that is to continue with a large effort when you’re trying to recruit. It doesn’t just happen with a single post or telling a few people that you’re looking for a manager. You’ve got to put the effort in. You’ve got to get some options on the table. You get 6 or 7 good people through an interview and now you’ve got some options. You got to put the effort up front.

Keeping The Interest To Learn

I just wrote down ABR like always be recruiting even if you’re full. Always have the recruiting lines open. Alison, coming to you with a couple points about what it takes to be a great manager. What do you think?

I think what’s important is having an interest in learning. It's so funny that I’ve never talked to anybody who’s like, “I love a know-it-all.” We love a know-it-all manager in our business. Come talk down to me about how much. As soon as we step into a management role, it’s like there is this pressure to know everything and to have every answer. You’ve got to be able to grow with the position to acknowledge what you don’t know and have that willingness and interest in learning all of those things that you don’t know and gaining that knowledge that we consider one of the foundational leadership traits.

Along with things like having a genuine care for your people, wanting the best for them, wanting to build relationships with your people and having a plan to be able to move forward and that passion that Darren was talking about. While all of these things can be taught, if that’s something that you can invest in yourself, you can build a foundation for yourself and have those leadership traits from the outset so that you are growing them rather than developing them for the first time. Especially for a first-time manager, it’s going to make things so much easier coming to the table with those traits already developed.

There’s something that I want to come back to when you talked about the ability to learn. On an episode, it may have aired yet or not, but the guests use the phrase "leaders are readers". As in reading as an ongoing education process. Sometimes when we finish school, we just stop. We just stop reading, stop learning and we say, “I’m done.” You have to keep learning.

Restaurants, even more so than a lot of others, they’re busy and they may find it hard to do that extra learning or motivation. I have a bunch of books on motivation and leadership and stuff like that I like to dig into, but it can be hard. How do you suggest folks find the time for that? What are some good recommendations if they want to go to the bookstore? What do you think, Alison?

First of all, I asked people to be honest with themselves. Most of us have a commute of some sort, whether you’re on the train or you’re driving. There are pockets of time when you could rather than just pulling out your phone and scrolling. Take even 10 or 20 minutes a day. If you were to dedicate that to reading or something that’s going to be teaching you how to be a better leader, at the end of the year, you’ve read something like 10 or 15 books just by dedicating that little bit of time.

First and foremost, be honest with yourself about where you do have the time and maybe it’s a matter of not wanting to. Not being willing to give up that downtime. If your jam is podcasts, this is a great one. There’s so many podcasts out there you can learn from. There are audiobooks, eBooks, and paper books. There’s no excuse for, “I don’t want to be buying books all the time.” You have so many options. Pick the one that works for you.

I’m a big fan of Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara and you’ve got Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. Some more generic ones. We talked a lot about Atomic Habits by James Clear and The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. Not only are there so many options, but I’ve been in the leadership field for less than ten years and there have been neuroscience advancements about how to be a good leader even in that short amount of time. It’s a field that’s constantly growing and we can be constantly learning along with social science as it comes to the table.

 

The restaurant business is a constantly growing field. You have to constantly learning alongside it.

 

That was excellent, by the way. Thank you for that and some good book recommendations there along the way. I will just echo those pockets of learning. Don’t be intimidated. You’re remembering mom and dad and your school teacher said, “Go read that book.” You’re thinking you have to read for two hours. You don’t have to do that. You can jam it out for ten minutes. I have my little books over here. I will read one chapter for each. I’ll do that for fifteen minutes and I always get something from it even in those small pockets. Anything you want to add along those lines, Darren, learning and education?

The other great place to open your eyes to a lot of information is the trade show. You’ve got hundreds and hundreds of exhibitors that you can talk to about new products, new equipment and new services. There’s tons of education seminars that catch little glimpses. I love audibles. I try to listen on the plane and in the cars. As Alison said, it was the commute to work back and forth. I always had another topic, just a point of interest. You can see from your background. Jaime, you’ve been reading a lot of books for a long time and they’re just helpful. They’re little tidbits from every single piece.

Being Aware Of The Managerial Role

That’s what I found. Darren, going to come back to this progress of what it takes to be a great manager. What do you got? Do you have some more thoughts?

As that new manager walking into, whether it’s a new position or into a new building. It’s an awareness that, “I’ve got a role to play here and let’s understand that the environment that I’m probably coming into in most restaurants is some type of chaos and disorganization.” A lot of restaurants are hiring new managers to come in and help solve that. Be aware it might be very disorganized and it just does not feel like your working environment.

If you can go into it with open eyes, then you’re here to help fix it and you’re here to try to implement some of those systems that can get them on track. It’s also something that drives you inside of wanting to do it right, wanting to take care of the customers and put out a good product, build a group of people that care for each other, can joke around and have some fun while they’re doing a great job. It’s realizing that you have a lot to bring to the table.

The disorganization stuff is wild. You focus on systems in your talks. I’ve interviewed Darren several times over the years. He’s very great at getting granular and detailed. How do you talk about that at the workshops? How do you talk about it at your trainings, Darren? You’re breaking down the pieces that need to happen daily because there’s so many things that have to happen at a restaurant.

It’s always starting with the bigger picture, the leadership, the systems and the staff. It’s always back to the group of managers. It’s the 5, 6, or 7 people that are running the restaurant. They’ve got to be on the same page. They review these great systems and say, “Here’s about fifteen things we need to get us organized. If the five of us can all help implement these fifteen.” You work on getting the people involved, the staff. They got to have the buy-in. That’s what we talked about. It’s the foundation, but there’s so many parts of the workshop that you’re working through the workbook and very specific on the steps that you need.

We identify a lot of the items. We put it in a great order that makes sense and then we’re challenging them to take the actionable steps that you’ve got to put into place. In a restaurant, it’s about check marks. There are so many things to do every single week. You have to be able to get it done and five of us working on the same checklist goes a heck of a lot smoother.

Keeping A Good Personal System

You got to do the work. You got to do the homework. You got to put it in. Alison, a couple more thoughts along the way. What do you think?

Jaime, I love that you brought up not only reading but also then went to systems because what is reading and growing in your leadership style but a personal system? That is something that we say that any good manager has to have, is good personal systems. Are you taking care of your health? Are you finding ways to cultivate your personality and your personal life outside of work? Are you taking care of your time management in your own personal organization?

A high level of what I want to point to here, a lot of times when we bring this conversation to our managers, they look at it as like, “I can’t believe that you’re giving me one more thing to put on my plate with everything I have to do. This long checklist that I’ve got, even with five people working on it. I’ve got stuff to do. Now you want me to set aside 10 or 15 minutes to read?” What I want restaurant managers and everyone to consider is that these systems are not one more thing on your plate. These systems are the plate.

The more you can build out your systems, the bigger that plate feels. The more you can hold and the more you can carry, so the more you can get done. This is not about giving you one more task to do. This is about making the entire experience of work easier, smoother and simpler. Those systems being in place is crucial, and then you’ve got to bring some energy to the table. There’s a lot of science now that says, “Before you open your mouth to say a word, people who are in your vicinity are understanding your energy.”

 

Restaurant systems are not one more thing on your plate. These systems are the plate. The more you build out your systems, the bigger your plate, the more you can hold, and the more you can get done.

 

They’re reading your energy and feeding off your energy. You have to be able to show up, ready to bring as much of yourself and your own personal energy as you can because that is going to feed your employees. That’s going to creep down to your guests and it's going to provide an enjoyable experience across the board for your entire business.

Alison, let me ask about the two things there. The health part. In a lot of restaurants, we’re eating stuff that’s left over, we’re not eating healthy and maybe having a couple drinks. You can get yourself heading in the wrong direction. Go there for a second. How can folks have a healthy mindset inside of the restaurant business and come back to where to find that energy or that extra stuff as a leader that you need to bring on a daily basis? What do you think?

For me, the two go hand in hand. I know that this isn’t true of everyone but this is true of a lot of people. The more that we are eating foods that have high fat, high salt, and high oil content, it drags your body down. It makes you physically feel sluggish for most people. It is very tempting. We are surrounded by food all the time. As much as we wanted to be food that people are enjoying day in and day out, for our health, it probably shouldn’t be food that we are enjoying everyday day in and day out.

It’s the same conversation that we have around reading. It’s this idea, “I don’t have time. I don’t have time to make my own food.” If you were to hold it as one of your top commitments to yourself to be able to feel incredibly healthy and energized, you would make the time. I would also argue that a lot of us feel like we don’t have time to do things like cook, meal prep and pack food to bring because we’re so tired all the time from all the work that we have to do.

Ironically, a lot of that feeling tired comes from eating at the restaurant because we’re so busy. The more we can focus on those little personal habits that we’re putting in place in order to feel short up as human beings. That’s going to make it easier to be a leader, to be easier to tap into that inner energy. I would argue you don’t get into this industry unless you enjoy the heck out of some element of it.

I don’t know why you would show up for work every day in such a hectic fast-paced environment where you have to give so much of yourself, unless there’s something that you love about it. Take care of yourself so that you can tap into that energy and then tap into it for you. What’s the thing that you enjoy about being at work? Let that drive your energy. Let that drive being more upbeat and enjoy yourself.

 

You cannot get into the restaurant industry unless you enjoy showing up for work every day in a fast-paced environment.

 

Anything you want to add there, Darren?

Bringing it back to the book. Atomic Habits is the simple process of reducing the negative behaviors and increasing the positive and try to build a small routine. Every time you walk into the restaurant, the first thing you do is grab a glass of water. Water is all you drink that night. Little tiny things and you build on that and try to have some good habits. It’s hard but there it is. It’s a great book.

What To Expect From The Workshops

If you’re just reading, you won’t see this but I’m holding up Atomic Habits by James Clear. Go get this. Do not skip this. It’s an easy read. You’re going to read it and you’re going to bang your head twenty times going like, “Why don’t I do that? Why don’t I behave like that?” The habits stacking stuff. There’s so much in there that you’re going to appreciate. I guarantee you will not be disappointed if you read that book. You talked about it a little bit already, but give me a little bit more nitty-gritty on the actual Workshop itself, Alison.

We are so excited. We’ve got two workshops. At all three shows, they’re going to be back-to-back. We’re going to have Restaurant Management 201 on one day and Restaurant Management 301 the next day. You can take them both if you want to take both the foundational track and the growth track. You can do that. If you’ve already taken 201 and you’re ready for 301, you can choose which one you want to sign up at the California restaurant show coming up in Anaheim.

Darren and I are both going to be on the floor out on August 3rd and then August 4th is going to be Restaurant Management 201 and August 5th will be 301. We wanted to put it together in a way that it grows on itself at the show itself. We’re going to be three and a half hours as Darren said, going in-depth into these topics. We’re right there at the convention center with the restaurant show. We are not far from the expo floor.

You can still experience the entire show. You can still go to all of the other education talks that are on the floor. This is just going to be one morning out of the show that you take off in order to come and do some in-depth learning. Each one of the workshops has ten topics and we like to keep it fun. We like to keep it interesting. We appreciate that people are giving time. It’s tough to step away from the restaurant, we know. Not only do we want you to learn a lot. We want you to have some fun. We’re going to have activities, prizes, and giveaways. Everybody gets a goodie bag just for signing up. It should be a fun time in addition to being educational.

workshopsI love that you guys have put this together. I think we hinted a while ago, “I finished school. I finished learning. It’s done,” but it’s not the case. You got to refresh and I know the stuff that’s in your content. To sit there for three and a half hours is going to be just a phenomenal amount of stuff to refresh. It can kick you back when you go back to your location and give you a lot of stuff to push forward for the next little bit. Darren, tell me about the locations, the cities and the dates.

It’s Anaheim, coming up here soon. It’s at the Anaheim Convention Center and then we’re in Orlando. It’s the California Restaurant Show then the Florida Restaurant Show and we also do the New York Restaurant Show, which is at the Javits Center. In Orlando, it’s at the Orange County Convention Center. The show has been there for probably 35 years in a row. A great show and it always seems like a show that you bring a few of the managers and you bring a few of the team members.

We always see like 4 or 5 or 6 people as groups walking together. That’s what we designed the workshop for, is bring a group of managers and get them all on the same page quick. You identify your priorities from the workshop and take it back to manage your meetings. It’s perfect to have 4 or 5 or 6 managers sitting together all digesting this information together.

I’m glad you said that because I was just writing it down. It’s like, what’s typical for people to attend? Is it one person from the operation, which is fine? You put a group, bring the managers and they sit down. You guys are in a breakout room, so it’s quiet. You're focused. You can get into that. Is that right?

It’s a nice workshop and some music in the background, a ton of slides and prizes and someone who’s going to win a free year subscription to RunningRestaurants.com. It’s a fun activity. You leave the workshop, grab a quick bite and you’re on the show floor in three minutes.

That’s at Restaurant Management 201. Is there anything else you want to share about the registration, other socials, other things about your company, other news, or parting thoughts for each of you? I’ll let you go first, Alison.

The other thing that we’re excited about is that if you register for one of the two workshops, you can use our code RM201. That’s going to get you a free ticket to the show floor. I believe, just to get entry to the show these days, it’s running about $80. By signing up for the management workshop, either of them, you’re going to be able to get into the show for free. It’s a no-brainer with the amount of learning. Our goal is we want your entire management team to come out thinking like, “If we just had X, Y, and Z systems, things that work would be so much better. They’d be so much easier and smoother.”

Not only do you know what systems you need to put in place but you also have the steps to build them out and to make them a reality. The last thing that we want is to be yet another nice talk that you go to at a conference and you say like, “I do need to put a better training program in place.” Your notebook goes in a drawer the first time you step back into work and you never look at it again. We like to think that we’ve given people a step-by-step plan to make these things happen so they can make a difference in their businesses.

Folks, Darren Denington from Service With Style, along with Alison Anne from Restaurant Revolution. Be sure to check them out at the upcoming California Restaurants Show on August, 4th and 5th as well as the Florida Restaurant Show in Orlando on November 12th and 13th. You can register at their website, RestaurantManagement201.com. You can find the shows I believe at CaliforniaRestaurantShow.com and FloridaRestaurantShow.com. That will be information on the show themselves. Service With Style is at ServiceWithStyle.com/runningrestaurants. where there is a special promo with Darren. Alison is at RestaurantRevolution.me.

For more great restaurant marketing, service, people and tech tips, stay tuned to us. If you could give me a favor in the meantime, please share the episode, like it and rate it wherever you are. Take a second. Hit a button, hit a like, and give us a quick review. That stuff is helpful to get the show out more. I appreciate it. Thank you, both.

Thanks, Jaime.

Thank you, Jaime.

 

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