It's time to go to memory stik

(Blogger's Note: Thanks to all of you who requested a copy of my employee manual. They will be sent out on Thursday as I have just returned from vacation.)

Having spent the last seven days on vacation - moving from a 2800 square foot house to a 1000 square foot cottage in the mountains above Sonoma, I realize it is time to go back to the simple life. For everyone.

Making numerous trips to the dump to recycle labor reports from Chez Foley from 1992,  P&L statements from The Fish Ranch, circa 1998, along with bankruptcy proceedings from a long lost deli, it was apparent that life should now be stored on a memory stick. They are easier to dispose of.

Back when those records of the nineties were being generated, I wasn't nearly as computer savvy as I am currently, and the Internet hadn't progressed to its current state. Life has changed and as space will determine, Kranston and I will need to store more docs on memory sticks than we ever had in the past. And that is becoming so much easier.

With email statements from banks, credit card companies, and select vendors, there is little reason to store bank statements from Charles Chrietzberg's Monterey County Bank dating back to 1995. The credit card advance agreement from C.L.I.C.K. can be duplicated on disc. And those food cost analysis can all be done on a laptop. Plus, the amount of paper and landfill disposal garbage saved would help make your restaurant a candidate for "Green" status.

Although rather hectic and extremely tiring, these past seven days have proved to be an enlightening moment. There are two types of restaurant owners operating today: Those who rely on computers and the Internet for documentation storage and information and knowledge sharing, and those who are as antiquated and prefer to store old boxes of old records in old storage units.

With the competition becoming more dynamic and fierce, whether it be a four star restaurant around the corner or a grocery store selling rotisserie chickens for below market price, computerization of every restaurant operation is essential. From payroll to food costs to recipe analysis to menu review and breakdown, is a quick and efficient way to rim costs, time and paperwork.

Along with all of the paperwork, envelopes, and boxes of collected garbage I disposed of I cam across an Aloha program that I purchased for an outrageous amount of money at the time, in 1997. Although I did use the program for a few essentials, I never used the menu analysis, or the food cost program or the ordering guide.

It was unfortunate that I decided that it was more practical to do inventory by hand than by computer. If I had the opportunity to walk that path again I would rely heavily on the variety of computer programs that are available today. They make the business side of the restaurant business more enjoyable while allowing owners and managers the ability to see where cost cutting measures make sense.

And, in the long run they will help alleviate that storage unit, that garage full of old records, and ultimately numerous trips to the dump.