Fire Hall Kitchen & Tap - Delicious Food in Downtown Cranbrook - Essay Sample

Introduction

Jesse Roberts and Fred Williams, brothers-in-law and close friends, opened the Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap on 13th June 2018, converting a former fire hall building which they bought in June 2017. Located in downtown Cranbrook, the restaurant has about 45 employees. It holds lineups every evening for its customers. It offers lunch and dinner culinary services shareable like wintertime nacho, dirtbag fondue and mac, and roll, burgers, poutine, fork, and knife. The restaurant also provides its customers with beer. It operates on all the days of the week from 11 am to 12 am, latest.

Internal and External Operations

The internal and external operations of the Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap involve facility maintenance, food and beverage operations management, service, sanitation, and safety. Fred, the fire hall restorer extraordinaire, choose and designed the general design and layout of the restaurant and is in charge of the restaurant's maintenance. He conducts routine maintenance checks on the restaurant and equipment. It is because the building is almost 90 years, and for it to stay in operation for the next century or further, the facility has to undergo routine maintenance. Since the restaurant has the kitchen and beverage departments, Doug Wagner and Ian McCann, the chef and bar managers, direct and supervise the repair of the equipment. The managers also authorize the repair of equipment by outside contractors. These managers also recommend upgrades in the facility and its equipment based on the available demand and technology.

The bar and chef managers are in charge of the food and drinks operations management in Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap. They direct and supervise all the activities for opening and closing these sections of the restaurant (Firehallcbk, n.d). The restaurant operates every day of the week, where on Mondays to Thursdays, it operates from 11 am-11 pm, Friday and Saturday 11 am-12 am, and Sundays 11 am-9 pm (Firehallcbk, n.d). These managers convey information to other top executives in the restaurant at the beginning and end of shifts on ongoing operations and activities for proper resolutions to ensure the coherent running of operations in the restaurant.

The chef and bar managers check stock levels and make orders when necessary. They also count, verify, and report inventory giving the restaurant executive accurate information on the available items in the facility. The food and beverage operation management also receives, inspects, and verifies supplier deliveries to the restaurant ensuring the deliveries meet the amounts ordered. These bar and chef managers also hold discussions with suppliers and vendors on the quality of the deliveries. The managers also act as expediters to get meals and drinks served effectively. They also check the finalist food and drink products to ensure it is of high quality and take the correct measures to correct the problems in the products. It is also the managers' role to inspect the dining area, kitchen, washrooms, storage, and parking lot to ensure they meet the appropriate standards for consumers use in the Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap. Management in a restaurant begins in the parking lot and ends in the bathrooms (Firehallcbk, n.d). The managers also check daily reports to detect any internal theft of the food and drink products and equipment. They also guide employees regarding waste control and prepare a daily forecast for shift food preparation.

Sanitation and safety involve accompanying local officials during health inspections, administration of first aid, and first aid kits to employees and clients. It also involves the submission of accidents and incident reports to respective bodies such as the police and OSHA and the establishment of regulatory measures for employees. It is an effort to ensure the upholding of safety and security in Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap premises. Service in the Fire Hall Restaurant involves receiving and recording table reservations either physically or through their website, saluting familiar customers, observing and correcting problems while serving the customers. It also involves listening and resolving customer complaints through writing letters and making telephone calls, securing and returning client commodities forgotten within the Fire Hall premises. Service also involves asking for customer feedback about the quality of the foods and drinks and authorize complimentary drinks and foods for customers.

Product Research and Development Activities

Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap conducts a research and development process on its products. It researches on developing new foods and drinks or modifying the available products that can help the facility leapfrog its competitors. Its product policy looks beyond the available products that the restaurant produces. For product research and development activities, it includes a market assessment and internal assessment, prototyping, core development and testing, industrialization, and commercialization (Firehallcbk, n.d).

Market and internal assessment involve the internal introspection of a product towards the external market of the Fire Hall organization. It gives the facility a clear idea of how the research fits the firm and its customers towards researching and developing a new product. The second stage is the prototyping stage, which is also the starting point of the physical embodiment of the product. The facility starts giving its customers ideas about the new product to secure earlier feedback to maintain high integrity when coming up with the product. The third stage in product research is the core development and testing stage, where Fire Hall selects a small group of consumers, providing them with all the information about the new product. Then the facility collects the consumers' opinions on the product concluding whether they like the products or not. In the industrialization stage of the product research, Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap lays all the strategies to introduce the new product to the market where the chef and bar departments establish stable means to produce and distribute the new product for clients.

After successful testing of the market, product research and development moves to the commercialization stage, where Firehall makes a substantial investment in the new product producing and distributing it in large quantities. Fire Hall management goes ahead to advertise new products through mainstream and social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The optimization stage, which is the last stage of product research and development, involves reviewing the market performance of the new product identifying the customers' stand, and adopting the necessary changes in the product or marketing strategies to increase the financial ability of the product.

Manufacturing Process Management

Fire Hall manufacturing process involves interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs (Firehallcbk, n.d). Management of the manufacturing process has the restaurant management as owners who aim to satisfy internal and external customers. Employees and management are the internal customers, whereas the locals and foreigners who come to the restaurant make up the external customers. The manufacturing process involves the transformation of raw materials such as ingredients, sugar, sucrose, and water into foods (poutine, mac, and roll, burgers, etcetera) and drinks (beverages and alcoholic drinks). Upon acquisition of the raw materials, the production crew stores them in the right temperatures to ensure they stay fresh before the transformation process begins. The management ensures the number of raw materials meets the number of outputs required within a given duration. The managers also ensure proper utilization of appropriate technology in the processing process and cooking to ensure high-quality products. The personnel also used in the production and cooking processes have adequate knowledge on the quality and quantity of foods and products required in a given period. After the preparation, the production crew stores the products (food and drinks) in proper places with appropriate labels for easy identification by customers.

Handling Disposal Issues

In Canada, violating the waste management regulations can lead to revoking a license of operation for a food servicing place. Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap has enforced its strategies to ensure it adheres to waste disposal and clean up regulations. Disposal issues lead to environmental pollution and wastage of business money. The chef and bar departments in Fire Hall kitchen manages its disposal issues by buying adequate stock, storing food correctly, keeping a stock inventory, anticipating demand with care, and temperature control (Firehallcbk, n.d).

Many restaurants do over-buy their stock to meet the rising demands of their customers. Fire Hall keeps a stock inventory helping management to know the food available at all times since they have a detailed list of all foods in all storages, thus reducing the chances of food spoiling. Fire Hall purchases the necessary ingredients and drinks that the restaurants can use. Despite the tempting offers by suppliers to make the management to stock up, the restaurant always buys the amount of stock that suits its customers. Excellent temperature control ensures that food safety since it prevents the growth of pathogens and bacteria, making it unlikely for food to spoil. These activities include cooling of hot food, reheating, storage of food and drinks in fridges and freezers at safe temperatures. Fire Hall anticipates demand with care where the restaurant management critically evaluates the amount of food they need to prepare in advance for their consumers.

Other means through which Fire Hall Kitchen and Tap handles disposal issues include carrying community awareness campaigns, corporate social responsibility (CSR), more menu options, regular stock rotation, and donation of leftovers to local charities (Firehallcbk, n.d). CSR helps in creating public awareness about disposal where the locals know it is their duty to help the restaurant in keeping the environment clean by disposing of food and drink wastes appropriately. Fire Hall also donates the leftovers to charities to ensure the poor and needy in society eat instead of dumping the food.

Designing Sustainable Operations for Fire Hall Kitchen & Tap Business

Business operations are those activities that business involves in a daily basis to raise the number of customers dealing in a particular product or the service offered and increase the profit gained in each business activity carried out. These operations are improved to generate adequate profit for the smooth running of the business. The primary operating activities for Fire Hall Kitchen & Tap restaurant are production, sales, advertising, and marketing activities. Fire Hall Kitchen & Tap has smooth daily operations because, on many occasions, they use Operations management (OM). It is responsible for managing the process of creation of goods and services, and these OMs are Doug Wagner and Ian McCann, who is the Chef and bar manager, respectively. The two are involved in the preparation, forming, organizing, and monitoring all the resources needed to produce the restaurant's goods and services according to the customers' needs and satisfaction.

The procedures of business operations vary from one industry to the other, the structure of the industry also differ conferring the necessities of a particular organization. Having an adequate knowledge on how a given business operates helps the business owners to find ways in which the business can suceed despite the stiff competition within the market (Ghimire, 2012). For instance, Fire Ha...