How to survive the silly season: Chefs’ advice to ease end of year restaurant pressures

The end of year slide from Halloween through Christmas and on into New Year can be a hectic time for hospitality and food service. From managing staffing and extra bookings for parties, to questions of cash flow, InSeason asked three chefs and owners how they cope with the pressures of the silly season.  

Darren Robertson on planning ahead and taking care of your team 

Darren Robertson is a chef and co-owner of Three Blue Ducks (Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Bellingen and Nimbo) and Rocker (Bondi).

“From a practical standpoint we populate the roster with more casual staff, to give us more flexibility, so that when the crowds do come, we’re geared up for it.  

It’s all in the planning. We create a database of names and resumes and we really try to give people the hours that work for them. In simple terms we make sure people are trained and introduce them culturally so that they feel part of the team, and then we can increase their hours the busier we get.  

We also make sure people only work a certain number of hours each week, and the managers are responsible to action staff breaks. And we do a lot of team-building days; staff activities that aren’t based around alcohol. It creates a sense of ‘we’re in this together, it’s going to be busy, but we’ve got each other’s backs’.  

It’s really important to take care of your staff, because if it slides and people get sick, it has a huge impact on the rest of the team.  

When it comes to managing cash flow there’s a lot of system reporting that we look to, because – ironically – you can have a full restaurant at Christmas time and still lose money. Especially with all the public holidays, the difference between making a loss and breaking even can come down to just one or two staff members.  

A lot of in-house reporting systems are really good for this now, because they took years in the making. There’s still some estimating, but it takes a lot of the guesswork out.” 

Shannon Martinez on knowing your customers and delegating 

Shannon Martinez is a chef and owner of Smith & Daughters, Smith & Deli (Melbourne) and Ovolo Hotel’s Lona Misa (Melbourne) and Alibi Bar & Dining (Sydney).

“It’s a scary time right now because the cost of everything has gone up so much, and you don't want to put prices up because you understand that everyone is strapped, but at the same time you need to find the balance.  

Everyone’s been talking about how supermarkets had their Christmas products on shelves so early this year. Turns out it’s because people are strapped, so it lets people get in early and slowly buy over the next two months, instead of one big hit on December 20th when you need to feed the family.  

We’ve got a huge market we always do at Smith & Deli with a full vegan Christmas menu and about 30 products – from vegan turkeys to hams – that we’ve done for about eight years now. But this year we’re introducing that in early November and doing a payment plan to ease the burden for our customers. 

You can pay in four instalments over the next month, so you might be able to buy the things you can’t when paying in one go. But it’s something that should help us with cash flow too.  

Then I just try my best not to be a micromanager. I’m the queen of delegation. Trust your people, if you’re lucky enough to have good staff – and I do have a handful of absolute legends – if you put the work into them, you should be able to trust them to create a product you’re happy with. Don’t question too much, just trust them to do the job right, otherwise you end up all day and all night constantly worrying about every single element.   

Toby Wilson on knowing your location’s rhythms and embracing opportunity 

Toby Wilson is the executive chef of Ricos Tacos (Sydney).

“It’s really tricky trying to figure out what Sydney’s going to look like over Christmas. Some years everyone leaves and some years everyone stays and that has a massive effect on your business, so you have to know your area. My guess is that this year people will go away [from Sydney], because it’s the first real opportunity in a while, and we’ve seen hordes of people going over to Europe already.  

It can be as simple as one business that’s two blocks away might be dead because it’s in a commercial area, and another might be super busy because it’s residential. Try and have a bit of a read of your local landscape. 

You also need to look at when your main staff will be away and work out if you can – or need to – cover them.  

With Christmas party bookings, taking advantage of all those things is a massive opportunity. They make you busy but can mean huge injections of cash at this time of year, and they are usually set menus so you can plan how to manage it.  

To make it less stressful, it’s just about being prepared and thinking about it ahead of time. Knowing how to be busy and how your business can deal with it. Have enough staff, have enough product, make sure everyone is trained. And it should be like any other busy day. Previously I’ve tried to do too much by myself and that’s a huge regret. If you’re sure you’re going to be busy, it’s OK to staff up.”