Five Daily Food & Beverage Tasks for the Executive Director

March 7, 2022

Meals and the experience around them are critical to the overall success of a community. Bad food can give you a bad reputation, while an amazing and engaging chef will wow prospects and close your back door. But one critical piece of making your senior living food & beverage operation a success is one that many overlook. It’s the role of the Executive Director.

A community executive director has a huge role in maintaining and creating a successful F&B operation. But oftentimes EDs do not have a culinary or hospitality background, so they focus their energies elsewhere because "they don't know anything about the kitchen". This is both a mistake and easy to fix. To help our operations leaders be successful, here are my five daily tasks that every Executive Director should be doing to ensure the long-term success of the F&B operation.

  1. ATTEND THE PRE-SERVICE MEETING: Seeing the Executive Director at this mission-critical meeting adds increased value to it for all F&B employees. It also allows the ED to share updates and create better relationships with your F&B team. And for the ED, it let’s them keep a pulse on how the team is doing and if the leaders of the department have things on task.

  2. WALK THE KITCHEN: Just as important as walking your tour route everyday, a purposeful walkthrough of your kitchen is essential to support your F&B team in maintaining organization and cleanliness standards. If your organization doesn’t have a daily checklist for you to use, create your own or find one online.

  3. TASTE THE FOOD: Even with the most talented chef, production mistakes can happen. Tasting menu items prior to service helps you as the community leader be proactive in preventing customer complaints around food quality. It also shows the F&B team that you are invested in the quality of their final product and is a great lead by example method of the value of quality assurance.

  4. BE PRESENT FOR SERVICE: Your presence as an Executive Director allows for an "outsider's" perspective on service flow and staff training needs. It gives residents assurance that you have a handle on meal service and helps reduce complaint escalation, and shows that you value the work the F&B team does by being there for support and assistance if needed.

  5. REVIEW YOUR PURCHASING: Food is your second largest expense outside of labor. If the F&B team makes daily purchases, your procurement process is broken. This will lead to lost productivity in the kitchen, and usually leads to significant overspend. A daily review of spending allows you to be proactive in managing the food budget and helping your F&B leader develop better strategies and processes for purchasing.

The best part of all of these activities is that not only does it allow the executive director to be more fully engaged in the operation of their F&B operation, over time it will allow them to gain better confidence in their ability to manage this department. And a well-rounded leader is the best kind of leader.

The best part of all of these activities is that not only does it allow the executive director to be more fully engaged in the operation of their F&B operation, over time it will allow them to gain better confidence in their ability to manage this department. And a well-rounded leader is the best kind of leader.