Restaurant management is great if you like variety in what you do, you like to work really hard and you enjoy working with people, he says. It's a fairly easy field to enter without investing in an education; however, you can move faster and not start at the bottom if you have an education. In my experience, restaurant managers consistently work longer hours and earn much less than waiters who work underneath them. We have all seen managers do the same work as servers, hosts and buses during the service and, at the same time, they are the ones who take the most things from customers.
Restaurant managers enjoy an average wage significantly higher than the national average wage, are expected to experience job growth much higher than the national average, and have low income requirements. Another problem with being a restaurant manager is that it can be quite stressful, since you will have to manage many things at the same time and if you forget something important, this could have a great adverse impact on your success as a restaurant manager. While many of your guests will be friendly and polite, some of them will only be annoying and insulting, and if you don't have thick skin, people may get you depressed very soon and you may not be satisfied with your long-term career as a restaurant manager. Since you'll have a lot of things to do throughout the day and you're also the last line of defense, you run a significant risk of burnout as a restaurant manager and you can also suffer serious mental problems sooner or later if you don't know how to deal with stress in a healthy way.
So what do your guests want? When you become a good restaurant manager, you focus your strategy on the needs of your guests. Good restaurant managers are also in high demand right now and, therefore, you don't have to worry about losing your job, because even if this happens, you'll have many other restaurants where you can find a new job very soon. Understanding the world of restaurant analytics and the future of the restaurant industry is one of the most important things to consider if you want to become a restaurant manager. In fact, as long as you're running the restaurant you're responsible for in a cost-effective manner, you'll have a lot of discretion and freedom in this regard.
In the end, it's up to you to evaluate all the pros and cons of being a restaurant manager so you can better decide if you want to continue working as a restaurant manager or prefer to work in a different field. So, if you're not good at dealing with people and you're not a true leader, you probably won't succeed as a restaurant manager. Since you'll learn a lot during your career as a restaurant manager and you'll also have a lot of people underneath you, you'll also have the opportunity to pass on your knowledge to the next generation and you won't have to worry about them losing your experience when you retire. In fact, 80% of restaurants are turning to technology to learn more about their businesses and streamline their operations.
Since you'll have to work on weekends and holidays, and sometimes you'll also have to work late at night, you'll have a rather poor work-life balance as a restaurant manager and you may secretly want to switch places with your friends who have 9 to 5 regular jobs.
