Top 12 Restaurant Operations Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume

The restaurant world moves fast, margins thinner than a razor, and hiring managers scan resumes like hawks. A sharp resume that spotlights the right operational skills—finance fluency, floor savvy, food safety—can tilt the table in your favor and open doors that stay shut for the generic.

Restaurant Operations Manager Skills

1. P&L Management
2. Inventory Control
3. Staff Training
4. Customer Service
5. POS Systems
6. OpenTable
7. Scheduling (7shifts)
8. Food Safety (ServSafe)
9. Vendor Negotiations
10. Event Planning
11. Marketing (Mailchimp)
12. Compliance Monitoring

1. P&L Management

P&L management means owning the numbers—steering revenue, taming costs, and reading the story inside the statement so the restaurant stays healthy, resilient, and profitable.

Why It's Important

Because profit doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the outcome of smart decisions on pricing, portions, labor, waste, and mix. Strong P&L control exposes blind spots fast and turns guesswork into steady gains.

How to Improve P&L Management Skills

1. Cost control with rigor: Track food, beverage, and labor daily. Tighten prep yields, portion standards, and vendor terms. Tools from platforms like Toast or similar can help, but consistency beats any software.

2. Menu engineering: Push high-margin items, rework underperformers, trim bloat. Price for value, not vanity.

3. Forecast and compare: Budget weekly, forecast by daypart, and measure actuals against targets. QuickBooks or comparable accounting tools keep the books clean and visible.

4. Operational flow: Speed up service and cut waste. A well-tuned expo line and KDS can reduce errors, comps, and overtime.

5. Train for outcomes: Teach teams to protect margins—portion control, upselling with integrity, and smart prep.

Do that, and the P&L starts telling a happier story.

How to Display P&L Management Skills on Your Resume

2. Inventory Control

The craft of keeping just enough on hand—fresh, tracked, and ready—without choking cash flow or courting waste.

Why It's Important

Mistimed orders and sloppy counts drain profits, ding quality, and frustrate guests. Clean inventory practices stabilize costs and keep the kitchen humming.

How to Improve Inventory Control Skills

1. Real-time tracking: Use inventory software or tightly managed spreadsheets to log counts, usage, and expirations. Sync with your POS where possible.

2. Routine counts: Daily spot checks on high-cost items; full counts weekly. Investigate variances the day you see them.

3. Tighter recipes and portions: Standardize prep and serving tools. Calibrated scoops beat guesswork.

4. Menu rationalization: Retire low sellers and cross-utilize ingredients. Fewer SKUs, fresher stock.

5. Supplier alignment: Communicate demand swings, confirm specs, and negotiate delivery schedules that match your turns.

6. Forecasting: Use historical sales by daypart and season. Plan for events and weather changes—then adjust orders accordingly.

Accuracy compounds. The tighter the loop, the cleaner the costs.

How to Display Inventory Control Skills on Your Resume

3. Staff Training

Teaching the team the how, the why, and the standard—so service feels sharp, food lands right, and safety is nonnegotiable.

Why It's Important

Trained teams move faster, make fewer mistakes, and take pride in the guest experience. That momentum shows up in reviews, repeat visits, and labor efficiency.

How to Improve Staff Training Skills

1. Map the gaps: Audit FOH and BOH performance. Set clear competencies by role.

2. Blended approach: Combine short digital modules with hands-on practice and shadow shifts. Short, frequent sessions beat marathon lectures.

3. Playbooks: Create tight SOPs with photos, checklists, and timing standards. Make them easy to find and update.

4. Coach on the floor: Real-time feedback during service cements habits fast.

5. Measure and refresh: Test knowledge, track mystery shop scores, and recalibrate monthly.

Training isn’t an event; it’s a drumbeat.

How to Display Staff Training Skills on Your Resume

4. Customer Service

Delivering hospitality that feels effortless—anticipating needs, fixing friction quickly, and making guests want to return.

Why It's Important

Happy guests come back. They bring friends. They tip better. Service quality shapes reputation more than any ad campaign.

How to Improve Customer Service Skills

1. Train the fundamentals: Greeting cadence, menu knowledge, allergy protocols, recovery scripts. Confidence shows.

2. Listen hard: Capture feedback via table touches, comment cards, and post-visit surveys. Close the loop.

3. Personalize: Note guest preferences and occasions. Small touches, big impact.

4. Recover fast: Empower staff to fix issues on the spot—comps, replacements, sincere apologies.

5. Use tech wisely: Online waitlists, mobile pay, and clean reservation flows reduce friction.

Make it easy to love you.

How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume

5. POS Systems

The engine for orders, payments, reporting, and often inventory—your POS ties the front to the back and the day to the data.

Why It's Important

A well-configured POS shortens ticket times, cuts errors, and surfaces insights that drive better decisions. It’s operational glue.

How to Improve POS Systems Skills

1. Integrate: Connect POS with inventory, online ordering, loyalty, and accounting. Square, Toast, and Lightspeed are common choices with broad ecosystems.

2. Keep it simple: Streamline menus, modifiers, and table layouts. An intuitive interface reduces training time and mistakes.

3. Customize to reality: Mirror your floor plan, pacing, and pricing rules. No generic setups.

4. Go mobile where it helps: mPOS at the table can speed turns and increase check averages.

5. Lean on reporting: Track item mix, voids, comps, and hour-by-hour sales. Lightspeed, Toast, and similar platforms offer deep analytics.

6. Protect payments: Ensure PCI compliance and modern encryption. Providers like Verifone, Square, and others help maintain standards.

7. Support matters: 24/7 help reduces downtime. Vet responsiveness before you commit.

Let the data guide, but keep the floor flow front of mind.

How to Display POS Systems Skills on Your Resume

6. OpenTable

A reservation and guest management platform that helps balance the book, profile guests, and forecast demand with more precision.

Why It's Important

It reduces no-shows, streamlines seating, and captures guest preferences—fuel for better experiences and steadier covers.

How to Improve OpenTable Skills

1. Refine rules: Configure pacing, table turns, and overbooking thresholds to match your true capacity.

2. Use guest profiles: Track notes, visit history, and special dates. Personal touches boost loyalty.

3. Mine insights: Review trends by day and time, channel performance, and no-show rates. Adjust staffing and promos accordingly.

4. Align staffing to demand: Build schedules using reservations-on-hand plus historical walk-in patterns.

5. Monitor feedback: Read and respond to reviews. Close gaps; celebrate wins with the team.

Reservations aren’t just slots—they’re signals.

How to Display OpenTable Skills on Your Resume

7. Scheduling (7shifts)

Workforce scheduling built for restaurants—create shifts fast, communicate changes instantly, and keep labor aligned with sales.

Why It's Important

Smart scheduling controls labor costs, prevents burnout, and keeps service levels consistent. Fair and predictable rosters help retention too.

How to Improve Scheduling (7shifts) Skills

1. Start with availability: Keep every team member’s availability and time-off requests current to reduce conflicts.

2. Template common weeks: Save schedules for slow, average, and peak periods. Edit, don’t rebuild.

3. Leverage autoscheduling: Use role-based rules, labor targets, and skill tags to generate draft schedules quickly.

4. Communicate in-app: Push updates, shift swaps, and reminders through one channel to avoid confusion.

5. Read the reports: Compare scheduled vs. actual labor and sales. Adjust midweek if trends shift.

6. Mind local laws: Respect predictive scheduling and break rules where applicable to avoid penalties.

Right people, right time, right cost.

How to Display Scheduling (7shifts) Skills on Your Resume

8. Food Safety (ServSafe)

Standards and practices that keep food safe from receiving to serving—temperature control, hygiene, cross-contamination prevention, cleaning, and documentation—implemented and enforced daily.

Why It's Important

Foodborne illness is devastating. Rock-solid safety protects guests, shields your brand, and keeps you compliant with health regulations.

How to Improve Food Safety (ServSafe) Skills

1. Train and certify: Ensure managers and handlers complete ServSafe or equivalent certifications. Refresh annually.

2. Codify SOPs: Handwashing, glove use, allergen protocols, receiving logs, cooling charts—write them down and post them.

3. Follow current code: Align with the FDA Food Code 2022 and local health department requirements.

4. Audit relentlessly: Line checks each shift, thermometer calibration, label checks, and monthly internal inspections.

5. Maintain equipment: Keep refrigeration, dish machines, and probes serviced and monitored with logs.

6. Vet vendors: Specify temp controls and product specs. Reject subpar deliveries without hesitation.

Safety is culture plus repetition, not posters on a wall.

How to Display Food Safety (ServSafe) Skills on Your Resume

9. Vendor Negotiations

The give-and-take with suppliers to lock in quality, pricing, and reliability that protect margins without sacrificing standards.

Why It's Important

Food cost swings can wreck a week. Strong vendor relationships—paired with firm negotiating—keep costs predictable and supply steady.

How to Improve Vendor Negotiations Skills

1. Know your numbers: Benchmark market prices and your true usage. Walk in with targets and alternatives.

2. Play the long game: Consistent volume and clear communication invite better terms and first-call service.

3. Ask for structure: Tiered pricing, drop-size breaks, and contract windows reduce volatility.

4. Trade creatively: Delivery windows, payment terms, or exclusives in exchange for pricing or quality guarantees.

5. Scorecard vendors: Track on-time delivery, spec adherence, and credit resolution. Revisit terms with data, not vibes.

Negotiation is preparation plus rapport.

How to Display Vendor Negotiations Skills on Your Resume

10. Event Planning

Coordinating private dining, buyouts, and special menus—timelines, staffing, setup, and service—so the event feels seamless and the kitchen stays sane.

Why It's Important

Events lift revenue, fill off-peak hours, and create buzz. When they run smoothly, guests remember—and rebook.

How to Improve Event Planning Skills

1. Clarify goals: Know the occasion, budget, and non-negotiables from the outset.

2. Profile the audience: Adjust menu, pacing, and music to fit the crowd and the vibe.

3. Guard the budget: Track quotes, deposits, and final counts. Leave a small contingency.

4. Lock vendors and roles: Confirm AV, rentals, decor, and who owns each task. No ambiguity.

5. Train and rehearse: Brief the team, run-through timing, and confirm allergy and VIP notes.

6. Use simple tech: Guest lists, timelines, and feedback forms—centralized and shared.

7. Collect feedback: Debrief with the client and your team. Document lessons for the next one.

The best events feel effortless because they were obsessively planned.

How to Display Event Planning Skills on Your Resume

11. Marketing (Mailchimp)

Email marketing that speaks to guests directly—news, specials, events—so your brand stays top of mind between visits.

Why It's Important

Owned channels beat guesswork. Targeted messages drive bookings, lift check averages, and nurture loyalty without paying a middleman every time.

How to Improve Marketing (Mailchimp) Skills

1. Segment smartly: Group subscribers by visit frequency, cuisine preferences, neighborhood, or occasion history.

2. Automate moments: Set flows for welcomes, birthdays, re-engagement, and post-visit thank-yous.

3. Show, don’t tell: Use high-quality photos and concise copy. One clear call to action per email.

4. Cross-pollinate: Promote sign-ups in-store, on social, and on your site. Offer a perk that fits your brand.

5. Track and tweak: Watch open rates, clicks, and redemptions. Test send times and subject lines. Trim inactive lists regularly.

Relevance wins. Frequency follows.

How to Display Marketing (Mailchimp) Skills on Your Resume

12. Compliance Monitoring

Continuous verification that operations meet health, safety, labor, and licensing requirements—and that internal policies are followed every shift.

Why It's Important

It prevents fines, closures, and reputational harm while creating a safer workplace. Compliance is risk management in daily practice.

How to Improve Compliance Monitoring Skills

1. Digitize checklists: Use structured logs for opening, line checks, temp records, cleaning, and closing.

2. Train on standards: Hold recurring sessions on food safety, alcohol service, allergens, and workplace safety.

3. Audit on a schedule: Weekly self-audits, monthly manager walk-throughs, and quarterly deep dives.

4. Encourage reporting: Anonymous channels for raising issues without fear. Fix fast and document.

5. Stay current: Monitor updates from the FDA, local health departments, and labor authorities. Update SOPs promptly.

Make compliance habitual, not episodic.

How to Display Compliance Monitoring Skills on Your Resume