1st sem F&B notes--Ancillary F&B Service areas- Induction and Profile of the areas

Ancillary F&B Service Areas- Induction and Profile of the areas.

Ancillary sections support the activities of the main department. There are many ancillary areas behind the operations of the restaurant that are well managed, efficiently supervised, and stored with suitable supplies and equipments. These sections must be strategically located according to flow of work, well equipped, properly manned, well coordinated and supervised effectively so that they can provide uninterrupted support to the restaurant during service periods. It is necessary for all these factors to come together like a well oiled machine to determine overall a successful back-up to the food and beverage operation. The size and layout of each section depends on the volume of activities carried out and its workflow.

 These ancillary sections contribute to the success of the total catering operation. Ancillary sections are usually situated between the kitchen and food service areas. They are meeting points for staff of various departments as they carry out their duties, and therefore there must be close liaison between these various members of staff and departments under whose jurisdiction they come.

The service areas themselves are some of the busiest units of a catering establishment, especially over the service periods. Because of this, it is most important that department heads ensure that all staff knows exactly what their duties are and how to carry them out efficiently and quickly. A pride in the job and in doing it well means that the staff will co-operate with one another to give a complete and efficient service to the customer.

·         Pantry

·         Still Room

·         Hot Plate/Food pickup area

·         Silver room/ Plate room

·         Spare Linen Room

·         Kitchen Stewarding/ Wash – up

·         Dispense Bar

Pantry

The pantry or service room is located between the kitchen and the restaurant. It stores items such as hollowware, special service equipment, glassware, linen, condiments, disposables etc. that are not stored in sideboards or hotplate. Pantry as a specific area means a place where the mis-en-place is carried out. This department is very essential for all food & beverage outlets, mostly for coffee shop as it’s round the clock operations. Hence there is no need for mis-en-place to be carried out in the restaurant unlike the specialty restaurants where the mis- en-place is carried out during non-operational hours when it is closed for the guest in the restaurant itself.

Two swing doors connect the pantry to the service area. One is to enter the restaurant and the other to return to pantry. Using wrong doors may lead to accidents.

The equipment required in the pantry depends on its location. Sometimes one of the waiters or steward is put in charge of the pantry to carry out and keep tab on day-to-day operations.

Some of the common equipments in the pantry are:-

·         Cupboards – for glassware, condiments, disposables, linen etc.

·         Linen Box – For soiled linen.

·         Stainless steel work table

·         Plate warmer

·         Bain-marie

·         Range for making tea coffee

·         Refrigerator

·         Sink for washing service equipment. etc.

Some of the tasks performed in the pantry are as follows:

·         Wiping of crockery, cutlery and glassware

·         Refilling of sauce, jam etc bottles & cruet set

·         Storage of excessive crockery, cutlery and glassware

·         Fresh linen is stored here

·         Folding of serviettes

·         Storing dirty linen

·         Polishing silver articles

·         Briefing is conducted in the pantry area

·         Storage of required stationary

·         Washing of small items

Before the start of service pantry staff must ensure

·         Plate warmer, bain-marie is on.

·         Adequate supply of disposables, condiments( butter, lemon, olives, sauces etc) beverages, linen is available.

At the end of service staff must ensure that

·         Pantry is thoroughly clean, including equipment and floor

·         Plate warmer and Bain- marie is turned off

·         Soiled linen is counted, recorded, and sent to the housekeeping department for ewashing and fresh linen is collected.

Waiters should be encouraged to wash their hands frequently during service.

Appropriate planning of the pantry is necessary from design stage to ensure an effective mis-en- place for a successful operation in the long run.

Stillroom 

Still room is responsible for the provision of coffee, tea, fruit juices, breakfast egg preparations, sandwiches, assorted breads, toasts, Melba toasts, breakfast rolls, and preserves(jam, marmalade, honey)etc. It may function throughout the day depending on the size and location of the hotel, and is very busy during breakfast time. Stillroom supervisor is in-charge of the still room functions. He is assisted by semi- skilled staff to do the routine work of still room.

·         Responsibilities of the head of the still room are:

·         Ordering supplies of goods from stores through requisition sheet.

·         Maintaining adequate stock of fresh beverages.

·         Preparing beverages.

·         Ensuring uninterrupted supply of dishes ordered.

·         Ensuring highest standards of hygiene.

·         Allocating work to subordinates and ensuring adequate staff is available to carry out the work.

·         Stock taking.

Functions of still room.

·         All hot beverages, toasts preserves, cereals & breads are dispensed from still room.

·         Tea, coffee, tisanes & preserves are stored in the stillroom.

·         Assorted juices, biscuits, crackers & digestives are also dispensed from here.

·         Smaller establishment also dispense egg preparation & porridge from pantry.

·         Sandwiches: plain or grilled.

Almost all the items required during breakfast and high tea service are provided by still room.

Still room equipments:

The nature of activities carried out in the still room determines the equipment used in still room.

Some basic equipments are:

·         Work tables with stainless steel top and cutting board.

·         Salamanders

·         Coffee and tea making machine

·         Cooking range to prepare eggs, waffles

·         Refrigerators

·         Sink with hot and cold water facility with draining board

·         Racks to store glassware, hollowware,  and other service equipment

·         Cabinets for storage

·         Blender/juicer

To avoid duplication of machinery, these machines may be shared with other departments by placing them in common place.

Hot Plate / Food pick-up area

Like the name suggests this area is where the food pick-up counter is in the kitchen and acts as a contact point between kitchen and service staff. It is controlled by the aboyeur (barker). Cold cabinet, hot cabinet, bain-marie, overhead shelf, infra-red facilities, etc. are incorporated in the pickup counter. This area is always there in any extensive food & beverage outlet. It usually comes under the production section where the chefs who have processed raw materials into finished food items check, plate, garnish and dispense the food.

 Cut vegetables, lettuce leaves, cold sauces, etc. are stored in the cold cabinet for making salads quickly. Dishes prepared before head such as accompanying vegetables, gravies, soups of the day, etc. are placed in the bain-marie so that during service wait staff can pick these up without having to wait.

Hot plate should be stocked with adequate chinaware such as soup bowls, half plates, full plates, etc. if the dishes are plated in the kitchen. Food containers such as platters, entrée dishes of different sizes, etc. should be kept ready for portioning out the dishes.

Following is the order execution procedure at the hotplate:

·         The first copy of the kitchen order ticket (KOT) is given to the aboyeur. ( all orders written by the waiter must be legible to the aboyeur)

·         The aboyeur shouts out the order to the kitchen staff.

·         Aboyeur keeps the plate or containers ready for dishing out (cooks may also do this depending on the situation)

·         The aboyeur checks the dish for portion size and presentation, garnishes the dish wipes edge of the dish if required. 

·         The aboyeur hands over the dish to the correct waiter and ticks KOT against the dish delivered.

·         If all the dishes of a KOT are delivered, the KOT is deposited in a control box. This box is kept locked and can only be opened by a member of staff from the ‘control department’.

There are two types of orders based on the priority to be given: Running order and New order. The aboyeur must ensure that a running order is given priority as gusts are in the middle of a meal and any delay in responding to a running order will result in poor customer satisfaction.

One of the important duties of an aboyeur is to notify waiters when a menu item is not available by writing the dish “off board” so that the waiters do not take the order for that item.

The language used at the hotplate will vary from country to country and region to region. The language used must be understood by the production staff.

There should be cooperation and understanding between kitchen and service staff. Kitchen staff is constantly at the cooking range and work under pressure during peak hours. Any disturbances or exchange of harsh words will affect their mood which will result in poor quality food preparation, wastage, and delay. Realizing their nature of work, wait staff must be cooperative and should not shout at them nor pressurize them to deliver dishes faster.

Similarly, cooks must understand the nature of work carried out by the wait staff. They handle customers of various temperaments, different age groups, and different needs and many guests demand quick service. If the quality of food is not good, the wait staff is the first recipient of negative remarks from guests. They are constantly on their toes to please the guests by serving the ordered food. It should be remembered that guests’ meal experience depends on many factors, with the waiter’s attitude being the top most. Any unpleasant incident at the hot plate may result in poor service and negative attitude towards the guest. Both production and service staff must work as a team and help each other perform better to achieve customer satisfaction. The aboyeur is responsible for ensuring proper coordination amongst the production and service staff.

This area keeps in continuous contact with kitchen stewarding for service equipments, crockery, silverware etc. This area is in need of certain important heavy equipment like hot plate machines, plate warmer, Bain Marie, salamander, food warmer, etc.

Silver room/ Plate room

Silver room stores and maintains the complete stock of silver and other service equipment required for catering operations, together with a slight surplus stock in case of emergency. It maintains record of stock received and issued to various outlets. Surplus stocks are stored neatly and item wise for easier access and control. Other than the main hotel stores there are satellite stores, which are attached to the food and beverage outlet itself. Weekly or monthly requirements are brought from the main store and kept here. Silver required for the restaurant, room service, banquets, etc. may be of different design and kept separately, specifically for that purpose.

The storage of silver is most important. Large silver such as flats, entrée dishes, salvers, soup tureens, chafing dishes, water pitchers etc. are stored on shelves, with all the flats of one size together and so on. These shelves are labelled to show where each item is stored. This makes it easier for control purpose and for stacking. When stacking silver the heavier items should go on the shelves lower down and smaller and lighter items on the shelves higher up. This helps to prevent accidents. All cutleries-spoons, knives, and forks are made into a bunch of 20 pieces per item for easier counting and are stored in cutlery box or drawer lined with baize. This helps to prevent noise and stops the various items sliding and being scratched and marked in the drawer when it is opened and closed.

Smaller items such as budvase, ashtrays, cruet set, menu holders, butter dishes, etc are stored separately in a cupboard. Extra glassware for function catering is stored separately upside down on a paper lined shelves or racks specially designed for the purpose of storing different glasses. These racks are also very useful for transporting glassware without damaging them.

The Inventory is judiciously maintained. Inventory registers and stock registers are maintained. The manager in charge of the restaurant is responsible for the stores. The service equipment in stores should be cleaned and polished periodically.

Silver Cleaning:

Now a day’s most of the silver used in food service operations is made of EPNS( electro plated nickel silver). Silver is highly resistant to corrosion and staining, but it can be tarnished by sulphides, which are usually present to some extant in the atmosphere and in many foods such as leafy vegetables and eggs. Tarnish consists of a superficial film of silver sulphides. Initially tarnish appears to be golden in colour, but prolonged exposure to sulphides turns it into blue black discolouration.

ü  The tips of EPNS forks are most prone to tarnish as they are in regular contact with eggs, salt, condiments, and very hot food stuffs.

ü  Dark spots may arise when silverware comes into contact with undissolved salt in hot solutions of certain powder detergents.

ü  Food dried on the surface of the cutlery gives the salts and acids in the food more time to act and cause tarnishing.

Spare Linen Room

This is a sub department which stores, dispenses and keeps a record of the restaurant linen. The spare linen room stocks the linen that is required for operations as one cannot run to the housekeeping/laundry for new linen whenever requirement arises. The linen room is located near the food service area for emergency. The restaurant linen may include tablecloth, throw over, serviette, etc. The linen room exchanges soiled linen for fresh ones. One of the senior stewards in every shift exchanges linen at the end of his shift, the room is kept locked for control purposes.           

At the end of the day, once restaurant operations are closed, the waiter collects, classifies, and bundles all the dirty linen after checking for tears and burns. The waiter enters the number of soiled linen into the ‘Linen Exchange Register’ in duplicate which includes the type and the total number of soiled linen. He then takes them to housekeeping department where these are checked by linen keeper in his presence; linen keeper verifies the record in the linen book and exchanges the soiled linen with fresh ones. The top copy of the linen book is signed by the linen keeper and retained. The duplicate remains in the book for restaurant reference. Any discrepancy must be recorded so that missing linen can be collected later. The book that keeps record of the same has to be counter signed by the manager of that outlet.

Linen Exchange Register:

Sometimes the linen room also takes care of the exchange of uniforms or vice versa. If a separate sub department is created for uniforms, it’s called ‘the uniform room’.

 Kitchen Stewarding / Wash Up

The wash up is the most important and integral part of F & B service area and should be located in such a way that staff can work efficiently and speedily when passing from the food service areas to the kitchen. This is the first section where the waiter enters from the food service area. Here, the waiter deposits all the dirty plates and silverware properly. Glasses may also be left here for washing in specially designed racks. The server must place any debris into the bin or bowl provided.

The objective of cleaning utensils is to remove any material from them on which micro-organisms can develop, and to destroy any micro-organism which is already present in the service ware by sterilizing. The wash up area is divided into two sections.

1.      Pot Wash: This area is designated for washing kitchen utensils such as pots, pans, heavy dishes, ladles, etc. This section is also known as scullery. It is located near the main kitchen. Each satellite kitchen has its own small pot wash.

The duties of scullery staff include:

a)      Ensuring constant supply of kitchen utensils by washing them as quickly as possible.

b)      Ensuring the utensils are clean and polished as required and as per standards.

c)      Keeping kitchen clean and hygienic.

d)     Cleaning other kitchen equipments like ranges, hot plate, fryer, etc.

e)      Cleaning filters and ducts of the exhaust system

f)       Garbage disposal.

g)      Transporting goods from stores.

h)      Pest control in kitchen.

Pot washing is perhaps the least attractive job in catering business. At the same time it is one of the most important jobs. It involves a lot of physical work of lifting of heavy vessels, scrubbing etc. Clean utensils should be placed on the racks and ladles hung adjacent to kitchen for easy access.

2        Ware/ Dish Wash: Area for cleaning the service equipment- crockery, cutlery and glassware etc. The ideal location for ware wash is near the restaurant and room service elevator to minimize the distance of carrying soiled equipment by the wait staff. This area should be out of public view and must be sited correctly so that the staff can work speedily and efficiently when passing from the food service areas to the kitchens. The service staff should stack dirties correctly at the side board, with all the correct sized plates together, and the table ware stacked on one of the plates. All glassware should be stacked on a separate tray.  In bigger organizations the area can be divided into many sections, each dealing with a separate category of items namely cutlery, crockery, and glassware to speed up the washing process and to avoid breakages. In hotels each restaurant has its own dish washing area situated in the pantry to get its service equipments washed.

Ware washing is done either manually or by washing machines depending on the volume of washing to be carried out. In manual wash, two sink or three sink method may be used, with each sink used for specific purpose or dish wash machines may also be used.

All washing jobs of kitchen and restaurant equipment are monitored by the head washman, assisted by adequate experienced hands. It is the responsibility of the head washman to ensure that all kitchens and service outlets are provided with clean and presentable equipment on time, the kitchen area is clean and garbage is removed. He also ensures that his subordinates are provided with adequate cleaning agents and tools. Garbage disposal is a very important activity and while carrying out this work, the local government’s rules and regulations must be followed.

Three sink method: (Manual method)

Dish washing machine.

Storage, maintenance, cleanliness & issue of crockery, cutlery, glassware & hollowware to the food & beverage department are the responsibilities of kitchen stewarding dept. Kitchen stewarding may also operate staff cafeteria and also be responsible for maintenance of heavy kitchen equipment like planetary machine, peeling machine, onion chopping machine, water filters, ice-cube machine, dishwashing machine & glass washing machine, Installation of gas connection, cleaning & pest control, supply of coal, wood and cleaning of silverware etc.  Some hotels contract the kitchen stewarding job.

Dispense Bar 

A dispense bar means any bar situated within a food and beverage service area and that dispenses alcoholic beverages to be served to guests having meal in the restaurant, which has license to sell alcoholic beverages. However in some establishments wine and other alcoholic drinks for consumption with a meal are sometimes dispensed from bars situated outside the food and beverage service area itself because of the planning and layout, e.g. one of the public bars.  Beverages are issued against authorized BOT (bar order ticket/token). At the end of operations closing stock is recorded and requisition for fresh supply is made to the storeroom according to the par stock level maintained. There should be check on pilferage and malpractices.

There are certain essentials necessary in the planning of every bar. These factors should be given prime consideration when has to plan a bar or set up a bar for a particular function:

a)      Area- There should be sufficient area or space for the barman to work and move around. The minimum space from the display cabinets to the back of the bar counter should be 1meter (3feet).

b)      Layout- Layout should be planned in such a way that everything in easy reach of barmen, so as to prove quick and efficient service to guest. Careful consideration must be given in the initial planning. Adequate storage must be provided in form of shelves, cupboards and racks for convenient storage of the stock and equipments.

c)      Plumbing and Power- Adequate supply of power is essential for effective working of various equipments. Some equipment may need special electrical wiring. It is also essential to have supply of hot and cold water, proper drainage is also essential.

d)     Site of the bar- Site of the bar in restaurant is also a major factor. The bar should be positioned in such a way that it achieves the good sales target.

In order to carry out all the functions effectively and efficiently, the dispense bars should be well equipped with some basic equipments like

ü  Ice maker

ü  Beer panel

ü  Sink

ü  Blender

ü  Soft drink dispensers

ü  Refrigerator

Some other small equipments required at bar are: bar spoon, glasses, service trays, straws, boston shaker, howthorne strainer, wine baskets, wine buckets, glass rimmer, peg measures, bottle pourers, chopping board and knife, coasters, lemon squeezer, ice scoop, ice bucket, cork screw, bottle opener etc.

The ancillary section of the service area, without being visible to the guests, contribute to the success of food and beverage operations. One cannot imagine running a food service operation only with a kitchen and service area. Preparing items available on the menu and serving those in restaurants are the main activities of any food and beverage outlet, the success of which depends on the availability of clean pots and pans, serving dishes, crockery, cutlery, glassware, linen, and area to organize before the actual service. It is the ancillary sections that ensure continuous and uninterrupted supply of presentable, clean, and pathogen free food service equipment, anda hygienic and well organized kitchen and service area to facilitate faster food service. Together this ensures that guests have a great lasting impression of the outlet.

Strategic locations and effective supervision of all these sections is important to achieve maximum benefits. The number of sections required depends on the style and size of operations, and the distance between the kitchen and service area.