Business Glossary

What is the back of the house in a restaurant?

This article is for educational purposes and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice. For specific advice applicable to your business, please contact a professional.

The back of the house (BOH) is the behind-the-scenes area of a restaurant, where most of the food preparation and cooking takes place. The back of the house staff includes the chefs, cooks, dishwashers, and other kitchen workers.

The back of the house is important in a restaurant because it is responsible for producing the food that guests will eat. A well-run back of the house can help to ensure that guests have a positive dining experience.

What are the responsibilities of a back of house position?

There are a few things that restaurants do to make sure the back of the house runs smoothly:

  1. Make sure there is enough staff to cover all of the shifts in the kitchen.
  2. Create a detailed schedule that outlines what tasks need to be completed during each shift.
  3. Train staff members on proper food safety and sanitation procedures.
  4. Keep the kitchen organized and clean at all times.
  5. Make sure that all equipment is in good working order.
  6. Stock the kitchen with all of the supplies needed to prepare food.
  7. Develop systems for food preparation and cooking that are efficient and easy to follow.
  8. Constantly communicate with front of the house staff to make sure that they are aware of any changes or delays in the kitchen.
  9. Be flexible and willing to make changes as needed in order to improve the efficiency of the back of the house.

These are many of the ways the back of the house operates to keep diners happy and coming back.

How Does Square for Restaurants support the back of the house?

Square has many tools to help optimize your back of house. We support both printed order tickets as well as kitchen display systems (KDS). We even have the ability to 86 items on the KDS which will sync over to your restaurant POS system. We also have several team management features like employee permissions, timecards and scheduling to help your restaurant run as smoothly as possible. Square also integrates with several ingredient tracking partners like Bevspot, Marketman & Yellowdog.

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