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Guides · 62
Guides for running restaurants that grow
Long, sourced answers to the questions operators ask: shifts, SOPs, training, food safety, food cost, and honest software comparisons. Each guide links the free templates that go with it.
Data & research
Data & research
Colombia's Restaurants in Numbers: What the 2026 Registry Shows
155,488 active restaurants, how many open and close each year, how many survive, and how many owners run several locations. From Colombia's RUES, October 2026.
Data & research
Mexico's Restaurants in Numbers: What the 2026 DENUE Shows
741,499 restaurants, how many employ 11 or more people, which states and cities they're in, and how many groups run several. From INEGI's DENUE 05/2026.
Operations
Operations
AI in Restaurant Operations: What Works in 2026
Where AI actually works in restaurant operations in 2026, where it's been pulled back, and what to check before trusting any of it with a real decision.
Operations
How to Make Your Restaurant Run Without You
The build order for a restaurant that runs without you: what to write down, which decisions a GM can make alone, the daily proof loop, and the weekly review.
Operations
Requirements to Open a Restaurant in Colombia (2026)
Permits to open a restaurant in Colombia: chamber of commerce registration, RUT, e-invoicing, health concept, fire department, music rights and payroll.
Operations
Requirements to Open a Restaurant in Mexico: CDMX and Monterrey
What it takes to open a restaurant in Mexico: land use, operating notice, civil protection, COFEPRIS, SAT and IMSS, with Mexico City and Monterrey as examples.
Operations
Restaurant Guest Complaints: Recover, Reply, Learn
How to handle a restaurant guest complaint at the table, reply to Google and Tripadvisor reviews, decide when to comp, and track complaints to their causes.
Operations
Restaurant Shift Management: Pre-Shift to Close
How to run a restaurant shift: the pre-shift huddle, the handoff, kitchen line discipline and a documented open and close, with the numbers behind each.
Operations
What Restaurant Operations Software Is (and What It Isn't)
What restaurant operations software does, how to digitize checklists honestly, when paper still wins, and how to evaluate and price a vendor.
Operations
What Software Do Restaurants Use? The Stack, Layer by Layer
POS, online ordering, reservations, scheduling, accounting, inventory and operations: what each layer costs and which to fix first.
Operations
WhatsApp for Restaurant Operations: What Works and What Breaks
How restaurants run on WhatsApp, what breaks, supplier orders, shift logs, privacy rules in Mexico and Colombia, and how to move off the chat.
Operations
Why Restaurant Standards Slip, and How to Hold Them
Why restaurant standards decay: the founding crew leaving, quiet substitutions, checklist rot, and what actually holds a standard in place.
Food safety
Food safety
Distintivo H for Restaurants in Mexico: Steps, Cost, Rules
What Mexico's Distintivo H hygiene seal is, who grants it, the steps, what it checks, the one published cost, its validity and how it differs from NOM-251.
Food safety
HACCP Plan for Restaurants: Principles and a Worked Example
What a restaurant HACCP plan is, when the FDA Food Code requires one, the seven principles, and a worked CCP table for one dish with real limits.
Food safety
NOM-251 for Restaurants in Mexico: What It Requires
What NOM-251 requires from a restaurant in Mexico: temperatures by section, which records it requires in writing, who inspects, and the Distintivo H difference.
Food safety
Restaurant Allergen Management: Rules, Training, Response
The 9 major US allergens, preventing cross-contact, documenting allergens on recipes, training staff, responding to a reaction and running it across locations.
Food safety
Restaurant Food Safety Compliance: Audits to Inspections
How restaurant food safety compliance works: audits, allergens, HACCP, temperature logs and inspection readiness, with real FDA numbers.
Hiring & training
Hiring & training
How to Train a Restaurant Manager (and Know They're Ready)
How to train a restaurant manager by competency: food safety, the shift, people, money and guest recovery, each taught, then verified before a shift runs alone.
Hiring & training
How to Train a Server: What to Teach and When They're Ready
What a server needs to know, how to train a new one step by step, how long it takes and how to tell they're ready, with rules for Mexico, Colombia and the US.
Hiring & training
How to Train Line Cooks: Stations, Specs, Sign-Off
How to train a new line cook station by station: what to teach, how to teach recipes and plating to spec, how long it takes and how to sign them off.
Hiring & training
How to Train Restaurant Staff: Programs, Manuals, Proof
How to train restaurant staff with competency tiers, a training manual, cross-training rules and metrics that actually predict who's ready.
Hiring & training
Restaurant LMS Guide: What It Is and How to Compare
What a restaurant LMS actually is, what to compare against a generic training tool, and how shadowing and certification tracking fit around it.
Hiring & training
Restaurant Onboarding and Turnover: The First 90 Days
What actually cuts restaurant turnover, how to onboard new hires faster, and the five blocks a real onboarding checklist needs, with sources.
Hiring & training
Tips Law in Mexico for Restaurants: What the Labor Law Says
What Mexico's Federal Labor Law says about restaurant tips: who keeps them, how to split floor and kitchen, income tax, IMSS, card tips and a sample policy.
Hiring & training
Why Staff Don't Follow the Checklist
Checklists fail for design reasons: too long, ticked instead of proven, never reviewed. Here's how to fix the checklist and the review loop, not the crew.
SOPs & recipes
SOPs & recipes
How to Write Restaurant SOPs That Get Followed
How to write restaurant SOPs that hold up on a real shift: the SOP-checklist-training split, cleaning and hygiene SOPs, and picking a documentation stack.
SOPs & recipes
Restaurant Recipe Management: Cards, Libraries, Menus
How to standardize recipe cards, build a library that survives turnover, document a menu for FOH and BOH, and keep allergen data accurate.
SOPs & recipes
The Restaurant Knowledge Base: One Answer, Every Shift
What a restaurant knowledge base is, why it beats a shared drive, where equipment manuals belong, and how a grounded AI assistant should help staff.
SOPs & recipes
The Restaurant Operations Manual: What Goes In It
What a restaurant operations manual actually contains, who owns each section, when to rewrite it, and why Google Docs stops working past a certain size.
Food cost & finance
Food cost & finance
How to Cost a Recipe: Yield, Plate Cost and Price
Cost a recipe to the ounce: apply yield, split batch from plate cost, and set the price from a food cost target. Worked beef stew with USDA yields.
Food cost & finance
How to Take Restaurant Inventory: Count, Variance, FIFO
How to take a restaurant inventory: the count procedure, how often to count, the variance formula with a worked weekly example, FIFO and who should count.
Food cost & finance
Menu Engineering for Restaurants: A Worked 8-Dish Example
How menu engineering works: sort dishes into stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs by contribution margin and sales mix, with the math on an 8-item menu.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant Break-Even Analysis: Sales, Covers and Time
Calculate a restaurant's break-even point in sales and covers, with a worked example, fixed vs variable costs, how long it takes and how to lower it.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant Food Waste and Inventory: Where Margin Leaks
How to cut restaurant food waste, run inventory counts that mean something, and build prep pars from real sales, with the benchmarks and worked numbers.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant Labor Cost: How to Calculate and Control It
How to calculate restaurant labor cost with taxes and overtime, what's normal, how to schedule to sales, and what US overtime rules do to the number.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant P&L Explained: How to Read One Line by Line
What a restaurant P&L is, what each line means, a worked four-week example, what a good profit margin looks like, and how to compare locations.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant Purchasing: Suppliers, Par Levels and Invoices
How to manage restaurant suppliers, set par levels, check invoices, negotiate, decide between central and local buying, and handle price increases.
Food cost & finance
Restaurant Theft and Cash Control: How to Find It and Stop It
Where restaurants lose money to employee theft, how to control cash, comps, voids and inventory, and what US, Mexican and Colombian law say when you find it.
Food cost & finance
The 30/30/30 Rule and Other Restaurant Cost Rules, Checked
What the 30/30/30 rule, prime cost, food cost percentage and the 60/40 rule actually say, the real benchmarks behind each, and where they mislead.
Multi-unit
Multi-unit
Central Kitchen Guide: When a Restaurant Group Needs One
What a central kitchen is, when a restaurant group needs one, what it costs and saves, and how to move food safely between sites, with a worked example.
Multi-unit
How to Franchise a Restaurant in Mexico: Law, Costs and Manual
What Mexican law requires to franchise a restaurant: trademark, disclosure document, contract, IMPI filing, reported costs and the manual, with articles cited.
Multi-unit
How to Manage a Multi-Location Restaurant Group
What to standardize across every location, what software actually needs to do, and what belongs on a daily checklist, with a worked six-store example.
Multi-unit
How to Run a Restaurant Operations Audit Across Locations
How to audit a restaurant location: what to check, announced vs. unannounced visits, a weighted scoring model worked out, and the follow-up loop.
Multi-unit
Opening a Second Restaurant Location: When and How
The readiness test before a second lease, real build-out costs, what breaks when attention splits, what to document, and how to keep location one steady.
Multi-unit
Restaurant Consistency Across Locations
Why a second location drifts from the first, what has to stay identical, what can vary by site, and how to verify sameness instead of assuming it.
Multi-unit
Restaurant KPIs for Multi-Location Groups: What to Track
Which KPIs matter across several restaurant locations, how often to read each one, and how to compare sites fairly, with worked examples and sources.
Multi-unit
Restaurant Mystery Shopper Program: Cost, Form and Use
What a restaurant mystery shopper checks, what a shop costs, how to build the form, how it differs from an audit, and what to do with the results.
Comparisons
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs 7shifts: Scheduling or Operations?
7shifts schedules and pays your team. Restaurant Codex runs checklists, SOPs, training and inventory. Features, prices and who fits which, side by side.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Connecteam: Staff App or Standards?
Connecteam runs scheduling, the time clock, chat and HR for frontline teams. Restaurant Codex runs recipes, training and food cost. Features and price.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Google Sheets and WhatsApp: When Each Fits
Google Sheets plus WhatsApp is enough for some restaurants and stops working for others. Where each fits, what each costs, and the signs it's time to move.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Jolt: Which Fits Your Restaurant Group?
Jolt and Restaurant Codex compared: checklists, food-safety hardware, SOPs, training, inventory and pricing, so a restaurant group can pick the right fit.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Kiwi LMS: Training Only, or More?
Kiwi LMS is a restaurant training platform at $27 to $50 per location a month. Restaurant Codex adds checklists, SOPs and food cost. Compared side by side.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs MarketMan: Inventory or Operations?
MarketMan handles inventory, purchasing and recipe costing from $249 a month. Restaurant Codex adds checklists, SOPs and training. Features and cost compared.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs MeazureUp: Audits or Operating System?
MeazureUp (now part of Ladle) scores audits and checklists. Restaurant Codex adds SOPs, training and inventory. Features, price and fit, compared side by side.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Notion: When a Wiki Is Enough
Notion is a good home for a restaurant's manual and SOPs. Where it's enough, where Restaurant Codex fits better, what each costs, and how to choose.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Operandio: Which Fits a Growing Group?
A side-by-side of Restaurant Codex and Operandio: checklists, food safety, SOPs, training, inventory, pricing and who each platform actually fits.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Restaurant365: Back Office or Operations?
Restaurant365 runs accounting, inventory, scheduling and payroll. Restaurant Codex runs checklists, SOPs, training and inventory. Features, cost and fit.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs SafetyCulture (now Mitti): Compared
SafetyCulture, now Mitti, scores inspections and tracks sensors, assets and training across industries. Restaurant Codex is built for restaurants. Compared.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Toast: Which Fits Daily Operations?
Toast runs point of sale and payments. Restaurant Codex runs the checklists, SOPs, and training around it. What each one does, costs, and fits.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Trainual: SOP Tool or Restaurant OS?
Trainual documents how any company runs, priced per seat. Restaurant Codex runs restaurant operations, priced per location. What each does and costs.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Xenia: Audits and Repairs, or Standards?
Xenia runs tasks, scored audits and work orders for multi-unit operators. Restaurant Codex adds recipes, training and food cost. Features, pricing, fit.
Comparisons
Restaurant Codex vs Zenput (Crunchtime): Which Fits a Group?
Zenput, now CrunchTime's Operations Execution product, compared with Restaurant Codex on features, pricing, reviews and who each one actually fits.
Looking for the templates? They live in Resources.
Restaurant Codex
The same checklist, on every phone, with photo proof
Restaurant Codex runs this template as a live task with timestamps, photos and one view across every location. Bring it to a 30-minute working session and we'll show you how it would run across your locations.
