Glossary
Restaurant Manager Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential restaurant manager terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key restaurant manager vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in restaurant manager training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Average check
- Average spending per guest.
- Comp
- A free item given to a guest.
- Covers
- The number of guests served.
- Cut list
- Order for sending staff home as business slows.
- Food cost
- Cost of food sold.
- Health inspection
- A government check of food safety.
- Labor percentage
- Labor cost divided by sales.
- P&L
- Profit and loss statement.
- Par level
- Inventory needed on hand.
- Pre-shift
- A meeting before service.
- Prime cost
- Food, beverage and labor costs combined.
- Side work
- Cleaning and stocking duties.
- Turnover
- Staff leaving, or how often tables are reseated.
- Upselling
- Suggesting additional items.
- Void
- Removing an item from a check.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Restaurant Manager practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Restaurant Manager training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.