Providing all of your employees with comprehensive food and beverage service training is essential to ensuring that your restaurant will flourish. Customers who receive excellent service in a clean restaurant will continue to come back. Training your employees in these areas gives them all the tools they need to meet every customer's expectations.

Choosing a training program can be difficult. In some cases, you may want to check out a few and then create your own program from things you learned. Check out these food and beverage education and training basics to help you get started:

1. Make food safety a top priority.

2. Have your managers complete a food and beverage management course.

3. Teach employees to properly care for customers and food.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find food and beverage courses that emphasize food safety

Food safety is a major consideration for restaurants. Ensuring that all of your employees, including managers, know how to handle food safely is vital to keeping your customers happy and healthy. When you are choosing a food and beverage course on food safety, find out if the course is FDA approved as these courses update course information when the FDA issues new regulations or suggestions.

I recommend: You can take an online course in food safety at Learn 2 Serve. This company offers FDA approved courses, including alcoholic beverage training courses. ServSafe offers online and in person alcohol and food hygiene training courses. By creating a user account on this website, you can access members only articles about the latest food safety news.

Provide comprehensive food and beverage manager training

The managers in your restaurant are your link to the customers and the employees. Providing a comprehensive food and beverage manager training program is necessary to ensure your management staff is able to cope with any situations that may arise in your restaurant, including unruly guests or questionable employee actions.

I recommend: Quantified Marketing Group offers information to help you find the most appropriate food and beverage management training courses. The articles also cover what to look for when choosing your management staff and how to work with the staff you hire. VirtualRestaurant.com offers numerous books to provide on the job food and beverage education and training for your management staff. This website offers books about handling customers who have had too many alcoholic drinks and books about dealing with food safety problems.

Ensure guest safety by using food and beverage service training courses

Every employee in your restaurant should have to successfully complete a food and beverage service training course prior to doing any work. This ensures that customers in your restaurant remain free from food borne illnesses. Many of these courses also teach customer service skills to help your employees treat customers in a professional manner.

I recommend: OSHA has information about specific employee training challenges for restaurants, including teen training programs. You can also find checklists and other printable materials on this website to help aid in your food and beverage service training. Safety Training Network offers numerous food and beverage training courses geared toward teaching employees basic safety techniques. Many of the food and beverage industry training courses have a free trial.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Many food and beverage training courses offer certificates of completion. In some cases, these certificates may expire, which means your employees will have to take a refresher course and exam to get a new certificate. As your employees get certificates for completing courses, display the certificate in a prominent place in the restaurant for customers to see.

Whether you are an aspiring chef or bartender or the parent of one, finding the best food and beverage education and training programs is a critical education decision not to be taken lightly.

When looking at food and beverage manager training, consider what sort of career path you want to take with the degree or program. Whether you are you looking into going into culinary arts or bartending, finding the food and beverage training program or school is imperative to the path you or your child will want to take.

To find the best food and beverage training programs:

1. Look at ranked or noted food and beverage education programs.

2. Weigh scholarship opportunities at all of your choices. Top food and beverage training programs may not have the scholarship offerings that you require, while a smaller school may cover a large portion of your tuition costs.

3. Visit the campus of your choice before making a commitment. See their food and beverage education program first hand to make sure it will be a good fit for you.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Look at industry statistics before starting your search for food and beverage training programs

Before you choose to pursue food and beverage training, look at some of the statistics in the field.

I recommend: Look at stats for food service management from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. Check out restaurant management career descriptions and job opportunities at Culinary-Careers.org.

Use a food and beverage training search engine or directory

Instead of using Google or Yahoo, look to search engines specifically designed to give you information by programs such as food and beverage education and training.

I recommend: Find the right food and beverage schools for you at QuinStreet, Inc.'s Find the Right Culinary School site. Look up other cooking schools at CookingSchools.com. Cooking Schools 101 is another culinary arts school directory source. There's a list of State-Licensed Bartending Schools at Bartending Professional Bartending Schools of America, Inc.

Look at nationally noted food and beverage manager training programs

Scope out highly visible notable food and beverage training programs.

I recommend: Check out the online learning tools from 360training’s Hospitality Education Division. There you can find solutions for Alcohol Safety Training, Food Hygiene Training, HACCP Training and Nutrition Education. Check out the programs available at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute. Look at the food and beverage school from the Center for Advanced Food Technology (CAFT) at Rutgers University. The program is a joint effort between the food industry, the school and government. Also consider the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN). It is a food and beverage industry training program established between the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the University of Maryland.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  When looking at schools with food and beverage training programs, speak with both their faculty and their students. A school may be ranked as one of the best food and beverage manager training programs, but if their students don't feel that the experience has been rewarding for them, you might reconsider the school itself.

To get the right information about jobs in the food and beverage industry, you need to know food and beverage education and training key terms. Since many jobs in the food and beverage industry require not only training but also experience, you can save time by understanding exactly what type of job you ultimately want to do.

Because many job titles in this business come from traditional French culinary schools, they might confuse you at first. Read this guide to learn about food and beverage jobs before you begin your education and training.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Executive chef, head chef and chef de cuisine

The executive chef is in charge of the kitchen. The executive chef plans the menu, designs the plating arrangement of food, orders food and manages the kitchen staff, among other duties. An executive chef usually has specialized training as well as plenty of experience.

I recommend: You can see a job description for an executive chef at American Culinary Federation.

Sous chef

The sous chef is second in command in a kitchen. As the executive chef's main assistant, the sous chef has a lot of responsibility. With enough training and experience, sous chefs can work their way into an executive chef position.

I recommend: Find out more information about a job as sous chef at Hcareers.com.

Expediter, or aboyeur

The expediter has the task of keeping the waitstaff organized, and keeping the orders flowing in good time. The expediter takes the order from the waiter and gives it to the appropriate workstation in the kitchen. As the meal is ready to go out to the customer, the expediter makes sure everything is in order.

I recommend: You can read more about the role of an expediter or aboyeur at PhiloDex Consulting.

Chef de partie

The chef de partie, or station chef, is responsible for preparing specified dishes. This person usually has a small group of workers who help him prepare the food. The chef de partie may also be responsible for preparing food for a buffet line.

I recommend: A job description of a chef de partie on a cruise ship is available on CruiseJobFinder.com.

Kitchen assistant

A kitchen assistant is an entry-level job that requires little or no formal education. The kitchen assistant helps clean and prepare food under the direction of the chef de partie or station chef.

I recommend: PayScale offers information about average salaries of kitchen assistants.

Sommelier

A sommelier is responsible for managing the restaurant's wine cellar. The sommelier works closely with the executive chef to match foods with the appropriate wines. In most cases, at least an Associate's Degree is necessary to fill a sommelier position. Experience with wines is also a pre-requisite.

I recommend: More information about a job as a sommelier is available at Salary.com.