Restaurant Operations, Marketing & Compliance

This unit teaches students to combine operational systems, regulatory compliance, marketing, and human-resources practices to ready a restaurant for launch and day-to-day success. Students will create actionable plans for advertising, customer service recovery, staffing, permitting, equipment, payments, pest control, and digital presence and prepare those plans for presentation and financing.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze local market conditions, competitive offerings, and guest feedback to produce a documented advertising and social media plan with at least three measurable promotional objectives and KPIs.
• Develop operational policies and a compliance checklist covering permits/licenses, food-safety precautions, pest control, payment processing, and equipment acquisition that meets applicable local regulations.
• Apply human-resources and staffing strategies—including hiring (domestic and foreign nationals), benefits, onboarding, and service-support roles—to create a staffing plan and training checklist that ensures legal compliance and service consistency.
• Evaluate front- and back-of-house systems (menu format, beverage program, service recovery, and point-of-sale/payment systems) and integrate them into a cohesive implementation ‘battle plan’ and a preparatory loan/pitch presentation for stakeholders.