FOH vs BOH: What’s the Difference?

Two typical terms used in modern restaurants are FOH, or front of house, and BOH, or back of house. The split between the “front” and “back” of a restaurant allows for easy organization and a more fluid hierarchy of roles. FOH refers to the waitstaff and all other guest-facing restaurant roles while BOH refers to the chefs, cooks, dishwashers, and all other staff that cook or prepare food for the restaurant. 

Let’s break down the differences, roles, career paths, and other factors that concern the two staff groups in a modern restaurant.

FOH vs BOH Locations

These abbreviations were made so that it is easier to organize restaurant staff according to their duties and where they will manage and conduct their work. They give a general sense of the broad duties each employee is responsible for. The main distinction between the two is that FOH staff work where customers are present, while BOH staff work in the kitchen, often unseen by customers.

FOH work is meant to be customer-facing and forward, making the location of the dining room the precise location where they should be. On the other hand, the BOH works in the kitchen, behind walls, and in their own private space. If you are working with customers, you are likely a part of the FOH. If you are working in the kitchen, you are likely a part of the BOH.

FOH vs BOH Roles

Defined and established roles help clarify and dictate job duties in all parts of the restaurant. That being said, it is important to understand which roles fall into each designation. This allows for a better understanding of who is responsible for each moving part of a food business. Below are some common roles for both FOH and BOH staff.

Each restaurant may have slight variations based on its concept. But the roles outlined above are what you can expect in most modern kitchens. Beyond this, it is important to note that some BOH staff may be customer-facing. For example, an open kitchen allows cooks to be seen and sometimes interact with customers. While they may be with the customer, they will still be considered a part of the BOH staff.

FOH vs BOH Responsibilities

The responsibilities between both FOH and BOH vary, and this is intentional. There are a lot of moving parts in the restaurant, and splitting up tasks to achieve the common goal of food service is the most efficient way of doing business. Below is a breakdown of how responsibilities are split between the two staff groups.

FOH vs BOH Training 

The exact skills needed for each side of the restaurant differ due to the unique responsibility each staff member takes on. It’s important to have a baseline knowledge of how an employee in the kitchen vs an employee in the dining room is trained. This ensures that everyone is doing their job to their fullest extent.

For the BOH staff, training focuses on prepping recipes/ingredients, managing kitchen inventory, executing orders, and ensuring products are made with a high level of quality and consistency. Beyond this, food safety, workspace organization, and ingredient receiving and maintenance are key areas of BOH staff training. Managers will be trained to organize cooks on a professional kitchen line, schedule staff, and ensure safe and delicious food is put out consistently. 

FOH staff training focuses on guest interaction, service, and table management. This includes dining room setup, food presentation, attending to guest needs, and efficiently turning a dining room for more customers to eat. For FOH managers, managing the guest experience and how the staff interacts with them is at the heart of their training.

FOH vs BOH Management

Management for both FOH and BOH is hierarchical. For example, cooks are managed by sous chefs, which the executive chef manages. This structure allows workers to focus on specific stations and tasks, ensuring a level of quality that customers expect from restaurants. Both of these management types meet to form a unified, final food product experience for diners.

FOH management relies on personnel in key roles that provide a robust and valuable experience to paying customers. The role of FOH management is to collect orders for the kitchen, manage the table seating in the dining room, and ensure the guest receives attentive care. 

For BOH management, focusing on safe and delicious food quality throughout the service is their main goal. This includes prep lists, proper ingredient storage, and other responsibilities that must be managed and delegated to the team.

FOH vs BOH Schedules

The scheduling of either team in a restaurant varies due to the needs of each staff member and the demands each setting requires. 

FOH staff will often be working in customer-centric hours. For example, if a restaurant were to open for dinner service at 5 p.m., FOH staff may come in as early as 2 p.m. to ensure the dining room is set up. They are then briefed on the menu and ready their workstations for service. The variability of serving staff scheduling will change due to operating hours. 

BOH staff often have more set or standard scheduling. For example, many cooks work earlier in the day to prep for the restaurant’s service. These cooks are also scheduled during service, and some stay later into the day to clean the kitchen and take care of any last-minute orders. Kitchen staff work more standard schedules, and often, service periods may have overlapping shifts, accounting for prep time, cook time, and kitchen cleanup. 

As you can see, scheduling for both FOH and BOH can overlap, with BOH often getting in earlier, and FOH staying later into the night. It is often the FOH staff that stay the latest, as the BOH staff can handle cleaning the kitchen while guests are finishing their meals. Meanwhile. cooks often find much overtime in low-staffed restaurants. Servers can also find a lot of overtime work if the FOH team is running thin during busier business periods.

FOH vs BOH Tensions

Tensions between the FOH and BOH stem from a few different areas—firstly, there is the ability to earn more wages in the front of house. This is due to the system of tipping that almost all restaurants utilize for their waitstaff. In higher-end restaurants with higher price points, especially in major cities, the potential for earnings in tips can extend beyond six figures. The same pay is simply not accessible to kitchen staff.

There is also a disparity in the type of work each side experiences. The kitchen is hot, hard work, with grueling and slightly dangerous conditions. On the other hand, waitstaff manages many different customers and is often on the receiving end of negative criticism and the general ire of the dining public. Both teams can see the positives of the other side, creating a “grass is always greener” mindset. 

That being said, there are some key ways you can ease the tension between both sides of the pass. For starters, you can utilize a service fee for all staff on checks to boost pay for your BOH staff. Holding daily pre-shift meetings and allowing the teams to communicate challenges and understand common business goals is another great way to bridge the gap. Finally, as a management team, being aligned and not creating divides throughout your org is the most foolproof way to get these two sides of the restaurant coin to work in unison.

Building Teamwork Between FOH & BOH

Building a sense of teamwork between your FOH and BOH staff is incredibly important. Unfortunately, in many kitchens, these two groups of restaurant workers are pitted against each other. This leads to a less-than-optimal working environment and keeps your customers from getting the highest quality of service and food they can achieve. With this in mind, below are some of the best ways to build teamwork between your BOH and FOH staff.

• Hold pre-shift meetings: I am often surprised when a restaurant doesn’t offer pre-shift meetings. These meetings are a chance for BOH and FOH staff to look at the day of service ahead and plan accordingly. New menu items, any concerns for the day ahead, and other relevant information are shared at pre-shift. Providing this venue for your staff to connect keeps everyone on the same page.
• Cross-training opportunities: An effective way to allow each side of a restaurant’s staff to see what the other’s workflow is like is to allow cross-training in your restaurant. Perhaps a server helps with prep work for an hour while a cook helps set tables and get the dining room ready for service. Obviously, do this on a slower day. This may seem small, but allowing staff to see what their colleagues need to accomplish can create an understanding of the integral role each employee plays in a restaurant.
• Foster a respectful work environment: Not tolerating the discourse of BOH staff vs FOH staff in your restaurant is the key foundation to building a healthy team. It is very easy to slip into negative patterns or throw insults during stressful situations. Fostering a team that must respect each other and work toward a common goal ensures a better working environment and guest experience.
• Open communication: A lot of tension can be built up over the simple lack of communication. Ensuring important messaging is relayed to both sides of your restaurant staff effectively helps avoid resentment. This also prevents your staff from thinking that information is being hidden from them due to their respective working location in a restaurant.
• Offer team bonding moments: It is a popular trend for restaurants to close for a day during a slower period of business to allow for staff appreciation days. This can be catering food to the restaurant, presenting new menus for the season, or just creating a space for your staff to get to know each other more. These moments of team bonding can be rare in the restaurant industry and can prove to be very powerful for better teamwork.

FAQs

When it comes to labor in a restaurant, there can be a lot of confusion and general questions regarding BOH vs FOH staff. Below are some of the most common questions regarding the two groups.

Last Bite

When it comes to the difference between FOH and BOH, it is important to remember that these two groups of staff work for the same common goal. The FOH focuses on customer-facing areas and tasks in a restaurant. The BOH focuses on menu production and the general management of kitchen tasks. Together, these two groups of staff members create a functional and productive restaurant. Creating an ecosystem of teamwork between the two yields the best results for all restaurant concepts.