Chapter 22 — Self-Check Quiz

DataField.Dev

Chapter 22 — Self-Check Quiz

Twenty-four questions. Answer key in the collapsed block at the bottom — write your answers down before you open it. Where a calculation is required, use the Bellwether figures: 68 seats (56 dining in 17 tables, 12 bar), a hearth that clears 29 covers an hour across a five-hour fire window, a \$46 dinner check, and a week of Tue 62 · Wed 78 · Thu 92 · Fri 120 · Sat 123 = 475 covers.

Multiple choice

1. The sequence of service is best described as:

(a) a list of the courses a guest receives
(b) an ordered set of steps with a standard time attached to each
(c) the order in which sections are seated
(d) the kitchen's firing order

2. Bellwether's hearth sustains 28 items an hour and the restaurant fires about 0.97 hearth items per cover. In the unit the floor uses, the fire clears roughly:

(a) 27 covers an hour · (b) 29 covers an hour · (c) 31 covers an hour · (d) 34 covers an hour

3. A 120-cover Friday against a 144-cover kitchen ceiling is:

(a) comfortably inside capacity, since 120 < 144
(b) inside capacity on total covers but over capacity in the peak fire hour
(c) over capacity on total covers
(d) impossible to evaluate without the average check

4. The peak-to-average ratio measures:

(a) the busiest night divided by the average night
(b) the busiest fire hour divided by the average fire hour
(c) peak-season covers divided by off-season covers
(d) the ratio of reserved to walk-in covers

5. Splitting a 40-top into two waves of twenty, with the party fired first in every window:

(a) roughly halves the à la carte backlog
(b) creates about 20 covers of additional capacity
(c) leaves the à la carte backlog and the last plate off the pass essentially unchanged
(d) eliminates the backlog if the waves are 40 minutes apart

6. The single largest recoverable segment of Bellwether's modeled table cycle is:

(a) seated → beverage order
(b) food order → first course
(c) check dropped → settled
(d) entrée → plates cleared

7. Rotating the host's seating on covers rather than on tables exists primarily to:

(a) speed up the kitchen
(b) prevent servers in small-seat sections from earning far less for the same work
(c) reduce the number of sections needed
(d) satisfy a wage-and-hour requirement

8. A section is to be closed and its server cut at 9:00. Seating in that section should stop at approximately:

(a) 8:55 · (b) 8:40 · (c) 8:15 · (d) 7:30

9. "Quote long, seat early" is justified by:

(a) the fact that most parties leave within ten minutes
(b) an asymmetry: beating a quote is rewarded, missing one is punished disproportionately
(c) reservation platform pricing
(d) the need to keep the bar full

10. Bellwether's twelve bar seats are never placed in the reservation book because they are:

(a) too small to be worth booking
(b) the waitlist's holding pen, a revenue source during waits, and inventory that cannot no-show
(c) reserved for staff meals
(d) outside the fire's capacity calculation

11. At Bellwether, entrées fire:

(a) on send, with the appetizers
(b) on the expediter's schedule regardless of the table
(c) on the server's call
(d) when the appetizer plates are cleared

12. Figure 22.6 found that 146 parties occupied 458 seat-slots to seat 385 covers. That 84% figure measures:

(a) the percentage of tables occupied at peak
(b) party-to-table fit — the seats lost when a party is smaller than its table
(c) the reservation show rate
(d) kitchen capacity utilization

13. Three independent methods in this chapter — a queue analysis, a fit-corrected floor plan, and a table-cycle count — converge on an operating ceiling of about:

(a) 116 covers · (b) 132 covers · (c) 144 covers · (d) 151 covers

14. An "on the fly" ticket on a night with 26 covers of backlog:

(a) creates an additional plate
(b) takes a plate from whoever was next in the queue
(c) has no effect because the kitchen absorbs it
(d) shortens the queue by clearing an old ticket

15. The manager's walk is valuable primarily because:

(a) it demonstrates presence to the staff
(b) it is the same route every time, so deviations become visible
(c) it allows the manager to touch every table
(d) it satisfies a health-code requirement

16. A rising ticket time is described in this chapter as:

(a) a kitchen problem to be solved at the pass
(b) a door problem, solvable only by taking covers out of the next thirty minutes
(c) a scheduling problem for next week
(d) a menu problem

Short answer

17. State the two caps Bellwether posts at the host stand, with their numbers, and say what each one protects.

18. Compute the peak fire hour for a 132-cover night at a peak-to-average ratio of 1.33 over a five-hour window, and convert the overage above 29 covers into minutes of backlog.

19. A four-top is seated at 7:10. Using Figure 22.1's standard, at what clock time should the entrées fire, and at what clock time should the table be reset and available? Show both the dwell and the cycle.

20. Explain why Bellwether books 65% reserved on Friday but only 45% on Tuesday. Give the operating reason, not a preference.

21. The frozen Friday's 40-top deploys nine tables. State how many dining seats remain for à la carte service, how many tables, and why the party's departure time is the most valuable number in the book.

22. Name the three things that actually create capacity when a constrained station is overloaded, and say which one belongs to the front of house.

23. Give the chapter's rule for the line between efficient and rushed, in one sentence, and give one segment of the table cycle on each side of that line.

24. Bellwether's plan carries 1.40 seat turns. State the verdict this chapter reaches, in two sentences: one defending the number and one explaining what it conceals.

Answer key

**1. (b).** A list of steps with standards attached. Written down, it makes training possible and makes a service failure diagnosable by step rather than blamed on a person. **2. (b) 29 covers an hour.** 28 items ÷ 0.97 items per cover = 28.9. **3. (b).** Total covers are 24 under the ceiling, but the 7:30 fire hour is asked for 36 covers against 29 — seven over, about fourteen minutes of backlog. The total is the least informative number on the book. **4. (b).** Busiest fire hour ÷ average fire hour. Unmanaged neighborhood curves run about 1.50; an actively managed book gets to about 1.33 and no further. **5. (c).** Peak à la carte backlog is 26 covers either way and the last plate leaves the pass at roughly the same minute. Re-ordering a queue never changes its length. **6. (c) check dropped → settled** — 13 minutes modeled against a 5-minute standard, eight of which are recoverable and none of which are dinner. **7. (b).** Sections cannot be made equal; Section 4 has 20 seats and Section 1 has 8. Round-robin by table equalizes work and exaggerates income. **8. (c) 8:15.** The last table needs a full cycle. A cut is a seating decision made forty-five minutes earlier at the host stand. **9. (b).** Beating a quote costs nothing and buys goodwill; missing one is punished out of proportion, because the guest spends the overage watching the door. **10. (b).** All three, and the third — inventory that cannot be reserved and therefore cannot no-show — is the one operators forget. **11. (c) on the server's call.** Fire-on-send is faster and correct for high-volume counter models; for a 22-minute hearth entrée and a room whose pace is set by the table, fire-on-call is correct. **12. (b) party-to-table fit.** 385 ÷ 458 = 84%. Sixteen percent of seats are lost to mismatch even when every table is full. Chapter 24 prices it. **13. (b) 132 covers.** Queue 132, fit-corrected floor plan 131, table cycle 134. **14. (b).** It is a transfer, not a creation — which is why it should be called by a manager or the expediter, who can see the queue, not inserted quietly by a server who cannot. **15. (b).** A manager who wanders sees whatever is loudest. A manager on a fixed circuit notices that the bar rail has had drinks on it at three consecutive stops. **16. (b).** By the time the pass is behind, the kitchen has no lever — the fire clears 29 covers an hour whatever anyone does. The only control is the door. **17.** **Eight covers per quarter hour** (32/hour, the managed peak the fire supports) protects the kitchen's queue. **No section seated twice inside four minutes** protects the sequence of service — and, downstream, protects the fire from two simultaneous entrée tickets instead of two staggered ones. **18.** Average fire hour = 132 ÷ 5 = 26.4. Peak = 26.4 × 1.33 = 35.1, call it 35. That is 6 over 29. 6 × 2.07 minutes = **about 12 minutes of backlog** — the most a room can absorb without the guest noticing, which is why 132 is the operating ceiling. **19.** Entrées fire at 0:30 → **7:40**. Table reset and available at 0:96 → **8:46**. Dwell is 88 minutes (seated 7:10, guests up 8:38); cycle is 96 minutes. At the *modeled* rather than standard cycle it would be 113 minutes and the table would come back at 9:03 — which is the whole of §22.5's argument in one seventeen-minute difference. **20.** Because Friday's fire is constrained and reservations are the only instrument that lets a host move demand *before* it arrives. On Tuesday, 62 covers over five hours never asks the hearth for more than about 15 covers an hour, so shape is irrelevant and the book's job is smaller. Holding more walk-in inventory early in the week also keeps the restaurant available to the neighborhood. **21.** **24 dining seats across 8 tables** (T1–T4, T14–T15, T16, T17), plus the 12-seat bar. The departure time matters because the run breaking back down at 9:00 buys one late seating of roughly 23 covers — \$1,058 at \$46 — and that reseat is the only reason a book that was physically unseatable at 142 landed at 138. **22.** (1) Take items off the constrained station — a party menu that cooks somewhere else; (2) move the constrained demand out of the peak window; (3) take covers off the à la carte book. **Only the third belongs to the front of house**, and it is the one this chapter owns. **23.** *You may take minutes from the restaurant; you may not take minutes from the guest.* On the restaurant's side: the reset (segment I), or the check settle (segment H). On the guest's side: food order → first course (segment C), or entrée → plates cleared (segment E). **24.** **Defense:** 95 covers a night sits well below an operating ceiling of about 132, and three independent methods agree on that ceiling, so nothing in the room or the kitchen prevents 1.40 — it is a conservative demand assumption for a year-one team. **What it conceals:** 51% of the week's covers land on two nights that run 1.76 and 1.81 turns, where the room is simultaneously over the fire's hourly rate and at the limit of what 17 tables can physically cycle.