restaurant manager Career Center

Restaurant Manager Salary Range

The field of management is a demanding one. Add in special food preparation and safety requirements and you find that it takes a dedicated person to work in the field of restaurant management. If you have experience working in food service and are considering moving up to a managerial level, you may be wondering what a restaurant manager salary looks like.

The national average for this position, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, is approximately $48,000 annually. However, there are three main factors that go into determining the salary that can either bring this number significantly higher or lower.
Here are the important considerations to make when determining the salary level of this position.

• Location – The pay scale for this position is directly related to the level of discernment of the customers who eat at the establishment. For example, a restaurant on the strip of Las Vegas or in New York City is more likely to receive a clientele that demands the best during every visit. However, a small restaurant or a fast food joint along the highway receives clientele who are more lenient in food appearance, wait times and even taste. What is interesting, however, is that the actual city where the restaurant is located does not always determine the level of pay. Sometimes, larger cities have a lower pay scale for restaurant managers than smaller ones.
• Fast Food vs. Fine Dining – The style of establishment is perhaps the most important factor when determining the paycheck of this profession. This is because the manager of a fine steakhouse is held to a significantly higher standard of managing customer satisfaction than fast food managers. The reason for this is that when a customer visits a fine dining location, he or she expects more. This, in turn, means that the managers must be even more cognizant of wait times, food appearance, food taste and courtesy levels of all staff members. These managers also have more control over what appears on the menu, adding extra requirements to their job description.
• Experience – For people in the food industry, experience is not only dependent on years in the field, but also where they have worked previously. People who have worked in high-end restaurants where the expectations are significantly higher than those at a fast food joint are more likely to see higher pay scales. This is due to their ability to handle customer experiences that are more demanding and situations where customer satisfaction is more vital to the overall success of the business.

Food service is a difficult industry to be in because of the high safety standards and demanding expectations from the consumers. For this reason, the main factor that determines the salary of a managerial role in this industry is the level of expectations set forth by the customer base.