The complete restaurant glossary for 2022

The complete restaurant glossary for 2022

Restaurant professionals are expected to know & remember a lot of things. From food prep instructions, to table numbers, to kitchen lingo, to restaurant delivery & online ordering terms. As your partner in all things delivery, the team at Otter has curated a glossary of every delivery-related term restaurateurs need to know in 2022. This glossary is easy to understand, and designed to be printed & shared, so you can ensure your team is up-to-date on all the relevant delivery lingo and train new team members with ease. 

In this guide, we’ll cover all the terms you need to know in regards to orders, your kitchen, restaurant operations, restaurant logistics, restaurant finance, and restaurant innovation. We made sure to keep the definitions short & sweet so you feel comfortable using the terms in your everyday life moving forward. 

Below is an example of what you will find enclosed in our Restaurant Glossary:

• FOH: Front of house. Your FOH is any area of your restaurant that customers will interact with during their dining experience: hostess booth, dining room etc. 
• BOH: Back of house. Your BOH is any non-customer facing area of your restaurant: like the kitchen & backoffice. BOH employees include chefs, dishwashers, line cooks etc.
• D2C:  Direct-to-consumer delivery or in-house delivery. A delivery service owned and operated by your restaurant. Many restaurant owners choose D2C to avoid the fees that come with third-party delivery, and to gain complete freedom over their customer’s delivery experience. There are two ways to run your restaurant's D2C delivery. 1. Create a delivery platform on your website directly; 2. Partner with D2C platforms like Flipdish, Allset, Incentivio, and more.
• OOS: Out of stock. When a specific ingredient is not available due to issues with forecasting of needs, supply chain problems, increased demand, or issues with delivery. This became a major point of contention for grocery stores & restaurants during the pandemic.‍
• Counter service: An ordering model where customers order directly from the counter and pick up their food when you call their name or number. ‍
• Par level: Periodic Automated Replacement. A system that helps calculate the minimum and optimal level of any inventory item that your restaurant should have on hand. 

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• Virtual restaurants/virtual brands: An online-only restaurant storefront that receives and fulfills orders entirely through delivery. While virtual restaurants don’t necessarily have a branded brick and mortar, they are generally operated by existing brick & mortar restaurants – which is what makes them different from ghost kitchens. ‍
• Online order management system: An all in one solution that consolidates all of your digital orders – from third party apps like Doordash + your restaurant’s direct ordering platform – into a single tablet to make managing delivery simpler.  ‍
• Delivery cycle time: The time between when an order is placed and when an order is delivered. ‍
• Delivery radius: The specific distance that your restaurant (or a delivery app when applicable) is willing to go to deliver food to customers. The average delivery radius is around 5 miles. 

This short guide will have you well on your way to becoming a walking restaurant encyclopedia. Simply fill out the short form below, give it a read, and spread the knowledge to your team to ensure you’re always speaking the same language.