Restaurant Operations and Marketing

This unit develops the operational, marketing, legal, and human-resources skills needed to ready a restaurant for opening and sustained service. Students will integrate advertising and digital outreach with compliance, staffing, equipment procurement, payment systems, and risk-mitigation practices, building on earlier planning work and preparing a final implementation plan for the next unit.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze California regulatory, permitting, and public-health requirements (including licenses, inspections, pest control, and safety precautions) and produce a compliance checklist for a restaurant operation.
• Develop an integrated advertising and guest-engagement plan—incorporating print/digital ads, website content, social media, promotions, feedback loops, and reputation management—that demonstrates strategies to attract and retain customers.
• Evaluate staffing and human-resources decisions (including hiring practices, employment of foreign nationals, conflict-of-interest situations, benefits offerings, and customer-service policies) and create a hiring and HR policy guide aligned to operational needs.
• Apply operational and financial planning to acquire equipment, set up payment-processing and service support systems, secure financing, and implement risk-mitigation measures, culminating in an implementation-ready battle plan for opening and operating the restaurant.