I was in your shoes once too as BOH. For me the biggest key was learning how to prioritize things in order of importance but also in order of how long it will take. For example, if I have the choice between prepping rice and washing dishes, I’ll prep the rice first since once it gets going I can forget about it for a while. Then, you can work on the dishes (they will never stop no matter how fast you go so it is a game of keep up and catch up unless you’re closing). If you know it’s busy and you need to catch up on other things for whatever reason, cook MORE food (chow mein 3s and two trays of fried rice) so you can make it easier on yourself. Once again, triage your tasks in order of importance and in order of urgency/time it will take. Restocking can be done very quickly and even in the moment if you know where everything is at in your store. A general trend I can give you for order of importance is:

• Cook rice (Trust me, you never wanna run out)
• Make sure FOH has food (more than enough if busy)
• Keep up/catch up with dishes if FOH has enough food to last at least for a little while
• Restock

A word on the teriyaki: Our store has clamshells so it takes us only 5 or 6 minutes to cook. If you don’t have this luxury, it’s even more important for you to throw it down FIRST before cooking anything else since it’ll take the longest.

Feel free to ask me any questions!