The timeline, from final recipes to week one
Menu training fails for one reason more than any other: it starts after the menu is printed. The kitchen needs final recipes first, then the front of house needs time to learn them. Work backward from launch day.
| When | What happens | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|
| Two weeks out | Recipes final, allergens listed per dish, prices set | Chef and owner |
| Ten days out | Cheat sheet written and handed out | Chef and a lead server |
| One week out | Tasting of every new dish, with the drinks that go with them | Kitchen, bar, whole floor staff |
| Three days out | Allergen drill and modifications review | Chef or sous chef |
| Day before | A practice service, even a short one, for friends or staff | Everyone |
| Launch week | Ten-minute lineup before every service | Manager on duty |
A smaller change, like four new dishes in a seasonal swap, compresses this into a tasting at one lineup and a sheet. A whole new menu deserves the full two weeks.
Write a one-page cheat sheet
The printed menu is written for guests. Staff need a different page: what the guest will ask, answered ahead of time. For each new dish, one row:
- The name, exactly as it is printed, so the ticket matches.
- What it is, in one plain sentence a server can say out loud.
- Allergens, named, from the kitchen, not guessed.
- Can it change? What the kitchen will and will not modify.
- With it: the side, the wine, or the cocktail to suggest.
- How long: anything that takes longer than the rest of the table’s food.
Keep it to one page. A twelve-page binder is read once and left in the office.
Run the tasting
- Schedule it before a shift, when everyone is there, and count it as paid time.
- Serve the dishes in the order a guest would eat them, split so everyone gets a taste.
- The cook who makes the dish describes it: what is in it, how it is cooked, what makes it take longer.
- The bar pours what goes with it, in tasting sizes where the law and your policy allow.
- Each server says the dish back in their own words. If they cannot, the description on the sheet needs work.
The allergen drill
Allergens are where a new menu can hurt someone. After the tasting, the chef asks the questions guests ask, out loud, one server at a time: is there dairy in this, can the fries be made safe for a celiac, is the pesto made with nuts. The right answer when anyone is unsure is always “I will check with the kitchen,” and the kitchen has to be ready to answer it mid-rush. For what the law covers and what the menu should say, read restaurant allergen labeling.
The first week on the floor
Launch week is when the menu meets real guests. Hold a ten-minute lineup before every service and cover three things: what is 86 tonight, what guests asked that nobody could answer yesterday, and which dish to push. Write the answers into the cheat sheet as you go. By the end of the week the sheet is better than the one you started with. The daily habits carry straight into running daily specials, and running out has its own word: what 86 means.
Guests hear about menu changes from servers more than from anywhere else, so the staff briefing is also your announcement. How to say it, and to whom, is in how to tell customers about menu changes.
Keep one menu everybody reads
The worst week-one problem is three versions of the menu: the printed one, the one behind the QR code, and the one in the server’s head. Pick the one everybody checks, keep it right, and have staff pull it up on their phones before lineup. In a busy room like a gastropub, where the board and the menu change weekly, that single copy saves arguments at the pass.
What Gaslamp does and does not do
Gaslamp keeps the menu guests and staff read: the hosted menu behind the QR code opens on any phone without an account, and changes you save show there about thirty seconds later. Dietary tags (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, spicy, halal, keto) print beside each dish.
Gaslamp is not a training tool. It has no quizzes, no cheat sheets, and no team seats: an account has one login, so the person who runs the menu makes the edits. Your cheat sheet lives in a document or on paper, where it can say things the guest menu should not.