Recently I read a report that said that entry-level restaurant employees each steal an annual average of $238.72 in cash and merchandise from their employers. Managers pocket an average of $89.26.

That is an average!!! What do you do to curb stealing?

Nothing ticks me off more than some dumb *** stealing from me. I have caught cooks over and over again stealing from. Most of the time they didn't even need to, just doing it to do it. Here is how I handle it, basically as long as I have hard core evidence of the person, I fire them on the spot. No excuses, no break, no second chance.

Stealing has always been a problem, but I have always found that there was much more theft at the restaurant level as opposed to the corporate level. In most of the hotels that I worked we had camera systems installed so it was pretty much impossible to steal anything without getting caught. Plus there our security department was set up at the employee entrance to the hotel so noone could come or go without getting past security.

In the restaurants it was virtually impossible to control unless you wanted to stay there day and night. Even if you are good, something always get stolen. I rember catching cooks taking tenderloins home at the end of the night.

One thing that I did that is not that expensive is to install a small video monitor on the walkin coolers. I was amazed at how much it cut down the amount of product that was disappearing. For a few hundred dollars you can set it up pretty easily.

Regards,

Robert

[Nicko]

This is an excellent topic for our industry. I like the idea of installing a simple camera to monitor things better, but it sounds like it might not be practical for all situations. One thing I did that seemed to work was actually do count sheets with my cooks. Every night I had the prep guys write out how much of each item they were giving to the line cooks. If the grill guy was given 15 orders of swordfish then at the end of the night I compared his count sheet to what was actually ordered. If there were any unexplained orders then it came right out of the cooks pay. It actually worked really well.

[Pete]

I have a real problem with that solution. First and foremost is the legality of it. I don't know the law for sure, but I am sure that lawyers would love to get their hands on something like this. It seems to do away with the "innocent until proven guilty" presumtion that our law is suppose to be based on. Secondly, it is a real moral problem to do this. I think that you would have an increase in theft. People's thinking on this is "since I am being made to pay I might as well take something". The best way to take care of it is to catch one person and make a strong example of him/her. Not only can them, but call the police, have the person charged and have them hauled away in front of everyone. That makes a pretty strong statement.

Hello, I am new to the boards so I thought I would post something.

This topic really interests me because it is something that has always been a problem for my restaurant. We also went the route of installing a camera in the store room and one near the coolers. It has definately cut down theft, but we are still losing some inventory each month. I had an idea and I wonder what fellow chefs would think about this. My idea was to round up the entire staff and tell them that until the theft stops that a certain dollar amount would be taken away from their check each time to cover the cost of the loss. That way it would motivate everyone to be on the lookout for the ones that are stealing. There is probably some legal issue with doing this.
Anyone else have an idea about how to deal with this?

I would have to agree with Pete, that doesn't sound like a good idea at all Brin. I am not a lawyer, but I don't believe you have any legal way to pull that off anyways. If you did I think you could possibly be facing a lawsuit of some sort.

Sounds like a quick fix to a larger problem. Also sounds like you may need to spend more time in your kitchen. At least for awhile to find out more about who is stealing from you. I agree with the camera idea, more and more chefs are using them and they are helping. I would be if you figure out the cost, you would find out that you would save yourself a lot of money by a simple step.

Good luck..

Sorry Brin, I also have to agree with Pete, your employees will have to the attitude of I'm paying for it so its mine, and your store room will be empty before you know it. One thing that I have done in the past is to give a cash reward (like Crime Solvers) to people who have turned in or given information about people stealing. It work great, we caught a line cook and a dish washer who were taking the stuff for their family BBQ. Also tell you employees that theft is what is holding back their raises: Theft goes down, raise goes up. Money talks to most people and they will do anything to get more.

[Pete]

If you want to hit them in the pocketbooks that's the way to do it Tiss. No raises. I pulled that one as we were experiencing excessive breakage. I pulled together the cost of replacements for the previous year. It was huge ($1000s), showed this figure to the staff and told them that I couldn't afford to give out raises. Suddenly, everyone was a lot more careful handling plates and glassware, and making sure that silver didn't end up in the trash.

[Nicko]

I was recently speaking with Bob Sullivan of Plitt Seafood and he had a great idea on how to deal with employee theft. He told me that at his company they have a certain amount of "bonus cash" for Christmas bonuses, etc. At his company they count everything, and he said everything. If anything is missing, then the cost of what is missing is deducted from the bonus cash account. He actually told me that what happens is the employees keep an eye on each other because they know that if someone is stealing, then they aren't just stealing from the company, they are stealing from the other employees. After implementing this he told me that they have next to no theft. Very similar to your idea Pete!