Restaurant Selections is an independent blog about how restaurants actually work. Most of us only see the dining room. Behind it sits a kitchen organized into stations, a team of people with specific jobs, a menu shaped by careful decisions and a set of health rules that inspectors check. We explain all of it plainly, for curious diners and for anyone thinking about working in a restaurant.
What we cover
In the Kitchen explains how a professional kitchen is organized: the brigade system, mise en place, the stations, what happens at the pass and the classic knife cuts. Front of House covers the dining room: the roles of hosts, servers, runners and bussers, how a dinner service unfolds, booking and no-show policies and the beverage roles. Menus & Standards looks at how menus are designed, how the food code and local inspections work, what inspection grades mean and how to read claims on a menu. Restaurant Careers offers practical guidance for people who want to work in the industry, from becoming a line cook to roles outside the kitchen.
We also run a Lifestyle section on restaurant life and the professional habits you can bring home, and a Leisure & Games section on restaurant-inspired hobbies, from hosting a dinner party to running a cook-off.
How we choose topics
We start with the questions people ask about restaurants: what does a sous chef do, what do inspectors look for, why does the host seat tables the way they do? Each article answers its main question near the top, then explains the background and the practical detail.
How we check facts
Every fact, rule or figure in our articles comes from a source we have read, such as health departments, the FDA Food Code, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace safety agencies, universities and open textbooks used in culinary programs. We link to those sources so you can check them yourself, because codes and figures are updated. If we cannot verify something, we leave it out.
We do not invent statistics, quotes, experts or reviews, and we do not name, rate or recommend individual restaurants, chefs or schools. We also leave out prices and pay figures, which change too quickly to be useful.
The restaurant directory
This domain once hosted a directory of restaurant pages. Those pages now live on another site, and old links to them are still forwarded so nothing is lost.
Contributed articles
Some articles on Restaurant Selections are contributed by other writers. We review contributions for usefulness and accuracy before publishing them. Our Disclosure page explains how contributed content works, and our Contact page tells you how to reach us.
The Restaurant Selections editorial team