[lunchguy]

i manage the kitchen at our little jr/sr high school, (200 meals a day or so), during the months that school is in and during the summer i help out at one of the local restaurants.
in my experience, cutting back on employees during the, (mostly), slow times in fall and winter is a must, though you really have to work at getting qualified people to work part time, and cut back when you know that business will be slower. nothing is worse than having a bunch of cooks stumbling around each other, trying to find things to do.
i think that having a solid skeleton crew of permanent full time help who can bite the bullet and support the restaurant in lean times is great. keeping overtime down as much as possible during any time of year helps, also utilizing dishwashers and wait staff to do prep and bussing, extra cleaning, etc. helps. i've always thought of dishwashers as potential apprentice cooks, hehe, "hurry up and get those dishes done and i'll show you a little about cooking". i call stuff like that "tom sawyer-ing" someone. it really does make people feel more needed, and more important in the grand scheme of things. let employees know that it is critical to the financial health of the restaurant to use as few employees as possible at any time of the year. minimize waste and maximize leftover usage, try to keep leftovers to a very minimum. no unauthorized grazing!

tim