What are meal periods?
Meal periods are periods within the day when restaurants provide customers with varying menus, offers, and experiences. Meal periods allow restaurant operators to schedule employees, organize restaurant activities, manage inventory, and provide specific menus.
Common meal periods include-
- Breakfast
- Brunch
- Lunch
- Afternoon or Happy Hour
- Dinner
- Late Night
How Do Meal Periods Work in Restaurants?
The opening hours of a restaurant are broken down into the times when food is served.
This generally happens like so-
- The restaurant uses its business hours as the meal periods.
- Menus and prices can then be defined for each meal period.
- The appropriate amount of staff is scheduled based on predicted busy and slow times.
- The POS system automatically knows the correct menu and pricing.
- Sales and performance are tracked by each meal period by the managers.