KenBurgin

Next show for bakers, the main one in Australia, is FoodService Australia in Sydney 12-14 May. Used to be called the Catering Trade Fair. Ken

Grab a copy of the book Fierce Conversations from Amazon - could be very helpful! Ken

Hahaha - us non-Americans find these discussions funny... In Australia we tip if the service is good - maybe up to 10%. Staff live off their wages so the motivation is different. When I go to the US I generally tip 20% but can never handle having to tip for bad service - why should I? Ken Profitable Hospitality

If you're using a Mac, just use Pages, part of the iWork set - drag photos in easily and it has templates for menus. There's also one called MenuMaker at http://www.themenumaker.com but the designs are a bit old-fashioned. Ken Profitable Hospitality

Waste oil is valuable - in Australia a specialised disposal service should take it away at no cost. Quickest way to calculate the oil you use is think that starch eg fries will soak up about 25% of its weight in oil. So 10kg of fries will use 2.5kg of oil - that makes the calculation easy. Ken www.ProfitableHospitality.com

Here's my collection so far of Restaurant and Cafe Blogs - reflecting the life of the business rather than consumer experiences. See http://www.profitablehospitality.com/public/452.cfm Suggestions welcome for additions - Ken