Definition
Back of house
Back of house (BOH) is everything behind the kitchen doors: the cooks, prep, dish pit, receiving, and storage that produce the food and control food and labor cost.
Back of house is where your two largest controllable costs live. It covers the line cooks, prep, expo, dishwashers, receiving, and walk-ins: everyone and everything that turns raw ingredients into plates. It is the counterpart to the Front of house, and the two share the pass. In a full-service restaurant, food and non-alcohol beverage cost runs a median of 32.0% / 32.4% of sales and wages plus benefits a median of 36.5% of sales, so nearly every dollar of a thin 3-5% net margin is decided back here. This is also where the daily craft lives: Mise en place, firing tickets, and the call to 86 (to 86 an item) an item when you run out.
BOH is the clearest place AI pays for itself, because it is measurable. Demand forecasting tools price prep and ordering to expected covers instead of gut feel, and food-waste tracking systems like Winnow report cutting kitchen waste by 50% waste cut and food cost by 2-8% food-cost savings. Invoice and inventory platforms such as MarginEdge and Restaurant365 turn a pile of supplier invoices into a live food-cost number and a daily P&L. See demand forecasting and inventory and food cost for how this works in practice.
Related terms
Your next service / Ready when you are
Less busywork. A better next shift.
Turn what you have learned into a focused brief. Start with the job that matters most, and keep the tools that already work for your restaurant.
Describe it. Review it. Keep improving it. Check connections and costs before going live.