Xavier Teixido was seriously stressed. The president of Harry's Savoy Grill in Wilmington, Delaware, was juggling so many priorities that he was having a hard time fulfilling all of his obligations.

Over the past two years, Teixido had taken on one new responsibility after another. He had begun to build a 10,000-square-foot ballroom and conference center adjacent to his 9,000-square-foot restaurant. He served on the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association and its Educational Foundation. Always a booster of his local community, the father of two volunteered for a number of local charitable causes, as well as Share Our Strength, a national hunger-fighting organization.

And there was one more small responsibility to think about: customers.

"The stuff kept piling up on my desk," says Teixido. "I couldn't devote time to research a new business idea to see whether it was good or not. Just trying to schedule dinner with friends had become incredibly difficult."

Does this sound familiar? If you are waging an uphill battle to juggle restaurant, family and community obligations — and just getting by — you are not alone. According to Association research, almost three-quarters of all restaurant operators worked at least 50 hours a week — or 25 percent longer than the standard 40-hour work week. And almost 10 percent of restaurateurs worked 80 hours or more — twice the standard work week.

Not only do restaurant owners work long hours, like Teixido, they also contribute a lot of their time to charitable activities. According to the National Restaurant Association's Community Relations Survey, nine out of 10 tableservice operators participate in community activities, with the majority of respondents involved with two or more national or local charitable organizations or programs.

It takes long hours and hard work to be a successful restaurateur, but consultants believe that operators should be able to find a balance between working hard and working too hard at the expense of spending time with their families or even of their health. There are some steps restaurateurs can take to save money, energy and their most precious resource — time — by being better organized and standardizing their operations.

Do it right the first time

Jeffrey Mayer, president of Mayer Enterprises in Chicago, wrote the book on time management. In fact, he's written seven books on the subject, including Time Management for Dummies, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and been translated into eight languages.

Mayer says he can tell when restaurateurs make the most of their time — and when they need help with time management. "In restaurants, time management becomes a quality issue," he says. "If something is cooked improperly, it has to be sent back — and that throws off the kitchen. You also have the problem of wasted food. If a steak that's ordered medium arrives well-done, what do you do with that well-done steak?"

To use their time more efficiently, Mayer says frenzied restaurant owners must first take the time to get organized. "People are in a hurry to do stuff, but they hurry, and make mistakes. So they don't do it right and they have to do it over again," he says.

One establishment that has had to cope with increased time pressures is Log Haven Restaurant. Log Haven was named "1998 Best Salt Lake City Restaurant" by Salt Lake City Magazine, was ranked in the top 10 in five categories of Zagat's Rocky Mountain Restaurants and received prominent coverage in an article in Bon Appetit. Business soared 20 percent after the articles were published, and it figures to grow even more as the 2002 Winter Olympics in nearby Park City approaches.

Fortunately, Log Haven owner Margot Provost and chef David Jones have established a set of policies and procedures to organize their time most efficiently. They have a written policy in place to deal with supplier shortages. The policy includes what ingredients can be substituted in case of emergency and what cannot. Jones also copies all his recipes into books for his kitchen staff to read and review. The net effect of Log Haven's many policies is that long before it even welcomes a customer through its doors, Log Haven has resolved many potential problems — allowing Jones to allocate more time to research and experimentation with new dishes.

"The policies may seem rigid at first, but they allow us to handle our increasing volume of customers," says Provost. "I compare it to being a musician who spends hours practicing scales and reading music. It's a struggle to get it right, but once you reach a certain level, you can soar. You're not trapped by the policies or emergencies."

Considering she is a physician by training and was previously a data-processing executive in the health-care industry, it's no surprise that Provost is such a strong advocate of planning and organizing. "I want my customers to experience the same level of service every night. I don't want a rude awakening that I'm $40,000 in the hole," she says. "In order to prevent this, one has to be on top of it. One can't do it with a calculator and scraps of paper."

Get out from under the clutter

Piles of paper and needless clutter can chain operators to their desks and eat up precious time. Mayer says that once restaurateurs remove the clutter from their desks, the papers won't be missed and the new freedom will make important papers easier to find. "Sixty percent of the papers on your desk and 80 percent of your files can be tossed," he claims. Mayer should know. He has spent the past 15 years throwing out useless papers and files for busy executives and charging them $350 an hour — or as much as $5,000 a day — to do it.

Harried operators should also embrace computer technology — in particular, contact-management software, says Mayer. "Wouldn't it be helpful to have a system that enables you to find the names of your suppliers and top customers without rummaging through the bottom of your desk for their phone numbers," he asks. "Contact [-management] software acts as a to-do list and an electronic Rolodex; and it notifies you about appointments, so you never forget what you have to do. The people who are learning how to use this technology are distancing themselves from the rest of the field."

Installing electronic point-of-service and accounting systems has greatly increased the efficiency and accuracy of operations at the Mad Batter in Cape May, New Jersey. "Now we have a basic business structure so somebody can say, 'I understand what business you did today,' " says Mark Kulkowitz, director of operations at the Mad Batter.

When Provost made Jones use a computer, the chef resisted at first. Now he finds it invaluable. "When I have a day off, I can sit down and develop themes for new dishes," he says. "I can also begin to write cookbooks with it and enter all my recipes in it."

It seems that restaurateurs are becoming more computer savvy and embracing technology as a time-saving tool. According to the 1999 Restaurant Industry Forecast, more than four out of five tableservice operators have access to a personal computer compared with just one out of six in 1990. And a large proportion of respondents to the 1998 Quickservice Operator Survey (45 percent) reported that they planned to allocate a larger amount of their budgets to technology in 1999 than in prior years.

Prioritizing your priorities

Learning to prioritize tasks can help operators streamline their work load. Mayer advises operators to set an agenda of their most important tasks and stick to it. "Ask yourself, 'What are the most important things I've got to do today?' Then set aside some uninterrupted time and do it," he says.

One way for restaurateurs to focus their efforts is to remove themselves from daily tasks that others can perform. Xavier Teixido focused his efforts by hiring an administrative assistant to help with his correspondence and filing. Teixido's assistant also works for his chef and manager, so they have more time to concentrate on important matters.

Teixido also hired an outside advertising agency to handle the 500-plus requests a year that he receives to advertise his restaurant. "For an independent restaurateur, there's a temptation to do this out of your hip pocket. But I looked at it from the perspective of how much time it will take me," he says. "If hiring an assistant or an advertising agency allows you to grow your business and work on your business relationships, then it's money well spent."

Log Haven's management goes so far as to hold a three-day retreat off site once a year. "It helps us focus on the upcoming year and the new directions we want to take," says Jones.

Unfortunately, most restaurateurs spend too much time putting out fires to even think about setting an agenda, says Mayer. "They're so disorganized that they don't know how to set their priorities," he says, "so they can't ask: 'What's most important?' "

Type casting

Ronald N. Gorodesky ran restaurants for Marriott Hotel Corporation. He now uses that hands-on experience to help other restaurant owners better manage their time in his current job as president of the restaurant-consulting firm Restaurant Advisory Services in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.

Gorodesky has classified restaurateurs into three types. "The front-of-house types focus 90 percent of their time on the floor, usually involved in sweating the details like busing tables. The back-of-house types hide in the office and spend all their time looking at numbers. The crisis-management types need a series of crises to occur in order to thrive. Each type has a different way in which they don't manage their time well. I have rarely found an operator with the right combination of all three."

Gorodesky believes that a successful business owner needs to incorporate some traits from all three types — to greet customers during breakfast, lunch or dinner; to crunch the numbers during off hours; and to manage proactively to avoid as many crises as possible. By properly balancing the three characteristics, restaurateurs can operate their businesses more efficiently. "Restaurateurs wear the number of hours they worked last week like a badge of courage," he says. "When I ran a restaurant, I was the same way."

The first step that Gorodesky has his clients take is to keep a log of every activity they perform for an entire week. Then he pores over the log with the client. "You'll find yourself grouped into one of these types of operators," he says. "Then you can determine how to spend your time more effectively."

Gorodesky says the crisis manager is the toughest operator to help. "They're the owners who really need to be more focused," he says. "The other types are just focused on specific areas."

Kulkowitz is one of Gorodesky's clients who made the difficult transition from crisis manager to a more balanced work style. When he first took control of his father's restaurant in the early 1980s, he worked more than 100 hours per week — just as his father had done. Both generations loved the restaurant. But Mark had a wife and three young children to consider, and he badly wanted a way to cut back on his time at the Mad Batter without hurting the business. "Six or seven days a week, 12-hour days, whatever was needed — I did it," he recalls. "I even worked through weddings and funerals. Relationships came second. How could I compromise?"

He started by, as he puts it, "hiring smarter people who make you look better." Kulkowitz lets his manager handle hands-on issues such as hiring and firing Mad Batter employees, and sticks to strategic matters, like changing the menu or buying major equipment. Today, Kulkowitz works six days a week during the high season, but only 60 to 70 hours. In the off season, he's cut back to 35 to 40 hours.

Working smarter

Restaurateurs don't just share long work hours, they share a passion for their jobs. But many operators are learning that they can be passionate about their jobs without working 24-seven and that in fact, it may be healthier for them, and for their businesses, not to.

Adopting more effective work habits — such as learning to delegate some duties, setting priorities and sticking to them, and cutting back on time wasters such as unnecessary paperwork, allows restaurateurs to focus on what's really important — running a top-flight operation that provides impeccable food and service without ignoring their family and community obligations.

Or else, as Jeffrey Mayer says, "If you haven't got the time to do it right the first time, when will you find the time to do it over?"

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