Food and Beverage Service

Room Service and Catering Operation

Ardy Tristianto (Certificate 1)

Certificate in International Hotel and Tourism Management

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Table of Contents......................................................................................................................1

Introduction..............................................................................................................................2

Room Service Operation...........................................................................................................2

Function Catering......................................................................................................................3

Conclusion.................................................................................................................................4

Reference List...........................................................................................................................5
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Introduction

Room service and catering are two integral parts of food and beverage service,
which is required and commonly applied in hotel and event management. These two
services are as popular as ever, however these keep on changing in practice and style. This
report will look at some aspects of the room service and catering operation.

Room Service Operation

Room service can be defined as a service offers by hotels, which provide food and
beverage to guests in their room. This service is expected especially in five-star hotels.
Certain guest prefers to eat while having their own privacy or simply want to do something
else while eating in their room. Room service can be classified based on its operation and
range of service (Lillicrap and Cousins 2006, Andrews 2008).

Based on its operation, room service divided into centralised room service and
decentralised room service. Centralised room service described as a service which all the
food and beverages are processed in the main kitchen and sent to the guests’ room using a
hot trolley through the lift. The benefit of this type of room service is the wide variety of
menu that can be offered to the guest, as it is prepared in the main kitchen. However, it
takes more time to deliver the order, which can result the food getting cold before it being
served. Oppositely, decentralised room service is a service which each floor has a separate
pantry. Usually, this type of room service only offered beverages and limited variety of
foods, such as sandwiches and meat platters (Andrews 2008).

Based on its range of service, it divided into full and partial room service. Full room
service provides twenty-four hour service to the guests. The service staffs normally works on
a shift system while the menu covers variety of foods and beverages. This requires a
considerable amount of experience, skill and knowledge of the service staff, especially
regarding the alcoholic beverages. Whereas, partial room service only offers a limited range
of service. That kind of room service commonly applied in two to three-star hotels. Partial
room service varied mostly only provides tea and coffee making facilities and as well as
continental breakfast. Continental breakfast service is normally provides by the
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housekeeping staff. After the breakfast served appropriately, the service staff required to
clear up the tray after roughly forty five minutes in order to facilitate the housekeeping staff
on their work and to keep the convenience of the guests. Room service frequently provides
in-room facilities, which consist of mini bar and tea and coffee-making facilities, which are
restock on daily basis (Lillicrap and Cousins 2006).

Room service, as it dealing directly with the guests, requires a good coordination,
consistency and skills from the service staff. Proper preparation and mis-en-plas is expected
to keep the service runs smoothly.

Function Catering

Function catering is described as food and beverage service which is provided at a

specific time and place, number of guest, menu and price that already pre-determined.
There are two main types of function, which are formal meals and buffet receptions. From
those types, it determines the setting of the function itself. However, there are trends
towards less formality function (Lillicrap and Cousins 2006, Davis et al. 2008).

To run a function, it is necessary to have professional staffs. The staffs consist of

administration staffs and operating staffs. The administration staffs consist of sales
manager, who take care about the promotion, banqueting manager, who is responsible for
administration, and administration office staff, who take care about client information and
booking. The operating staff consist of banqueting headwaiter, dispense bar staff,
banqueting head wine waiter, permanent service staff and porters. However, a casual staff
can also be hired as part-timer in case of shortage in number of staff (Lillicrap and Cousins
2006).

One important thing in function catering is the organisation. The catering company
must consider about food and beverage that will be served. Service method also needs to
be prepared as it will affect the table setting of the function. Next is the service organisation.
There are four common service organisations. First is traditional, which normally use in
formal functions. Basically, the top table service staffs always begin the serving and the
clearing first. Second is wave service, which usually use when the meals are plated. In this
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style of serving, the tables are served over a period of time and not altogether. Third one is
Carlton Club Service. Each service staff carries a plate in each hand and served it to guests
lead by one service staff that will give a signal. Carefulness and consistency is required for
this type of service style. Last is buffet function. This divided to finger buffets, fork buffets,
and display buffets (Lillicrap and Cousins 2006).

Other type of function catering is outdoor catering. Practically, outdoor catering

has the similar system as function catering. The difference is that outdoor catering required
full comprehensive sales service, which also includes confectionary and snack kiosks. This
also needs a thorough survey because once on site, there is almost no space for a mistake.
Lastly, the majority of the staff is the casual staffs or a part-time staffs (Lillicrap and Cousins
2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, both room service and catering are an integral part of food and
beverage operation. Those services require professionalism of the staff and the
management as well as an appropriate preparation as well to guarantee the satisfaction of
the guests.
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Reference List

Andrews, S. 2008. Textbook of Food and Beverage Management. 2nd ed. [online book] New
Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Available from: http://books.google.com/books?
id=HfHtaq1GWUcC&source=gbs_navlinks_s [Accessed December 14 th 2009].

Davis, B., Lockwood, A., Stone, S. 2008. Food and Beverage Management. 4th ed. [online
book] Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Available from:
http://books.google.com/books?id=zErxVkv7yjEC&source=gbs_navlinks_s [Accessed
December 15th 2009].

Lillicrap, D., Cousins, J. 2006. Food and Beverage Service. 7th ed. London: Hodder Education.