Glossary
Hospo words: R
57 terms you'll hear on shift.
- Rack rate
- The full published room rate before any discount. Few guests actually pay it.
- Radio link
- A shared radio network connecting venues, door teams and sometimes CCTV control rooms and police.
- Raft
- The crust of egg white, mince and vegetables that forms on top of a consommé and clarifies it as it simmers.
- Rail
- Where tickets are hung.
- Rail catering
- Food and drink served on trains, from trolleys to dining cars.
- Rate parity
- Keeping prices the same across channels.
- Rateable value
- The estimated annual rental value of a premises, set by the Valuation Office Agency, on which business rates are calculated.
- Rational
- A brand of combi oven so widespread that its name is used generically in many kitchens.
- Reach-in
- An upright fridge or freezer that staff reach into, as opposed to a walk-in.
- Ready-to-eat
- Food that will not be cooked again before eating, and so must be protected from contamination.
- Real ale
- Cask-conditioned beer that finishes fermenting in the cask in the pub cellar and is served without extra carbon dioxide.
- Reasonable adjustments
- Changes required under the Equality Act to remove barriers for disabled guests or staff.
- Recipe costing software
- Software that calculates dish costs from ingredient prices and updates as prices change.
- Reduction
- A sauce concentrated by boiling.
- Reductive
- Describes a wine showing a struck-match or rotten-egg aroma from sulphur compounds formed without enough oxygen; often fades with air or decanting.
- Refire
- Cooking a dish again.
- Refresh
- Stopping the cooking of blanched vegetables by plunging them into iced water so they keep colour and bite.
- Refund
- Returning money to a guest.
- Refusals log
- A record of refused sales.
- Regular
- A frequent guest.
- Regulated entertainment
- Activities like live music, recorded music and plays that may need a licence, with many exemptions for smaller audiences.
- Rent review
- A scheduled reassessment of rent.
- Rent-free period
- Months at the start of a lease where no rent is paid, often granted to fund fit-out.
- Reposado
- Tequila rested in oak for at least two months but less than a year.
- Reservation platform
- A system that takes online bookings and may also market the restaurant to diners.
- Residency
- A chef or concept occupying a venue temporarily.
- Resting
- Leaving cooked meat to stand before carving so the temperature evens out and less juice runs onto the board.
- Revenue management
- Setting prices and availability by demand forecasts to maximise revenue, the discipline behind dynamic hotel pricing.
- Reverse dry shake
- Shaking a cocktail with ice first, straining out the ice, then shaking again without ice to build a thicker foam on egg-white drinks.
- Review platform
- Websites and apps where guests review venues; managing responses matters.
- RevPAR
- Revenue per available room: room revenue divided by rooms available.
- RIDDOR
- Rules on reporting certain workplace injuries and incidents.
- Rider
- The list of requirements an act needs, from technical equipment to drinks and hospitality.
- Right to work
- Legal permission to work in the UK.
- Rillettes
- Meat cooked slowly in fat, shredded and set in its fat, served with bread.
- Rinse
- Coating the inside of a glass with a small amount of a spirit, such as absinthe for a Sazerac, and discarding the excess.
- Risk assessment
- Identifying hazards and controls.
- Ristretto
- A shorter, more concentrated espresso using less water, sweeter and more intense.
- Robata
- A Japanese grill, typically charcoal, used for skewers and slow grilling.
- Rocks glass
- A short tumbler, also called an old fashioned glass, for drinks over ice or neat spirits.
- Rolled-up holiday pay
- Holiday pay added to each payslip, allowed for irregular-hours workers.
- Room attendant
- The housekeeper who cleans guest rooms, often given a set number of credits or rooms per shift.
- Room hire
- The fee charged for exclusive use of a function space, sometimes waived against a minimum spend.
- Room status
- The live state of each room, such as vacant clean, vacant dirty, occupied or inspected, shared between front desk and housekeeping.
- Room type
- A category of room such as standard double, superior, junior suite. Rates and inventory are managed by type.
- Rota
- Staff schedule.
- Rota drop
- When next week's rota is published; often a moment of tension.
- Rota software
- Scheduling software for creating rotas, handling shift swaps and tracking hours.
- Rough chop
- Cutting into irregular pieces of roughly even size where appearance does not matter, such as stock vegetables.
- Round
- Drinks bought by one person for a group.
- Roux
- Equal weights of fat and flour cooked together to thicken sauces. White, blond and brown roux are cooked for progressively longer and give deeper flavour but less thickening power.
- Run sheet
- A minute-by-minute schedule of an event, shared with every department and supplier.
- Runner
- Staff member who takes food from the pass to tables.
- Runner please
- A call for someone to take dishes from the pass to the table.
- Rush
- The busiest part of service, when tickets arrive fastest.
- Russian service
- Food carved or plated at a sideboard and offered to each guest from platters by the server. Often used loosely for silver service.
Hospodality