Restaurant glossary (Texas edition)

Short answer

This glossary defines 60 terms used in running a restaurant, from front-of-house and kitchen mechanics like cover, turn, and table session to Texas-specific tax and compliance terms like TABC, mixed beverage gross receipts tax, and the Food & Beverage Certificate. Each entry is a plain-English definition you can act on, not industry jargon repeated back at you.

86'd

A menu item the kitchen has run out of and pulled from what can be ordered for the rest of the shift or day. Marking an item 86'd on the ordering page as soon as it happens keeps a guest from ordering something the kitchen can't make, instead of finding out only after the ticket already printed.

Allergen Disclosure

Information about major allergens present in a dish, kept on the menu beside the item it applies to rather than in a separate handout a guest has to ask for. Disclosures shown at the point of ordering, not buried elsewhere, are what actually let a guest with a real allergy order with confidence.

Back of House (BOH)

Everything that happens behind the pass — the kitchen, prep, dishwashing, and the staff who run it — as distinct from front of house, which is the dining room and guest-facing staff. Scheduling, food cost, and prep recipes are all back-of-house concerns even though a guest never sees them directly.

Certified Food Manager (CFM)

A food-safety certification valid for five years once issued, per the Texas Department of State Health Services. A certificate from an ANSI-CFP-accredited provider carries national reciprocity; one from a DSHS-approved provider carries state reciprocity, and a local health authority must accept either. Some large counties require one on duty during hours.

Comp

An item or an entire ticket given to a guest at no charge, usually to make up for a mistake or to build goodwill with a regular. A comp still has a real food cost behind it even though no money changes hands, which is why tracking comps separately from paid sales matters for an honest food-cost picture.

Contribution Margin

The dollar amount left over from a dish's price after subtracting what its ingredients actually cost — a raw number, not a percentage. A dish with a high food cost percentage can still carry a strong contribution margin if it's priced high enough, which is why menu engineering looks at both figures together rather than either alone.

Cottage Food Production Operation (CFPO)

A Texas category covering certain foods made in a private home kitchen and sold directly to consumers, under an annual gross income threshold DSHS currently sets at $150,000. Meat, poultry, seafood, ice products, low-acid canned goods, and a handful of other categories are excluded outright, and required labeling must disclose the product came from an uninspected home kitchen.

Cover

One guest served during one dining occasion — a party of four dining together is four covers. Covers count people, not orders, which is why a restaurant tracks covers separately from tickets when measuring how many guests actually came through the dining room on a given shift.

Curbside Pickup

A pickup order the guest never has to leave their car for — staff bring the order out to the vehicle instead of the guest coming inside to collect it. It runs through the same online order and pickup flow as standard pickup; the difference is entirely in how the handoff happens at the end.

Delivery Zone

The set of ZIP codes, or a defined radius, a restaurant is willing to accept delivery orders for. An address outside the zone is turned down at checkout with an explanation instead of being accepted and then discovered undeliverable later, which is what keeps a driver from being sent somewhere the restaurant can't actually reach reliably.

Dine-In

An order placed and served at a table on the restaurant's own premises, as opposed to pickup or delivery. A dine-in order sent from the table through the same ordering system a pickup or delivery order uses still lands on one ticket, read by the same kitchen.

DSHS (Texas Department of State Health Services)

The state agency with regulatory jurisdiction over retail food establishments and the Texas Food Establishment Rules, but only in areas of Texas without their own city ordinance or county order covering food regulation. Most Texas cities and counties instead regulate locally through their own health department, not directly through DSHS.

Expo

The position, and the physical station, where finished plates are checked for accuracy and completeness before leaving the kitchen for the floor. A busy expo is often the clearest sign of how well the kitchen and front of house are actually communicating during a rush, since every ticket passes through it on the way out.

Featured Dish

An item a restaurant highlights on its own menu page, above the rest of a category, to draw attention toward something specific — a new dish, a seasonal special, or simply the one the kitchen most wants ordered. Featuring an item is a menu-page setting, not a claim about the dish's actual popularity.

Food & Beverage Certificate (FB)

A required add-on certificate for a Mixed Beverage, Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's, or Retail Dealer's On-Premise permit or license holder in Texas. Under TABC's current published rule, a holder must either qualify as a "restaurant" or keep alcohol sales to 60% or less of total sales, among other requirements — not the older "51% food" framing some sources still repeat.

Food Cost Percentage

The cost of the ingredients in a dish divided by what the dish is sold for, expressed as a percentage. It shows how much of the menu price the ingredients themselves consume before labor, rent, or anything else — and it's only as accurate as the ingredient costs it's calculated from, which is why a stale ingredient price quietly makes the whole number wrong.

Food Handler Certificate

Proof that an employee completed an accredited food handler training course, required for many Texas food service employees within 30 days of starting the job, per DSHS. DSHS's published guidance doesn't state a fixed renewal period for the certificate itself — confirm current renewal timing with DSHS or the local health authority rather than assuming a set number of years.

Front of House (FOH)

The dining room, bar, and guest-facing staff — servers, hosts, bussers — as distinct from back of house, which is the kitchen and prep. Reservations, the table board, and guest-facing service all sit on the front-of-house side of the operation, even when the software running them touches both.

Guest Profile

A record a restaurant keeps on a returning guest — order history, and details like a birthday or anniversary the guest chose to share. A guest profile is not a loyalty or points program; it's information a restaurant can use for a personal touch, like a note on a return visit, without any point-earning mechanic attached.

Health Authority

Whichever body — a city health department, a county health department, or DSHS where neither has its own ordinance — actually has jurisdiction over food-safety regulation and inspection for a given address. Most Texas restaurants answer to a local health authority rather than the state directly; confirm which one applies to your specific address.

Hold

A temporary reservation of a table or time slot, or a temporary payment authorization, that hasn't yet become a confirmed booking or a captured charge. A hold that isn't completed within its window is meant to release automatically, freeing the slot back up rather than sitting on the calendar indefinitely.

Late Hours Certificate (LH)

A TABC certificate that allows a Mixed Beverage, Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's, or Retail Dealer's On-Premise holder to sell and serve alcohol between midnight and 2 a.m. Without it, alcohol service has to stop at the standard cutoff regardless of what the underlying permit or license otherwise allows.

Menu Engineering

The ongoing practice of analyzing every menu item by both its food cost percentage and its contribution margin, then deciding what to feature, reprice, or drop based on what's actually profitable rather than just what's popular. It's a recurring review, not a one-time redesign done once and left alone.

Mixed Beverage Gross Receipts Tax

A 6.7% tax on a TABC permittee's gross receipts from selling, preparing, or serving alcoholic beverages, paid by the business itself rather than charged separately to the customer, per the Texas Comptroller. It applies alongside, not instead of, the separate mixed beverage sales tax the customer does pay.

Mixed Beverage Permit (MB)

A TABC permit authorizing the sale of distilled spirits, wine, and malt beverages for on-premise consumption. It's the permit most full-service restaurant bars operate under, and the one a Food & Beverage Certificate commonly attaches to — the holder must qualify as a "restaurant" or keep alcohol sales to 60% or less of total sales.

Mixed Beverage Sales Tax

A separate 8.25% tax on the sale of a mixed beverage, charged to the customer, per the Texas Comptroller. It sits on top of the mixed beverage gross receipts tax, which the permittee pays out of total alcohol receipts rather than passing to the guest — both can apply to the same drink.

Mobile Food Vendor (MFV)

A food truck or similar mobile food operation. As of July 1, 2026, Texas House Bill 2844 requires mobile food vendors statewide to be licensed by DSHS rather than by each local jurisdiction separately, though local zoning and vending permits can still apply on top of the state license — confirm with the city.

Moderated Review

A guest review of a specific dish they actually ordered that doesn't publish until the restaurant approves it. Moderation means the menu page carries feedback the restaurant has actually seen and chosen to show, rather than anything anyone anonymously felt like posting the moment they typed it.

Option Group

A set of choices attached to a menu item — a heat level, a side, an add-on — that a guest picks from before the item is added to the cart. Option groups are what let one base dish become several actual orderable variations without the menu listing each combination as its own separate item.

Order-Ahead

Placing and paying for an order before arriving, timed for pickup, delivery, or a specific moment during a dine-in visit, rather than ordering only once already present. It runs through the same cart and checkout as any other online order; the difference is purely in the timing relative to the guest showing up.

Par Level

The quantity of a given ingredient a kitchen wants on hand at all times to cover expected usage until the next delivery. Falling below par level is what should trigger a reorder, rather than someone noticing an ingredient is nearly gone in the middle of a busy service.

Party Size

The number of guests in a single reservation or table booking. A restaurant's reservation rules — maximum party size it will seat, and how far in advance it takes bookings — are typically set around party size, since a table of two and a table of twelve are genuinely different operational problems.

Pass

The counter or shelf between the kitchen and the dining room where finished plates sit briefly before being carried to the table, usually where expo happens. "On the pass" means a dish is cooked, checked, and ready to go out — the last internal checkpoint before a plate reaches a guest.

Pay-It-Forward

An order where a guest buys a dessert, a drink, or a treat for another table — one they name, or one the restaurant picks. The recipient's table details and identity are never exposed to the buyer, and the restaurant can require the recipient to accept before it's delivered. It's opt-in per restaurant, off unless turned on.

Pickup

An order the guest places online and then comes to collect in person, without a table or delivery involved. Pickup, delivery, dine-in, and pay-it-forward are the four fulfillment paths a guest chooses between at checkout from a single shared cart, rather than four separate ordering systems.

Plate Cost

The total ingredient cost of a single plated dish, built up from the recipe's ingredients and quantities. Plate cost is the raw number food cost percentage is calculated from — get the plate cost wrong, usually from a stale ingredient price, and the percentage built on top of it is wrong too.

Prep Recipe

A recipe for a component made ahead of service — a sauce, a marinade, a dressing — rather than a finished dish sold directly to a guest. Prep recipes are typically consumed by other recipes, which is why a change to a prep recipe's cost should roll up through every finished dish that uses it.

Prepared Food

Food sold in a condition ready to eat, generally taxed under the same Texas sales and use tax as most other taxable goods rather than under any separate restaurant-specific tax category. Texas has no distinct "restaurant tax" — prepared food follows the same state-plus-local sales tax framework as everything else taxable.

Prime Cost

Food cost plus labor cost combined — the two largest controllable expenses in most restaurants, added together for a fuller picture of what it costs to put a dish, or the whole menu, on the table before rent and other overhead. There's no single target that fits every restaurant; it depends on the concept and the market.

Prix Fixe

A fixed-price menu, typically with limited choices per course, offered as a single price rather than priced item by item. A prix fixe is built and priced like any other menu offering and can be tied to specific dates, events, or reservation slots the same way a seasonal menu would be.

Reorder List

A list generated when ingredient stock drops below its par level, flagging what needs to be ordered before it runs out entirely. A reorder list built from actual par levels catches a shortage before it becomes a mid-service scramble, rather than someone discovering an ingredient is gone while trying to plate an order.

Reservation

A confirmed table booking for a specific party size, date, and time slot — distinct from a hold, which isn't yet finalized. A reservation is what actually shows up on the floor's table board and triggers the restaurant's own advance-notice and party-size rules being checked at the time it was made.

Retail Dealer's On-Premise License (BE)

A TABC license authorizing the sale of malt beverages — beer — for on-premise consumption. It's a narrower alcohol license than a Mixed Beverage Permit, covering beer only, and a Food & Beverage Certificate can attach to it the same way it attaches to a Mixed Beverage Permit or a Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit.

Retail Food Establishment Permit

The base permit required to operate a food establishment in Texas, issued either by a local health authority or, in areas without one, by DSHS directly. DSHS's own fee tiers for its issued permits scale with gross annual volume; a local health authority that issues its own permits sets its own separate fee schedule.

Risk Level

A classification some local health authorities assign a food establishment, generally based on the kind of food handling and preparation it does, which then determines its permit fee tier and inspection frequency. Risk level classifications and their exact fee amounts are set locally, so confirm the specific tiers with your own city or county health department.

Sales and Use Tax

Texas's general tax on most taxable goods and services, including prepared food, at a 6.25% state rate plus up to 2% in local city, county, transit, and special-purpose district tax, for a combined rate capped at 8.25% anywhere in the state. There is no separate restaurant-specific sales tax category.

Service Charge

A mandatory percentage added to a ticket by the restaurant itself, not a voluntary tip left by the guest. How a service charge gets distributed to staff afterward is the restaurant's own policy choice, and it's tracked separately from tips and any tip pool since it isn't discretionary guest money.

Shift

A scheduled block of time a staff member is assigned to work, the basic unit a restaurant's schedule is built from. Tracking actual time entries against scheduled shifts is what a payroll summary is built on, and it's separate from tip pool splits, which are calculated by points or hours rather than by shift alone.

TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission)

The state agency that issues and regulates permits and licenses required to sell alcohol in Texas, including the Mixed Beverage Permit, the Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit, the Retail Dealer's On-Premise License, the Food & Beverage Certificate, and the Late Hours Certificate, along with the rules governing what each one allows.

Table Board

A live view of every table's status and session — seated, waiting, turning, or open — used by the floor to see what's happening in the dining room in real time. A table board built around table sessions, not just an occupied flag, shows how long a party has actually been seated, not just whether the table is free.

Table Session

The tracked period a specific table is occupied by a specific party, from seating through checkout, as distinct from a reservation, which is the booking that led to it. A table session is what the table board actually displays once a party is seated, separate from whatever reservation or walk-in got them there.

Temporary Food Establishment Permit

A short-duration DSHS permit covering food service at a single event or a series of events rather than an ongoing, fixed location. DSHS sets separate fee tiers for a single-event permit versus a multiple-event permit, distinct from the standard annual retail food establishment permit a fixed restaurant location holds.

Texas Food Establishment Rules (TFER)

The food-safety code found at Title 25 of the Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 228, per DSHS. Whether it's enforced by DSHS directly or adopted and enforced by a local health authority, TFER is the underlying rulebook a Texas food establishment is actually inspected against.

Ticket

The order record for a table or a single online order — the items, the prices, and whatever tax and service charge apply to it. A ticket can cover multiple covers at one table, and it's the record expo checks a finished plate against before it leaves the kitchen.

Time Entry

A recorded clock-in and clock-out for a staff member against a specific scheduled shift, the raw data a payroll summary is calculated from. Time entries that don't match scheduled shifts — early, late, or missed — are usually the first thing a manager checks before running payroll for a period.

Tip Credit

An arrangement letting an employer count a portion of an employee's tips toward meeting minimum wage instead of paying the full cash wage directly. Texas adopts the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, per the Texas Workforce Commission; confirm the specific tipped cash wage and maximum tip credit dollar figures directly with the Texas Workforce Commission or the U.S. Department of Labor rather than assuming a number.

Tip Pool

An arrangement where tips from some or all staff are collected and redistributed by a set formula, commonly by points or hours worked, rather than each server keeping only what they personally received. A tip pool is a restaurant policy choice, distinct from a service charge, which is a mandatory amount the restaurant adds rather than a voluntary tip being redistributed.

Turn

One complete cycle of seating a party at a table, serving them, and clearing the table for the next party. Tracking turns per table across a shift is one way a restaurant measures how efficiently the dining room is actually moving, separate from covers or total revenue for the night.

Void

Removing an item, or an entire ticket, after it's been entered, before or after payment — distinct from a comp, which gives an item away rather than removing it from the record. Tracking voids separately from comps and from paid sales is part of keeping an honest picture of what the kitchen actually produced versus what was actually sold.

Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit (BG)

A TABC permit authorizing the sale of wine and malt beverages for both on- and off-premise consumption. It's narrower than a Mixed Beverage Permit, since it doesn't cover distilled spirits, and a Food & Beverage Certificate can attach to it the same way it attaches to a Mixed Beverage Permit or a Retail Dealer's On-Premise License.