Restaurant Name: Avolios Italian Restaurant
Owner: Darlene
Location: West Covina
Number of Seats: Two dining rooms, one seats 60 and one seats 30, 90 seats total
Busiest Shift: Friday, Saturday (Dinner) & Sunday (Lunch & Dinner)
Busy Shift Staff Breakdown: BOH - 1 chef, 1 line cook, 2 pizza cooks, 1 expediter/manager, 1 delivery driver, 1 dishwasher, FOH - 3 servers, 1-2 hosts
Avolio’s Italian Restaurant is a family-owned, casual Italian restaurant known for authentic, scratch-made dishes rooted in the traditions of Abruzzo, Italy. The restaurant was founded 46 years ago by Darlene Avolio’s parents, who built it into a neighborhood staple serving generous portions, homemade sauces, fresh pasta, and hearty pizzas that are meals unto themselves. What began as a small family operation grew into a beloved local institution, welcoming generations of families through its doors. When Darlene’s father retired, she stepped in to continue the legacy, determined to honor her parents’ recipes, standards, and reputation.
Today, Darlene is the sole owner and operator, running Avolio’s almost entirely on her own. A single mother, she wears every hat imaginable from owner, manager, cook, trainer, marketer, bookkeeper, and problem solver. She’s often stepping behind the line or onto pizzas when cooks call out sick. The pressure to succeed is immense, not just for herself, but for her family and future. Darlen’s sister is a server at the restaurant and her daughter Bella also works as a server. Darlene dreams of one day passing the restaurant on to her young son (he’s only 11), who already talks about culinary school and taking over the business. To her, Avolio’s isn’t just a restaurant, it’s her parents’ legacy, her livelihood, and a piece of the community’s history that she feels personally responsible for protecting.
Despite its long history and loyal customer base, Avolio’s is struggling. In the kitchen, lack of consistency, motivation, and adherence to standards threatens the quality of the food. In the front of the house, downtime, lack of accountability, and weak supervision create inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Darlene knows the restaurant runs best when she’s there, but being everywhere at once is unsustainable, especially while raising three children on her own. The restaurant only runs at full potential when Darlene is physically present, forcing her to jump between owner, manager, expeditor, line cook and full time mother just to keep standards intact.
If Avolio’s doesn’t get help soon, the consequences could be devastating. Without changes that improve consistency, accountability, and profitability, the restaurant risks slowly bleeding out, priced too high to survive, stretched too thin to grow, and dependent on one exhausted owner to keep the doors open. For Darlene, failure wouldn’t just mean losing a business; it would mean the end of a 46-year family legacy and the loss of something she hoped would one day belong to her children.
Issues:
Blurred leadership lines: Vanessa is acting more like a friend than a manager, which makes it hard for her to discipline, correct, or hold staff accountable without tension or pushback. Darlene hired Vanessa so that she didn’t have to be at the restaurant all the time, but if Vanessa isn’t managing properly, why did Darlene hire her?
Messy salad station: Servers prepare their own salads but leave the station dirty and disorganized, with dressings splattered and ingredients everywhere, creating chaos, wasted food, and a messy area.
Front vs. back of house tension: There is a real communication breakdown between servers and cooks which leads to frustration, finger-pointing, and resentment when food takes too long or something isn’t plated properly.
Staff disengagement/apathy: Servers and hosts regularly sit on their phones, avoid eye contact with guests, and treat slow shifts like break time instead of work time, especially when Darlene isn’t there.
Inconsistent food execution: When Darlene isn’t in the kitchen, cooks skip steps, cut corners, and plates go out differently depending.
Lack of accountability: Rules exist, but they aren’t consistently enforced, so staff feel free to ignore procedures, side work, and basic expectations when supervision is light.
Kitchen complacency: One hardworking cook carries the load while another shows up for a paycheck, lacking pride, urgency, or care in the food being served.
Training breakdowns: Knowledge isn’t being passed down properly, making it difficult to bring new cooks up to speed or ensure everyone follows the same methods.Quality control failures: Guests have noticed the inconsistency, openly preferring certain cooks and commenting when dishes aren’t as good as they’ve been before.
Health and safety risks: Staff will ignore required health department procedures, putting the restaurant, and Darlene, at risk for fines, violations, or worse.
Front-of-house apathy: Hosts abandon the front door, servers disappear during slow periods, and guests are left waiting or wondering where their server went.