Start a Restaurant

Kevin Moll, a national restaurant consultant says, “A restaurant owner’s number one priority should be the marketing and promotion of their business. If your guests don’t know who you are and where you’re located, you’ll never have a chance to show them how great your business is”. According to Moll, the trick is to avoid direct competition, fill your unique niche and let your guests know in no uncertain terms that they’re special by giving them what they want. “Easier said than done, but I’ve found a few methods that have proven themselves highly effective over the years” says Moll. Here are some techniques that restaurant owners and managers can employ to set themselves apart from the competition.

BRAND YOURSELF WITH A GREAT BUSINESS NAME–
The branding of your business is an unwritten guarantee of quality in the eyes of your guest. When making a dining decision, “Guests have expectations that must be fully delivered upon,” says Moll. “Everyone wants to make a good choice when going out to eat, and it makes logical sense to deliver more than what they’re expecting”. Great food and great fun is a combination that usually results in lines out the door. As such, “The goal of every operator should be the clear branding of who you are, what you offer and what makes you unique”. Moll notes that your business name should, to a great degree, reflect who and what you are.

ENSURE A COMPLETE EXPERIENCE THAT’S SERVED WITH PASSION–
Offer your guests things they can’t easily get anywhere else, served by passionate people. ”That’s the whole story,” says Moll. Promoting and serving premium quality and unique products, offering a larger than normal choice of beverages, making sugar free and low carb options available, and staying on top of emerging trends will help set your operation apart from the others. However, your employees are, “Where the rubber meets the road” says Moll. “Hire passionate people that care about what they do, and that have a real desire to please others” is key. “Your people don’t care about mission statements, profit margins or market position” Moll states, adding, “They want a sense of purpose, a clear goal to shoot for every day, and the recognition of accomplishment. When an employer can successfully offer an employee a sense of purpose and meaning, that employer will quickly outpace the market in share, sales and profits as evidenced by the amazing growth of Starbucks”. (more…)

The biggest factor in your restaurant’s success will be how well you control your restaurant’s expenses. This includes food, labor, advertising, equipment, management, rent, operating costs and the rest of your overhead costs. Here are some tips for controlling your costs to increase your profits.

Inventory Control

How well you control your inventory may well be the most important aspect deciding your restaurant’s future. If you allow costs to spiral out of control and make poor decisions as far as choosing what menu items to serve and their ingredients, your restaurant won’t last very long. However, you can maintain stringent control over your inventory and costs with a proper food costing and inventory program. This type of program will allow you to keep track of your inventory, monitor item pricing and specification, verify prices, check invoices against orders, create recipe cards, monitor taste and yield, scale recipes, cost your menu by category, evaluate item popularity and profit margin, calculate actual food and bar costs and compare actual versus projected costs. A good costing software program will allow you to reduce your food costs by 8% or even more.

Leasing

Leasing your restaurant equipment may be a good option for some restaurants. Leasing does not require large down payments and the lease can be extended for long periods of time. Leasing may be advantageous to help control the startup costs of a new restaurant.

Efficiency

The proper management of your restaurant will also be key to your restaurant’s success. You will need to make use of a professional point of sale system, as well as an accounting system. Automation in the ordering process can increase efficiency and reduce confusion for employees. The more efficient your restaurant runs, the better chance at success you’ll have. (more…)

The issue of serving alcohol in your restaurant is one that comes with many pros and cons. It is even common for some family restaurants to offer alcohol with the menu. Some people enjoy a glass of wine, a mixed drink, or a couple of beers before their meal or while they are eating. For those individuals that do so on a regular basis, they may end up avoiding dining at your restaurant because it isn’t an option.

During peak times, many people don’t like having to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a table to open up in a restaurant. They will likely go somewhere else instead of waiting around. However, if you offer alcohol, a high percentage of them will decide to enjoy a drink during that wait period instead of eating at a different location.

Most restaurant owners will tell you that they sell a large amount of alcohol. They will also tell you that they are able to sell it for a substantial profit too. Many restaurant owners have come up with a good solution to slow times with alcohol too. They can offer buckets of beer at 5 pm so an after work crowd shows up. They can also offer great specials on drinks and appetizers during the afternoon so that people will be enticed to drop in.

It can be an added expense for your restaurant to offer alcohol though. You will have to purchase the supplies to make a variety of different drinks. You will also need the machinery to mix them and the glasses to serve them in. This could result in one more supplier to deal with too as you won’t be able to get your alcohol from the same supplier that you get the food ingredients from.

The only way that you are going to get your customers to want to pay for the drinks they order though is to make sure you have the best ingredients available. Don’t try to cut corners by purchasing cheap alcohol. You also need to have bartenders in place that have plenty of experience making various types of drinks that your customers are going to request. (more…)

One of the most interesting things for a Restaurant Reviewer is having a pleasurable experience and then all of a sudden some unexpected thing occurs. After traveling around the United States and Canada for some 5-years I noticed that the service in some of the more respected restaurant chains was quite uneven.

Meaning not only was quality control at one extreme or the other or customer service hot or cold, but that consistency was quite varying from store to store or outlet to outlet. Sometimes the service was fantastic, sometimes ho-hum and on rare occasion horrific. Let me tell you some theories I developed after taking Restaurant News, Franchising Times and C-Store News for years, while also traveling and seeing it all for my self.

The theories of retail dining and the realities of what goes on are light-years from Ray Kroc’s motto’s for his early stores. First, one of the biggest issues is employee under-training, local store management and secret shopper programs as a catch all. Another issue is with employees who do not care or are simply oblivious to what they are doing.

One of my recent experiences to be discussed along the subject of; a Restaurant Reviewers Worst Case Scenario happened at a Chain Mexican Food Chain. The semi-Fast Food place was an hour from closing on a slow week-night. Getting a jump on the store clean-up I assume was the reason. (more…)

Some eatery entrepreneurs enjoy the old fashioned style of cooking and serving customers themselves, while others are experimenting with the latest technological enhancements via restaurant merchant accounts. While it is always enjoyable to dine at a restaurant where the owner or manager employs a personal touch, there are times when a customer appreciates modern conveniences like a server’s use of a pager or paying by credit card that are unavailable at many old-fashioned establishments. If you are an owner or manager who appreciates customers’ needs for fast, up-to-date service, you may want to learn more about a restaurant merchant account.

Restaurant merchant accounts help owners to provide the latest technology to their clientele. We all know of restaurants that don’t accept credit cards, and when we’re in a hurry or low on cash, we avoid such places. But other eateries, from fast food to fine dining, are increasingly choosing to implement credit card payment options, electronic check processing, and even wireless payment processing for merchants on the go who deliver food at home or to businesses and public places for special occasions. A server wearing a pager will be greatly appreciated when someone at your table chokes or a little one spills her beverage. Scenarios like these, as well as a host of others, show why it makes sense to consider an upgrade to a restaurant merchant account.

If you are unsure about the benefits of restaurant merchant accounts, you can readily find information on the Internet at a variety of Websites. Merchant accounts come in many forms and offer a range of advantages depending on your company’s specific needs or your long-term business growth plan. For example, you may want to start with a simple credit card processor on-site at your restaurant. You will get a feel for the degree to which your customers appreciate the new technology by their comments at checkout. If they appreciate the option of using credit, you will know that further upgrades may likewise be valued down the road. But if they complain about your establishment losing its old fashioned appeal, you may want to hold off on additional improvements until the clientele has time to get used to the initial changes. (more…)

What were the last three things you did to increase your restaurant profitability? Unless profit protection is constantly on your mind, you will get hurt. Eroding margins, fickle markets, escalating food prices, rising utility rates, outrageous credit card fees, and a host of other factors eat into your margins daily, thereby reducing your ability to pay the bills, let alone yourself.

I recently consulted with a client that has not paid himself for 17 months. He called me out of sheer desperation saying, “I just can’t go on working for free”. The sorry fact is that there are many restaurateurs working hard for very little income, and I for one think it should stop.

In my profession as a restaurant consultant, people rarely call me when things are going well. The kinds of calls that I receive daily are along the lines of, “Why can’t I make any money” or, “My food cost is through the roof” and this is the most painful one, “I can’t afford to stay open anymore, what can I do?”

Why don’t you invest a few minutes into yourself right now and read over the tips below. In fact, print out a copy and share it with your friends that run an operation as well. Yes, some tips may seem obvious, but are you using every tool at your disposal to solidify and enhance your profits? Your restaurant owes you for risking your neck to get it open, so I’d like to suggest that you start holding it accountable. (more…)