Start a Restaurant

Quite possibly the biggest challenge facing any restaurant is how to increase the numbers of guests in your restaurant. For years owners have been trying new ideas and concepts to attract customers to their restaurants. Daily specials, sponsoring local sports or musical events and advertising in local newspapers or high schools are all tested methods of drawing guests into your restaurant, but they are dated and have a minimal impact if any.

The true secret to increasing the number of guests in your restaurant is, ‘Do it Right’. Whatever you decide as your theme or menu for your restaurant doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you focus on what you do well, and nothing else.

Let’s start with the menu. Are your portions the right size? How many of the plates being brought back to the kitchen are empty? If the plates aren’t empty, what items remain? These are questions an owner or manager should be asking the servers regularly to ascertain which portions are too large and which are too small.

Do you have too many items on your menu? In the hopes of attracting more customers, restaurants have begun to diversify their menus by offering exotic foods and delicacies. The end result is an overloaded menu that provides too many choices for the guest. A typical menu should contain no more than 8-10 appetizers, 10-12 main courses and 4-6 desserts. There are two reasons why this formula works. The first reason is that by limiting the number of items the kitchen has to produce, they become faster and more skilled in the preparation of those dishes. When diners go out for dinner they have a rough idea of what it is they want to eat. By providing a simplified, but well-balanced menu means the guests can spend more time enjoying the ‘dining experience’ and less time selecting the meal. (more…)