Start a Restaurant

Whether you run a restaurant, espresso cafe, hotel, or inn, having a website is becoming an essential part of doing business in the 21st century. Think of a web page as a virtual storefront – another way for your potential customers to discover and interact with your business.

Where to get it

Probably your best bet is to hire a freelancer online. Freelancer’s websites such as RentACoder.com, Elance.com, and iFreeLance.com work like a community job board: post your job (“looking for a web designer to build a web site for our restaurant”), watch the bids roll in, pick somebody whose price is right and whom seems equal to the task, put the money up with the site, and collect your work. The average going rate for a custom site is anywhere form $200 to $1000 dollars.

If you decide to do the design yourself, most web hosting providers include some website building tools to get you started. You don’t need to be a ‘geek’ to get started with building a web page, as today’s tools are usually “what you see is what you get”. If you can use office software, you can build web pages. Many hosts also provide easy-to-use templates, which are like “skeleton pages” that you just drop in and fill with your content.

The only downside of doing it yourself is that good web design is a matter of artistic talent, not technical skill. It’s up to you to decide if you can bring this job home. Visit the websites of other businesses in your industry and compare – can you make it look that good? You can also just put up the basic framework of your site, then hire freelancers for smaller jobs like adding graphics artwork. A common strategy is also to toss out the basic site content without decoration, then hire a designer to go over it and spruce it up. (more…)

Everybody knows that rendering an outstanding or good customer service is the best way to establish and maintain a business or company in good standing. Your restaurant could have a very friendly ambiance, it could also be unique in some aspect but if your staff and then some other things are the main reason as to how possibly you fail this most important part of handling a business, then it’s just time for you to check back on what went wrong.

A restaurant establishment, especially a new one that is trying to make a statement to the people and its target market always has the tendency to implement far-fetched ideas during the first few stages of restaurant operation. This includes idealistic approach in handling customer matters and at the same time, rendering service in the quickest way possible. But being too idealistic blinds us from seeing what can really happen in the real world; when everything starts to roll in.

This is also a crucial time for both employees and the restaurant employer since first impressions usually last and with the help of word of mouth, one good thing gone bad can spread like wild fire. Before you begin on anything and to take on drastic ideas that are just not comforting for your restaurant operations, be sure that you know the consequences that are going to happen. Cite out all angles and opportunities of failure no matter how comforting you think it is going to be for your investment. (more…)

If your restaurant will be serving wine, you must take care to serve it properly. Wine served properly can enhance and optimize the taste and bouquet, while serving it improperly will cause your wine to taste differently, even badly.

Temperature

Most wines have a proper serving temperature for optimal taste. Light colored wines, including white wines, rosés and most sparkling wines will taste their best if served chilled at about 45 to 50 degrees. This temperature can be obtained by refrigerating the wine for about 1 – 2 hours before serving. Red wines are usually best served at a slightly cool room temperature, typically 60 to 65 degrees. Remember that on a hot day, all wines should be served slightly cooler than usual.

Chilling Wine

Your restaurant should have a proper ice bucket which allows you to fill it about 3/4 full of ice with some water. Place the wine in the bucket for 30 minutes before serving. Having the wine properly chilled will let your customers taste the wine at its best.

Glassware

The shape of the glass that wine is served in has an effect on the taste and bouquet of any wines you serve. Your restaurant should have the proper glassware for serving wines, this includes champagne glasses, flutes, rhines, port glasses, sherry glasses and all purpose wine glasses. White wine should be served in tulip shaped glasses. Red wine should be served in larger, rounded glasses with a nice size bowl. Sparkling wine and champagne should be served in tall and thin flute glasses. (more…)