Start a Restaurant

Shopping for restaurant furniture doesn’t have to be difficult, annoying or tedious, unless of course you want it to be! If you want excuses for not upgrading, remodeling, or opening your own business, you won’t want to shop online to find everything you could ever need.

Whether people are willing to admit it or not, the World Wide Web has made the world a much smaller place, especially when it comes to shopping. The once dreaded tasks of flipping through catalogs, making countless phone calls and driving across town (and even across the state) in search of a specific item has been conveniently replaced with a click of the mouse, a computer screen and an Internet connection. Not only does this save time and fuel, it saves you and your business money!

There are, however, a few things you will want to consider before you purchase anything, including restaurant furniture, online. First and foremost, you’ll want a secure site that enables you to put in your payment information (credit card numbers, etc.) without the worry of unauthorized individuals being able to access this personal information. The easiest way to check for site security is to look for the secure logo, like Verisign or Geotrust. Your personal payment information is safe with them!

The second item on our list is variety. You’ll want to have choices to make your establishment truly your own, reflecting you, your personality and your ideas along the way. Retro, contemporary, art deco, or classic- you’ll want to pick your style and work from there, always being open to new ideas and possible adjustments, prioritizing as you go in order to accommodate your primary needs. The ideal furniture provider will have an optimum selection to allow you to create your establishment’s environment the way you want it to be. (more…)

A restaurant’s equipment is one of its important investments. That is why you have to take care of them and observe proper maintenance and checkups. There are lots of measures that you can do in order to preserve their value and maintain its good condition. Here are some preventive maintenance tips that you can follow to ensure that your restaurant equipment will last far longer.

Commercial ovens are one of the most common equipment that your restaurant should have. These can be deck ovens, countertop ovens, conveyor ovens, convection ovens, char-broilers, and barbecue roaster ovens. These ovens should be maintained by wiping out spills from the oven cavity daily. Failure to do this can form rust and corrosion to the oven cavity as well as increase the possibility of fire hazards.

Walk-in coolers and freezers are restaurant equipment used to provide longevity to your food and maintain their freshness. To ensure utmost efficiency, you have to keep the doors closed when they are not in use. If the doors are left open for a long period, there will be ice build-ups on the evaporator coils and these can cause various cooling problems. (more…)

There are several types of software that can help your restaurant run more efficiently. Here is an overview:

POS Software

POS stands for Point Of Sale. Point Of Sale software is basically a program that combines many aspect of restaurant management including order taking, order entry, billing, staff supervision and account organization tasks into one program.

Most restaurants will need a Point Of Sale station at several points in the restaurant including the front of the restaurant, the back office area and the kitchen.

POS software can handle complete order and customer management including tracking the number of orders and customers, table information, billing transactions and more.

POS software can also provides excellent organizational abilities to help monitor and report every aspect of order taking and customer interaction and do proper timekeeping, inventory tracking, stock management, security tasks and much more.

Restaurant Inventory Software

Restaurant inventory software is much more of a database style of program that helps to keep track of your food stocks, can alert you to foods that are required or will be required soon and can even assist in replenishing the needed stocks by recommending the correct amounts according to the database history and its forecasts for future usage. Inventory software will also help save money by reducing the spoilage of food by telling you to order only the amounts you should need.

Costing Software

Costing software can be very important to a restaurant. Costing software can help you track and maintain your food inventory, like restaurant inventory software, but it has the added benefit of calculating the costs of your menu items through its analysis tools. This helps the restaurant owner to properly price their food in order to make maximum profits and also provide value to the customer. Costing software can also be invaluable for catering companies, so they can properly price their events. (more…)

No matter how good you and your staff are in your restaurant kitchen and on the floor, but do you really know the significance of restaurant kitchen supply? Your staff’s customer service and your administrative skills may be impeccable, but what happens if your equipment suddenly stops working? You’ll be unable to do your tasks.

Gas ranges, gas or electrical ovens, fryers with thermostats, wood or gas grills, and smallwares like soup cups, tongs and shakers are the basics you’ll need. But if you want something better for your business you’ll need superior equipment. This article will show you the steps you can take to your goals.

Seek Out the Best Supplier

Before purchasing restaurant kitchen supply, search for the correct supplier. The supplier you choose to work with should be able to offer you with services to fix broken equipment, cost estimates, and more than just basic kitchen necessities. Your supplier should also be able to offer you with recommendations on additional equipment for your kind of restaurant, how to sustain your kitchen and how to reduce costs during operations.

Always attempt to get the best deals when discussing with a supplier. For instance you can inquire about discount packages or free additional equipment. Furthermore, ask your supplier to write you a guarantee whenever getting recycled restaurant kitchen supply. Also, confirm the warranty you’re going to obtain from buying the latest equipment. (more…)

Restaurant chairs come in so many shapes, sizes and materials that it can seem impossible, at first glance, to choose the ones that will suit your business. Cloth, vinyl, leather or metal? Rolling chairs or not? Maybe you’ll have booths in your restaurant. How expensive is this going to get?

Before you go into Chair Overload, stop for a second and ask yourself a few questions. First off, what type of restaurant do you have? A diner is going to look for completely different chairs than a five-star waterfront restaurant.

What’s your average meal price point? There are lots of steakhouses out there, but they range from casual to fancy, with price points from moderate to sky-high. Same with seafood restaurants. If you know the average price point for your most popular menu items, that can help determine the kind of decor that customer might expect. You can use that as a beginning point for your restaurant chair search.

Who is your target customer? These are the primary people you want to make happy, so knowing their likes and dislikes can point you in the right direction. For instance, if the target customer for your sushi bar is a young, urban professional earning around $40,000, you’ll probably look for something with sleek, contemporary styling.

But if the target customer for your waterfront Michelin-rated French restaurant is a successful professional over age 50 earning upwards of $100,000, you’ll probably look for something larger, softer, and more substantial. With a high price point, you’ll want to encourage people to linger in your restaurant, and therefore comfortable restaurant chairs will be part of your overall marketing plan.

For the above scenario, you’re more likely to choose lounge-style seating in the waiting areas. This would include large, wide chairs, perhaps overstuffed, and maybe even an ottoman or two. At the table itself you would probably want an upholstered chair of good-quality wood with an understated, classic fabric. Chairs of this quality, however, can run into the hundreds of dollars. Each. (more…)

The type of restaurant equipment you will need for your restaurant depends on the type of service you provide. For example, if you are a full-scale restaurant you will need many more equipment items that a small mom and pop store will need. If you are a fast food restaurant, you will need different items than a restaurant along the lines of Ruby Tuesday’s.

There are so many different types of restaurant equipment available throughout the world that it will be in possible for me to write about them all. Therefore, I have chosen a few fascinating pieces of equipment to help you in your search and maybe make your job or that of your employees job a little easier along the way.

You should give serious consideration to investing in a reliable food processor. They save time and labor. The way in which your food is processed, how you chop, slice, mix, grate and blend will greatly affect the amount of time it takes to provide the ending result to your customer. By investing in a quality food processor you are investing in a piece of restaurant equipment that will provide safety, better time management and essentially better results.

The refrigerator is the most critical piece of restaurant equipment you can ever buy. Keeping cold foods cold is essential to food quality and the extreme importance of food safety. Invest in a refrigerator that will show you the temperature accurately on the outside of the equipment. Find a refrigerator that is tough and built to last, with proper usage. (more…)

There’s a trend happening in the world today that has spawned everything from reality television shows to lengthy books – the art of redecorating. Suddenly an old couch needs a new cover; walls need painting; and floors need stripping. And along with this sudden influx of style comes the inevitable attention turning to kitchenware. Because in the way of updating your kitchen – giving it a fresh, hip look – without breaking the bank, it’s easier and more cost affordable to replace the dishes rather than the cabinets!

Retro style has become something of a trend as of late. And there’s no better way to infuse some retro style into your kitchen than with the addition of restaurant glassware. The cost benefits are obvious; restaurant glassware is mass-produced, extremely affordable, and easily available at restaurant supply wholesalers.

But in addition to these benefits, restaurant glassware can provide a whole new look for your kitchen and home. Its simple lines and unadorned designs give restaurant glassware a retro chic. And its neutrality allows for it to fit in with any style of kitchen and table design. Creating a look for a holiday meal or dinner party can be done without having to change your glassware, as restaurant glassware is neutral enough to adopt any color or look of your dressed table.

Try using different cloth napkins to transform simple restaurant glassware into a custom table design. Folding napkins inside the glassware can be colorful and decorative. Tie ribbon around glassware for a holiday look or raffia for a garden party. The ideas are endless. (more…)

It’s the weekend and you have plans for an elaborate dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city. However, due to your busy schedule, you fail to reserve a table. And then when you walk in, its jam packed. Anyways, the hostess writes down your name and asks you to wait till your name is called out. You are waiting and walking around the restaurant when suddenly, your name is hollered over a megaphone.

You rush to the hostess but your name is hollered again and again till you reach the spot. You get the table alright, but you wonder whatever happened to good old privacy and discreetness. On the other hand, if the restaurant had a paging system in place, it would have been far easier and comfortable for both parties.

A Restaurant paging system is a simple to use device which utilizes the paging technology. As a guest walks into a restaurant and finds the tables occupied, he is handed over a pager and is asked to wait. Then as a table becomes vacant, the pager buzzes or blinks or even shows a customized text message and informs the guest about it. This brings about a certain level of organization and enhances the customer satisfaction levels.

You might think that a Restaurant paging might be extremely expensive. But that’s where you are wrong. A normal restaurant paging system comprising of 12 pagers, a transmitter and a central unit, usually costs around $500. There are cheaper and more expensive systems also available for purchase. (more…)

Starting a restaurant business is not an easy process. There are lots of things that have to be considered in order to make your restaurant business a success such as the location, target market, type of ownership, and of course your budget. From these four, it is the budget that will determine how much you are willing to spend during start-up. If you think that your budget is just enough, then you have to look for affordable deals that will help you save just like purchasing wholesale restaurant equipment.

Advantages of buying wholesale restaurant equipment

Buying wholesale restaurant equipment allows owners to find considerable savings. Compared to retail suppliers, most wholesale suppliers sell equipment at low prices because they usually have a large inventory and have the power to make bulk purchases. This allows them to offer bigger discounts to their customers who also make purchases in bigger volumes.

Aside from that, wholesale restaurant equipment that is placed on clearance can give you further savings. Clearance restaurant equipment is offered at discounted prices so you can really save a great deal. The turnover rate of this equipment could have been low. That is why this is offered at a lower price in order to liquidate the item immediately. (more…)

A PDA — personal digital assistant — is a system that makes it possible to increase to overall productivity of an organization. A restaurant is only one place where the tool could be used. The introduction of a PDA in a restaurant will impact the organization in various ways.

There are many functions and many different PDA’s, a restaurant requires one that uses:

• A simple product or service catalog
• An order unit that is able to accept the order of a client
• A communicating function that delivers the order to the kitchen
• Billing information that summarizes the order details and send these to the cashier

The PDA will have to communicate with other systems. In the first place with the kitchen, but also with the bar. Both this communication can only be done through an interface. If both organization work also with systems these interface will integrate both the PDA with the other system, otherwise the interface will have to be a simple user-interface; like a printer that is able to print the order from the client. The ticket will be used as a work order and after the kitchen order is finished for this client the agent (the waiter) will be signaled. Also in this case the interface can be as simple a Ok-sign marked with a pen on the printed order. In the same way the bar will sign-off drinks that has been “delivered” at the bar and distributed by the waiters. A simple paper interface will be sufficient here.

Information in the system will change from order to transaction once the orders have been delivered. Once the clients have finished their consumption the transactions from their table and served by the waiter will be summarized and sent to the cashier. This is where the last client-function is processed. (more…)