Top 7 Issues in a Restaurant and How to Beat Them
Your restaurant is not just about great food or good service. There are multiple reasons your customers will choose to come into your restaurant and not the restaurant next door.
After many years opening, managing and controlling restaurants here are what I believe to be the top 7 issues facing restaurateurs in their businesses today and how to manage them effectively.
No unique selling point
There are hundreds if not thousands of restaurants in every city the globe over. Even if you have great food and great service, you need to identify why the customers will choose to come to your business instead of another.
First it is important to find a premium location, close to reliable foot traffic and good accessibility. Then find the style of your restaurant that your customers will specifically come to. Identity is key. For example, everybody knows that if you want great buffalo wings and scantily clad waitresses you to go to Hooters. Alternatively, you go to Hard Rock Café for their memorabilia or TGI Fridays for the cocktail list and Jack Daniels Sauce.
Same goes for food styles. If you want to eat snails, cheese and good wine you will go to a French restaurant or the best pizza in your favorite Italian restaurant.
The point is, it is not only about the food; it is about an emotional experience, a way to offer people the ability to travel the world without to having to take a plane. Make your restaurant a destination and now they will remember you as they remember their best holidays.
No experienced or trained staff
For me everything starts the moment the customers open the door, and sometimes before if you have a valet helping you park your car. In my opinion, the hostess or Maître D is very important to welcome your customers but also to organize the floor plan and design the best way seat clients in the appropriate time frames. It is extremely important to remember that the kitchen has a maximum output so working with them to provide the quickest food delivery is paramount.
Customers will rarely come back if the food is great, but you have rubbish service. It is great to have charming and charismatic floor staff but how will they help you to enjoy your experience if they have no idea what they are selling or which wine goes with which meal.
You must invest time and train your staff if you are expecting a perfect service with a good spend per head.
Management
To be sure your staff are ready for each service it is important the owner employ a manager to organize the team and inform them of the service and to stay in contact with the kitchen, the bar, and customer.
On the floor not it is not only the waiters that are working but the hostess, busies, food runners, bar staff, valets, etc. The manager should organize his team for a smooth service on the floor but also to have a good relation with the kitchen where the kitchen manager is operating with his team.
Managers must also be able to make an inventory of the restaurant. What did we sell? What did we break? What do we have to buy? The manager’s role is not only to manage staff but to oversee the restaurant as a whole to ensure optimal operation of the premises. A good manager will enable the owner to work on the business, not in it.
Large menu
At this point, the customers know why they are in the restaurant and what they are expecting. They were warmly welcomed and sat at a table and introduced to a knowledgeable staff member.
People are lost when the menu is too large; they do not know what to choose. They ask a multitude of questions, so the waiter is stuck at the table with them and is not able to give the best service to the other customers because now they are behind. By maintaining a smaller menu the waiter has more time, the food costs are kept more manageable, wastage is reduced, and the menu is flexible enough to change with the rapid changes of ingredient availability.
A menu must be well balanced, not too short, not too long, easy to read and easy to understand because of the descriptions, so the waiter does not have to explain anything but the specials.
This is also true of a drinks list.
Customer service
Customer service now goes much further than a friendly greeting and a wonderful dinner. With the social media platforms available today, the ability to interact with your clients and customers has never been easier.
By using Twitter or Facebook you are able to market your restaurant and engage at a very personal level allowing you to read customer satisfaction and critique to better your business for those that are buying from you: The Customer.
By using a company such as the one we use, www.directmarketingsolutions.com.au they can design a bespoke social media strategy and plan to really get your brand or business into the marketplace and by targeting those people you are one step ahead of the completion.
Financial
Proactive management of the restaurants finances can reduce labor costs, food and beverage costs, theft, even rent, electricity and the fixed costs.
By not actively managing the costs in a restaurant waste and theft can become a real issue in where employees feel entitled to eat what they want. I have personally taken over a restaurant where the head chef was doing his home grocery shopping through the restaurant. Needless to say that by my managing the stock control better this was stopped immediately.
Another action point that can drive bottom line is portion control, which is why restaurant franchises typically succeed due to their strict control of portion sizes. Through meticulous attention to detail, it is possible to shave 1-2-even 3% off the costs whether it is in the kitchen or the bar.
By conducting staff audits, it is possible to identify those who are being overly generous with the portions or on the floor who’s making the most mistakes on the ordering or even clumsiness. These audits are opportunities to engage with staff, train, educate and develop. As I say in my book, training from within is the best way to save on staff costs.
Another way to utilize staff better and drive costs down is cross-training. This allows owners and managers to cut staffing during slow hours while maintaining productivity.
The restaurant owner who does not work won’t get paid
As the owner of a restaurant, if you want to get paid you need to work.
Some owners think by hiring a floor manager and a kitchen manager they can just sit at the bar with friends, eating and drinking and just collect money at the end of the day.
Most of the successful restaurants around the world have a hard working owner who dedicates much time to develop his business. It is not about working in the business but on the business. This is very important.
If you are in the business, you are cluttered with the day to day but you need to be able to expand the business to fill it with people day in day out. Look at Jamie Oliver, one of the most popular Chefs in the world. He is deeply involved in every aspect of his restaurants from a position of authority not from a seat at the end of the bar.
