When the economy is struggling or feels uncertain, marketing budgets can take a hit as business owners tighten their belts. Still, it continues to be important to get the word out about your restaurant – even if you don’t have the budget you’d like at the moment. It may help to look at your existing streams of income and focus on building up those that are inherently helpful in marketing your restaurant. Catering is one likely possibility. It can be a valuable tool for growing brand awareness – all while allowing a restaurant to maximize efficiencies when it comes to inventory and staffing. Rob McColgan, CEO of Modern Restaurant Concepts, said in a recent interview with Modern Restaurant Management that he sees catering as an essential marketing component that helps drive the overall success of his restaurant’s brands. It can open doors for a restaurant trying to gain traction in new markets, as well as allow a business to access new pockets of guests at scale. Even though business catering may not be back to pre-pandemic levels, this simply means there are other potential opportunities restaurants can now tap into for group business. Consider the social gatherings happening in your community – book clubs, community service meetings and school-related gatherings, to name a few. These outlets can serve as free marketing opportunities that organically drive interest and help spread the word about your business. A single restaurant can produce approximately 25,000-75,000 pounds of food waste each year – or for perspective, nearly the maximum weight capacity of a semi truck. That waste eats into your profits – and while restaurants have been adopting more tools to minimize waste, as well as forging more partnerships to find uses for excess food, most restaurants still have room to improve their waste monitoring and management. That’s particularly true as restaurants stretch to operate with smaller staffs at the moment. Tracking waste can easily slip in the midst of a busy Friday night dinner shift. But consider it one of the key steps you take to get a handle on your costs in 2023 – and even small steps can help you make progress. Tony Smith, cofounder and CEO of Restaurant365, advises restaurants use a food waste log to quickly record food waste when it happens – the who, what, how and why – and then analyzing it later. It can be a digital document or even just a spreadsheet hanging in the kitchen. The log can provide a starting point you can use to track patterns in waste that then dictate changes you need to make to operational tasks as varied as planning your menu, determining serving sizes (and if you need to adjust sizes or upcycle an item in an effort to upsell it) training your team, or adjusting food orders. From there, comparing your theoretical and actual food costs on a regular basis and focusing first on the areas where they are farthest apart can help you minimize your biggest pain points when it comes to food waste. We’re living in an age of customization and personalization. Consumers want experiences that are in line with their preferences – or to at least feel heard by those providing them. You likely aim to provide that kind of experience for your guests, but what about for your staff? The culture you cultivate for your team will be reflected in the experience, good or bad, that they extend to your guests. So approach your staff as if they are an additional segment of your customer base. Are you giving them opportunities to feel heard – and in a variety of ways? According to CREATE’s recent Future of Foodservice Report, Florida-based Smokey Bones has conducted a weekly virtual town hall meeting with its managers throughout the company since early on in the pandemic. The sessions provide opportunities to share business and functional updates, as well as to field questions from managers – and difficult questions are welcome. Other ways to enhance two-way communication: Have staff answer a quick pulse-survey question at the start of each shift – and then share any corrective actions you’re taking in response to their feedback. Give them opportunities to make suggestions about what they would like to see – there may be an easy change you can make that you hadn’t previously considered. Make it a priority to hire from within and make sure your existing staff are told about new opportunities for advancement. While employee turnover is known to be high in the industry, you can make it less of a problem for your business if you prioritize improving communication and engagement with your team – much like you’d do with guests you’re hoping will return frequently. The pressure on restaurants to minimize waste and maximize resources goes well beyond food. Restaurants use substantial amounts of energy, particularly in months with extreme weather. If you’re heating outdoor spaces this winter to accommodate more guests, your energy budget will be straining that much more. So, much like you would do with the SKUs you order and the menu items you prepare, measure and monitor your energy activity. Conduct regular energy audits with your utility company or an independent expert who can advise ways your business conserve energy and monitor usage. Schedule preventive maintenance – taking care of your relationship with your service provider can help ensure you’re taken care of when you need help more urgently. For any equipment that is likely going to need replacement parts in the coming months, have backup parts on hand to minimize any downtime that would otherwise result. If, like many other businesses within the hospitality sector and beyond it, you have set sustainability goals for your restaurant, your approach to energy conservation can support those goals. They can also be a compelling part of the story you share with guests who are monitoring their own energy usage more closely these days, as well as looking to support businesses that do the same. Dining pods, igloos and other creative outdoor seating options continue to be a needed source of revenue for restaurants. In an industry of narrow margins, the benefits of these spaces can’t be unseen – operators would be foolish to let go of the opportunities they now know these spaces provide to boost profitability, advertise menu items to people passing by, and cater to guests who simply don’t feel comfortable eating in a crowded dining room anymore. (In fact, data that Yelp released earlier in the year indicated that the total number of restaurants listing outdoor dining on their website was more than 26,000 – up from less than 8,000 in February of 2020.) However, the novelty of these spaces has had time to wear off and not everyone wants them where they live. As a result, it has become more common for restaurant operators to face criticism from neighbors for everything from noise pollution to increased rodent activity due to the use of outdoor dining areas. But there are ways to keep the peace if you’re struggling. A recent opinion piece on Restaurant Dive suggested that outdoor eateries could be built without speakers – or that restaurants be required to turn down the music at a certain hour in the evening. Cities might offer restaurant operators a standard kit of materials designed to keep them clean and safe for guests, neighbors and others. People who live adjacent to the restaurant could be offered a special discount or other perk when they visit to help secure their buy-in. The holiday period can be a good time to extend some of this goodwill to help smooth out relations and generate some winter business in the months ahead. Set holiday expectations High inflation and a shortage of staff could mean the holiday season will be looking a little different this year at many restaurants around the country. According to research from Alignable, 48 percent of operators aren’t hiring seasonal or permanent employees, and another 8 percent are laying off employees because revenues no longer support additional hires. At the same time, consumers have been steering their purchases toward more experiential things – to include travel and restaurant meals, as Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach shared on a quarterly earnings call in late October. When consumers spend right now, they’re looking for something special – and that sentiment only ramps up around the holidays – but that can be difficult for restaurants to offer consistently with a skeleton crew. To avoid creating a recipe for guest disappointment and staff burnout, now is a good time to steer your holiday guests toward the experiences that you’re best able to manage with a smaller team than normal. That could mean focusing on promoting holiday meal bundles to be eaten at home, closing your dining room to accommodate more special events where you can more easily plan ahead with staff and supplies, and promoting gift cards for VIP experiences you’re offering in the slower winter months. If you’re operating as usual, just make sure you’re serving a menu that’s as easy and fast as possible to execute with a limited crew. |
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