For years now, it has felt like restaurant operators have been furiously swimming upstream. First, the pandemic jolted restaurants into a new reality, forcing them to change their business models overnight and adopt new technology to compete. Then, even when the toughest months of the pandemic were behind us, restaurants still had to battle with supply chain problems and high inflation. Tough as these conditions have been, they forced a much-needed fix in the industry. In a recent essay in the New York Times about the current restaurant revolution, San Francisco Chef Anthony Strong said the survival of his business has meant transforming his business model from 2020 into something with more staying power: He shifted from an 80-seat restaurant to a 35-seat dining room with a separate retail shop that sells pasta, sauces and upscale pantry items. So right now, as things finally feel a bit more – dare we say it – normal, how does your restaurant look different? As we approach a new year, it’s a good time to take a step back at the changes you have made this year. Is there a leg to your business that can reliably prop you up when another leg weakens? How can you strengthen each of those pillars? Where have you made important progress this year that can be replicated in other parts of your restaurant – and where is there opportunity to fine-tune your practices so you can last for the long term? The pandemic created some strange conditions for running a restaurant business: Dining rooms became burdens that operators wanted to unload. Then, amid the high consumer demand for delivered food, ghost kitchens looked like the perfect solution, promising low overhead costs and efficient preparation. Now, it’s become clear that ghost kitchens aren’t the stand-alone powerhouses we once thought they could be – and they very much rely on the strength of their parent restaurant brand to succeed. As reported in Restaurant Business recently, the ghost kitchen provider CloudKitchens is struggling to recruit restaurants into its facilities because the market has shifted in the past couple of years and operators aren’t solely relying on delivery to generate business. In fact, they are realizing the benefits of having people in their dining rooms or at least onsite collecting their food. Is there a lesson anywhere here? Economic and environmental conditions have sent restaurants on a wild rollercoaster ride in the past few years. Just like the ingredients in your pantry, your business should have the ability to pivot in different directions based on shifting demand. That could mean harnessing technology to operate more leanly, scaling up areas of the business that can handle additional traffic and slowing down parts that can’t. It could also mean rethinking your real estate and your team so their functions can also pivot with shifting demand. How flexible is your model? Is there room to reinvent it based on different scenarios? |
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April 2024
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