Foodservice Updates

Foodservice Updates is designed to help foodservice operators keep on top of all the industry news and provides tips for keeping business running smooth. We endeavor to provide the latest tips and solutions to keep you in the know.

Could you forgo third-party delivery?

It’s a question more restaurant operators are asking this year, as the cost of third-party delivery has increased beyond consumers’ and operators’ comfort zones. According to the National Restaurant Association’s annual State of the Industry report, an average of 13 percent of restaurants have stopped using third-party delivery services – even though delivery continues to be in demand by consumers. The trend was especially apparent outside of the quick-service category. While only 7 percent of quick-service restaurants severed their ties with third-party delivery companies, 17 percent of fine dining and coffee and snack businesses did so. The research found that instead of forgoing delivery altogether, most restaurants are taking the function in-house. The move can give operators greater control over food quality and safety, speed of delivery, as well as a larger share of profits. But it does require some planning and resource management. If you’re considering it, determine what geographic areas you want to serve and during what hours, how many staff you will need to support the effort, how they must be trained on everything from technology to off-premise food safety, and how you will mitigate your business liability if problems were to arise in the course of a delivery. What technology and tools could support you? Could a delivery management platform help? Test your service over a set period and track what went well and what needs to be improved. Also think about if and how you will promote this offering to guests – and if and how you want to use it to convert more orders to carry-out. In any case, collect data on how your delivery is going – both with regard to delivery times and reactions from customers.

The changing definition of restaurants

In a recent Restaurant Dive report about trends shaping the restaurant industry, Darcy Kurtz, CMO at BentoBox, weighed in about how food inflation is making menus smaller – and driving chefs to be more inventive and flexible with the menus they plan in an effort to operate efficiently. She said she doesn’t expect smaller menus to dampen people’s excitement about dining out, because “the [restaurant] discovery process is becoming more visual. It’s becoming more experience-oriented … that will offset any decline [in interest] because the menu isn’t quite as big as it used to be.” The times seem to be changing the definition of restaurants – and it’s becoming less about the food. Granted, it’s hard for a restaurant with poorly conceived food to survive, but the experience a restaurant offers is increasingly the secret sauce it needs to thrive. And the delivery of that experience is evolving too. As Food Digital reported recently, restaurants are becoming community hubs in new ways – perhaps applying some lessons learned from the pandemic. As they think beyond food, they are increasingly opening themselves up as spaces for events, workshops, community meetings and other gatherings – that also happen to offer food. How might you open your restaurant’s doors and reinvent it as a gathering place in an effort to build your brand and business?