Name a major restaurant brand and chances are that it has relaunched its loyalty program over the past year. As competition has increased along with consumers’ need for value, more brands have reinvented their loyalty programs to meet the moment. If your program hasn’t had a refresh in a while, make sure it’s not only driving return visits but also allows guests to earn rewards in ways that work long-term for both your business and your guests. For instance, Sweetgreen Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Shlossman said in an interview with PYMNTS that points-based systems, for example, can lead to situations where guests become rich in rewards and ready to redeem them, while the restaurant has to respond to the high demand by degrading the value of the rewards. For that reason, Shlossman said, Sweetgreen decided to offer a gamified approach that rewards guests in exchange for certain kinds of purchases – and enables to brand to provide different offers to different kinds of guests. If you have a loyalty program, have you tested it to better understand how guests will be able to redeem rewards months down the line? Do you have the flexibility to recalibrate your program to manage the demand? Are you offering the kinds of rewards that provide a little incentive for different subsets of your most loyal guests?

In 2023, the growth of the restaurant industry outpaced population growth by approximately three to one. It’s no wonder that it’s so challenging to keep a foodservice business going – nevermind growing. But if growth is your goal this year, it’s a good time to dig into the diagnostic tools that can help you more readily see what your business is doing right, how it compares to the rest of the market, to what degree your competitors are chipping into your customer base, and what actions make sense for you to take to seize the growth opportunities that become available this year. Even if you have a talented team and tech tools that give you real-time insight into what your business needs internally, you also need to collect market intelligence to strengthen your outward view. It’s important to helping you assess (rather than intuit) where there are pockets of potential in the market, how well your stores are likely to perform within it, and what your business offers in comparison to what’s nearby. The investment in this research can pay off by giving you a better sense of when to sell a location, whether to acquire a complementary restaurant, or where to look for real estate so you can move more quickly and confidently when opening a new location. Or perhaps it can reaffirm that you should focus on growing in place. Maybe your best approach to making your business distinct from the competition is about offering some new promotions, rotating menus, or elevated dining experiences that offer higher perceived value.

​After a few years in which so many restaurants were operating in survival mode, the start of 2024 feels like a time of greater optimism for restaurants. Technomic expects U.S. restaurants to experience more steady business growth this year after several years of challenging surprises. That, paired with some possible quieter shifts over the coming weeks, makes now an ideal time to put plans in place to drive your success this year. Slower periods are great times to get organized, test out new ideas and train staff. Use quieter shifts to clear out inventory, declutter storage areas or launch new technology. Assess your business over the past year: Where have you fallen short on food safety? Are there bottlenecks in your guest journey that you can smooth out? Areas where you can operate more leanly? Maintenance tasks that have been overlooked or delayed? Addressing those issues now can help you avoid crises later. This practice can also help you determine where you might be leaving money on the table so you can plan (and possibly automate) inventory management and marketing efforts, strengthen your various revenue streams, and potentially target new ones. Now is a good time for experimentation: Maybe you have a new menu, limited-time offer or service model to try on guests – a soft launch can help you collect feedback with less pressure. Focus more time on education, whether that’s training staff on new technology or providing a talented employee with some kind of career-development opportunity. Refresh your brand and your culture. Does your dining room décor or website interface feel stale and need an overhaul? Are there steps you could take to boost engagement and morale on your team? Take time to communicate, collect feedback, implement changes and monitor progress. Getting your business off to a strong start can help you better sustain the inevitable challenges that crop up later in the year.

Over the past few years, the expense and challenges of the operating environment have made it necessary for restaurant operators to think more creatively about their business models. For many operators, running a dining room with takeout capabilities is no longer enough to get by – or certainly to grow. As a result, restaurants have been conceiving of new ways to extend their brand well beyond their walls. Restaurants have been reimagined into businesses that are far more multidimensional than they once were – and this is an exciting thing for the industry, even as the outlook for 2024 appears to be more optimistic than it has been in recent years. Beyond the dining room, some operators have been creating retail operations that offer select foods from the restaurant that guests can prepare for special gatherings at home. Some have been diving into education, offering guests an opportunity to learn about regional wines, make handmade pasta or bake pastries. Others are operating wholesale foodservice businesses that ship food to other restaurants around the country, helping them draw revenue during times when their own restaurant is experiencing slower periods. These developments are allowing operators to think beyond the daypart when considering sources of revenue: They are crafting recurring revenue streams through subscription services, for example, and offering classes and events that tap into consumers’ year-round desire to improve their lives by learning new skills. In so doing, these restaurants are weaving themselves into their guests’ lives in different ways. It’s a good way to build loyalty, operate leanly, and offer new kinds of development opportunities to the people you want to hire and retain.