​Scheduling that takes the sting out of slow days

If your foodservice operation is like most others, it has its fast-paced, all-hands-on-deck days and its slower-traffic days. Your busiest times are an opportunity for you to make up for (and more easily weather) the shortfall that can happen on the slow days. But that’s only if you forecast your sales and staff efficiently. To make sure you’re on track to maximize the opportunity of your high-traffic days, restaurant consultant David Scott Peters advises you to rank your days from busiest to slowest. Analyze your sales history for each of those days and then make staffing and ordering decisions for the following week based on those numbers. Going with your gut — say, assuming Friday and Saturday are your busiest nights when you actually bring in more sales during the Thursday happy hour — can result in under-ordering ingredients, increasing ticket times and delivering poorer service (whether you’re a full-service or quick-service operation) because you have miscalculated your inventory and staffing needs. During your busiest days, your operation should be at peak efficiency, with lower labor costs and well-managed food costs that your sales figures can best help you predict. Is that true for your business? Operating at peak efficiency on those days has the added benefit of giving you some freedom to experiment on other days — with new menu items, promotions or events that can help your business grow.